Stan is enticed back to Earth by Bunny offering to have sex with him under orders from the President, but seeing a porn video starring a lookalike of Lyekka, Stan offers his services as a fluffer on the set of her new movie, little realizing what he has let himself in for. Meanwhile, Prince takes Xev to an encounter with the Earth's reincarnated living Kai, who is a rather unusual actor.
Another Jeffrey Hirschfield epic (although not written solo this time), what we have here is another of the more outlandish LEXX ideas, but it's not quite as good as Xevivor. While having an effective and funny go at the porn industry and the kind of poncy actor that Hirschfield evidently hates, it's not really a laugh extravaganza and seems rather an odd mish-mash of styles in places.
The porn movies are great fun, with the obligatory pizza guy turning up within two minutes with some poorly written dialogue about meat that takes the piss perfectly. The fact that the dreadful actor 'Dirk Dongler' is being played by Jeff Hirschfield is merely the icing on the cake, with fellow writer Lex Gigeroff popping up as the porn director and owner of the studio.
Meanwhile, Michael McManus is clearly loving doing some of Shakespeare's Henry V in the most unlikely way possible, dangling from ceilings, walking on hot coals, throwing things into fans that explode stuff at him and generally demonstrating that the actor's life has to be hard and traumatic. The problem is that at the end of it all you're not entirely sure what the writers are getting at, even though it is pretty funny.
What doesn't work so well is the Xev storyline. Suddenly she's gone all Cluster Lizard and wants to mate, her chosen partner being the one who will get eaten in the final throes of her passion. If she cares so much about Kai, especially the living one, why doesn't she get well away the moment she finds out what she is doing? On top of that, it disappointingly seems that the Vlad plotline isn't over, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel when Stan loses the key (demonstrating how quickly he reaches sexual ecstasy) and it eventually winds up in a Moth Breeder. Should have some potential for upcoming episodes, as the crew are now stuck without control of their ship and with a psycho loose on board...
***
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