LEXX

As the space shuttle approaches the Lexx, it is buzzed by the moth carrying Kai and Xev down to the little blue planet.
"What was that?" the shuttle crew are understandably confused and NASA are pretty sure, when the crew report the incident, that there aren't any insects in space. (The male astronaut happens to be Chris Owens of X-Files fame, so you'd think he'd be used to wierd stuff happening).
"Why don't you go outside and take a look?" a quiet voice suggests from the back of the shuttle. Of course the astronauts aren't so sure that this is such a good idea, especially when the owner of the voice turns out to be our favourite bad guy, Prince. The astronauts protest, but Prince reminds them that this is an ATF mission and he is in charge. Besides, he smiles, what do they think he's going to do - leave them behind?
Reluctantly the astronauts don space suits and go outside to have a look, despite the fact that the moth is already entering the atmosphere and therefore too damn far away to either see or do anything about.
As they float about, however, suddenly the shuttle engines fire up. Oh no! That nasty man is going to leave them in space!
"Why are you doing this Mr Prince?" Chris Owens pleads.
"Because I'm bad" replies Prince, and flies off, sending the astronauts spinning as they bounce off the sides of the shuttle. Looks like now they'll either have to walk, call a cab, or die.
Meanwhile, the UFO that caused all this trouble and death - the moth - has entered the atmosphere and is heading towards the surface. This is unlikely to be an easy landing though, due to the three large fighter planes that suddenly target the moth with their big scary guns. Kai describes them as a welcoming committee. If that's what he thinks I'd hate to be invited to a Brunnen-G party.

And far below on the surface of the planet, a big silver trailer is towed by car along the road, following a signal. Inside, two young geek types are in communication with someone by radio.
"Yes, we're on to them" replies the specky girl with pigtails as the trailer pulls up. They all leap inside and start fiddling with very "technical" equipment, including a bank of lights that are flashing and beeping and beeping and flashing, of the type Captain Kirk would have been proud to own.

The fighters are still on the tail of the moth, and to up the stakes start firing missiles. The only way to avoid them is to...well...avoid them. Xev puts the moth into a dive with the missiles screaming after them, but at the last minute pulls up sharply in a move Tom Cruise would have been proud of, and the missiles shoot harmlessly by. Note to anyone under the age of 20: Tom Cruise played a pilot in the hit film Top Gun. I was not of course referring to his role in Interview with the Vampire. That would have been silly. I mean, how many vampire fighter pilots do you know? Anyway, I digress...

The missiles may have missed them this time, but, due to advanced weapons technology, the little buggers turn around and start tracking the moth! OK, so fancy flying isn't going to lose them. But then Kai has an idea. Contacting 790 by radio, he asks the love-struck mechanoid to find out how the missiles know what's enemy and what's not. 790 discovers that the friendly planes send out a radio signal that the missiles get so they know not to blow them up. Kai asks 790 whether he can play silly-buggers with the signal (well, not in so many words), but 790 would rather the moth blew up, because then Xev would die and he and Kai could continue on a "slut-free voyage". Kai reminds him, however, that if the moth is destroyed, he will be stuck on the planet with no way to get back to 790, so he'd better pull his proverbial finger out pretty damn sharpish and stop the missiles. 790 agrees, and intercepts the signal coming from the planes, causing the moth to transmit them instead. The missiles get confused and blow up the planes, and everyone is happy.

Including, strangely, the group of geekoids watching the battle on radar in their trailer.

The moth, however, is not the brightest creature, and before they can make a safe landing it spots a flame atop the chimney of an oil refinery. Like the stupid creatures that bumble around your bedroom at night crashing into stuff, the moth is attracted to the flame and starts flying in ever decreasing circles around it, until one of its wings catches fire. Kai realises the moth isn't going to leave the flame until it can't fly anymore, so he tells Xev (being the gentleman he is) to jump! He will try and prevent too much damage to the moth by crashing it as gently as he can.
"Good luck" he says, rather unnecessarily, as Xev hangs off the side of the moth.
"Thanks" replies Xev, and plummets towards the oil refinery. Luckily, however, in a move reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog, she falls straight into one of the big steel pipes, rattles around the building a few times, and then pops out at the roadside, eventually rolling to a stop. She stands up in time to see the moth, wings smoking heavily, crash behind a range of hills someway distant. Unpeturbed, she heads off towards the crash site.

Back on the Lexx, Stan is bored. And when Stan is bored, planets suffer. "You ever get in the mood where you just wanna blow up a planet?" is Stan's philosophical question to the Lexx.
"I am always in the mood to blow up planets" replies the ship.
Stan, needing no further urging, picks on poor old Pluto for target practice. The Lexx sends a circular ring of fire (as opposed to the usual flat line effect), crashing down onto the poor almost-planet, destroying it completely. Stan is very happy that Lexx managed to hit the planet, especially as it was so far away. He's not the only one who is impressed though.
"Good Shot" comes a voice from behind. (That Prince - he's always coming from behind...)
Stan jumps like someone electrified the floor. "Prince!" he splutters, terrified of their former adversary. But Prince seems ignorant of his past life, and denies all knowledge of being the ruler of Fire or any of his former mis-deeds. Stan knows full well who the evil-bloke is though, even if he doesn't know himself. "You've come here to kill me!" he stammers.
"Now why would I do that?" replies the non-plussed Prince.
790 thinks it's a great idea though, and suggests Prince throws Stan off the bridge before jumping off himself. But Prince is not distracted.
"What must I do to save Earth?"

