A group of kids adrift in space for almost 300 years are thawed by the LEXX crew. However, one of them has decided to give Kai instructions to murder everyone on board in a variety of unpleasant ways, and the assassin is happy to oblige.
Terminal only made cursory use of the fact that waking Kai wrongly could turn him into the possessed assassin version once more, and this episode lets us see what he was like. It's not pleasant. Admittedly the kids are the last living members of their families, but none of them deserve to die in such grotesque ways.
What works nicely here is the portrayal of the kids, which is very natural, Michael McManus as the evil Kai who is marvellous, and a guided tour to the LEXX, which even shows the rather unusual toilets. The pacing is good too, with Kai's psychopathic rampage being given the right amount of time to allow us to get to know the soon-to-be-dead kids as well. It's also interesting to see Stan and Xev taking some semblance of a moral stance about their relationship with the kids.
Although it suffers from a slightly convenient ending, Wake the Dead is a disturbing journey into Kai's dark side, and worth a look.
****
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