Xev, striding along a hot and dusty desert road, is making little progress on reaching the moth. Then she sees a guy further along the road hitch-hiking. When he gets picked up, she realises this could be a good idea and decides to do the same.

Meanwhile the geekoids have found the crashed moth, minus Kai. He's already left the scene and is walking back down the road trying to find Xev.

On the roadside, Xev's hitching has worked wonders. A pick-up truck stops, and the cowboy-hatted driver offers Xev a lift. Not being backward in coming forward, he asks her if she'd like to go to his place. Ever one for new experiences, and never one to worry about prior appointments or timekeeping, our Xev of course says "Sure!" She hops in the truck, and they zoom off. Well, they zoom off 10 yards down the road to a trailer park.

The geekoids seem to be scientists of some sort because they're taking detailed video and notes of the crashed craft. They pay special attention to the symbol of His Divine Shadow (you know the one - the segmented circle), which appears to have been stamped into the moth's flesh, just beside the passenger seat. If they'd carried on looking, they'd probably have found the "Pat. Pending." bit and the battery compartment too, but they seemed happy enough with the icon. They do want to find the occupant of this interplanetary (most extraordinary) craft though, and start following the footprints that Kai has left in the dusty earth.

In Xev's new pal's trailer, he's doing what any self respecting American would do when faced with a gorgeous nymphomaniac and not a lot of space. Watching TV. The new President (remember him?) is being sworn in. If the last Pres wasn't chosen for his brains, this one wasn't chosen for his brains, looks, or ability to speak, as he stammers through his oath of allegiance, at one point swearing allegiance to Dog..um..God. Xev investigates her new surroundings, until Rooster (for that is his name), suddenly breaks the ice by asking her to marry him. Apparently, she is his "one and only". Xev would rather skip the vows and move straight on to the "wow!"s, but L'il Red backs off. "I can't do that, Honeychile" he declines. "Why?!" asks the confused Love Slave. "Because," the red neck tells her very seriously, "This is Texas!".

Meanwhile on the Lexx, Stan is dealing with problems of his own. He reminds Prince that he's the captain of the blah blah blah and he'll damn well blow up that stupid looking blue planet unless it starts improving Stan's mood. Bizarro-bot butts in that his mood would be improved by the imminent death of Stan, to which Stan takes understandable offence. "Why do you want to kill me? I'm not interested in the dead man!" he points out to the necrophilliac robot. "You might be hiding it" replies 790 sadly.
Prince, getting back to the point in hand, asks Stan what he wants in return for not blowing up the Earth. Stan, as the man who put the "dick" into "predictable", replies that he'd rather like some women. Prince agrees that he can have lots of women. Stan seems pleased, and starts to push his luck. "I wanna be King! I want to rule a place where every one does what I say." Prince tells him he can have any country he wants, within reason. Stan accepts this readily, and then make the final request. The biggy. The make or break clause in the peace agreement.
Stan wants a puppy.
"Well, that might be difficult," Prince explains, in the tone of the plumber who's come to fix your leaky tap and is about to try and sell you an entire new central heating system.
The real reason it's going to be difficult though, is that Prince has suddenly sneakily handcuffed Stan to the podium! He *is* evil Prince after all! And now he's going to take Stan to Earth and do unspeakable things to him! Muahahahaha!

Heading back to base, the scientists come across a certain tall dark chap plodding along the desert highway. Realising that this is their man (after all, no-one on Earth would have a hairdo like that, unless they were on Jenny Jones), they pull up beside him.
"Have you seen a Love Slave named Xev wearing a Cluster Lizard dress?" he asks, obviously trying to stay undercover.
The scientists need no further confirmation, and offer him a lift. Kai accepts and hangs onto the door of the car, a la Dukes of Hazzard, as they transport him to a large hangar up ahead.

Stan thinks Prince will have trouble getting to Earth without a moth, but Prince reminds him that he knows where the moths are, so nya nya ne nya nya. Stan, using his one little bit of initiative, waits till Prince unlocks the handcuffs to take him to a moth and tells Lexx to tilt. The ship drops a shoulder and Prince loses his balance, sending him over the edge of the bridge. He just manages to catch the edge and avoid falling to a splattery end. Stan, revelling in the fact that one of his plans has gone right for once, stands over Prince and treads on his fingers. Prince seems very scared. What's this? The immortal reincarnatable one, scared of dying? It seems that Prince doesn't know whether the immune-to-death thing works on this planet, or whether that was just a Fire thang. Seems for once that Stan has the upper hand.
Or he does until 790 careers into the back of Stan's legs, sending him too toppling over the edge. With both men dangling over certain death, 790 could not be happier. But Prince's evil inventiveness sees him climbing up Stan's stubby body and back onto terra firma. Oh dear. And it was all going so well...

"New, Poseable Trailer-Trash Xev TM" is busy having a party with Rooster and his three scary red-neck friends. She's singing a little song about being a cluster lizard and a love slave (to the tune of one of the love duet out of Brigadoom). The audience are very impressed by both her vocal range and her cleavage, and are more than happy to flirt outrageously with her. Of course Rooster is not impressed, especially when Xev asks again to skip the marriage part and just get on with the sex part. "Why don't we forget about the wedding and just get naked and do it?" is her perfectly reasonable request. Rooster throws a wobbly and kicks his friends out, but each one arranges to meet Xev at a different place that night, if she can sneak out of the trailer. One will signal his presence by making owl sounds, one by rattling like a rattlesnake, and one will be waiting by the mailbox. Xev agrees happily to this arrangement. When Rooster comes back from removing his friends, Xev tells him she should really go back to the building with all the metal tubes to meet Kai. Who's Kai, jeaous Rooster wants to know. "A friend" Xev replies. "A man friend or a lady friend?" Rooster asks sadly. "A man friend" replies Xev. Crestfallen Rooster asks if Xev loves him. She hesitates. "He is dead - there is no satisfaction in loving the dead..."
Pleased that his fiance is merely a necrophiliac rather than a-cheatin', Rooster offers to give her a lift to the refinery in the morning. After all, if she hitches she might get picked up by some wierdo. Yeah, like she didn't do that already.
But then poor Xev blows it. She casually asks Rooster what an owl sounds like. Suspicious, he wants to know why, and she innocently explains her plan to shag all his mates. Rooster, understandably, is a mite pissed off by this, and pulls out a big long gun. "What's that?" asks Xev. Rooster explains that when his friends turn up, expecting to meet Xev, they will instead meet a grisly end. No sex before marriage, but it's OK to blow your buddies brains out? Aaah - that'll be Texas.

Kai, meanwhile, is taken into the large hangar with his specky new friends, and introduced to one wheelchair bound Dr Ernst Longbore (who just happens to be Walter Borden, voice of His Shadow). He takes one look at Kai and asks:
"We want to leave this planet - will you help us?"

Prince has successfully hijacked a moth and dragged poor Stan along for the ride. Stan wants to know if this planet is a good one or a bad one. Prince is delighted to tell him that it's very very bad indeed. He's having so much fun here, but when the fun runs out, i.e. Earth is fubar'ed, he will leave on the Lexx. Not necessarily with Stan.
They approach the planet and zoom into the underground bunker we saw previously. Unless Stan is the reincarnation of Houdini, he's going to have trouble getting out of this one.

Kai wants to know what the scientists' story is. Why do they want to leave Earth? The Doc shows him pictures from ancient Earth history, depicting the Divine Shadow symbol. One from Sumeria that's 4,000 years old, and one from a church in the foothills of the Carpathian mountians in Hungary. (Try saying Carpathian without using a Gary Oldman accent. I bet you can't.) Of course Doc wants to know where the symbol came from, especially when it's tattoed all over Kai's moth. Kai explains about the destruction of the light universe and His Shadow, and the fact that he used to be an assassin, which pigtails girl seems to find most fascinating. Then he asks what the Doc's story is.
Dr Ernst explains that they sent a signal into space asking to be rescued from this planet, which is likely to go tits-up within the next 12 months due to scientific fiddling with that Higgs-Bosen particle. Apparently he was one of those scientists, but was fired when he tried to warn them of their folly.

The trailer park is finally about to see some action, as Xev's suitors start arriving with their various signals. All they find though is one very pissed off Rooster with a large gun. One by one, he starts picking them off until they're all dead. One got in a good shot back though, and Rooster's dying words to Xev are "you are my one and only". Poor Rooster. There he was thinking he was making some noble gesture of love, and the woman involved couldn't really care less. "What a waste!" is Xev's angry reply.

Doc Ernst continues. Not wanting to be compressed to the size of a pea, he and his group of students thank Kai for turning up to rescue them. But Kai has to explain that he didn't come here to rescue them, he came for the great sale at Wall-Mart. No, sorry, he came here to help Xev find men. Just as the embarassed scientist is about to plead for assistance, however, a large number of ATF agents suddenly burst through various openings in the hanger and start pointing guns at people. No doubt to wipe out the threat of spreading bad hairstyles and acne through the populace. Luckily for the scientists though, they have a magic Kai who proceeds to take out the agents with stunning accuracy. He's obviously been practicing with that brace in private because he's much better with it this season.
The scientists are suitably stunned, which gives Kai time to ask about a figure in the painting from the Carpathian church. He says he would like to know more about it, but the Doc is pushing for a deal. He'll help Kai find Xev if Kai helps them get off the planet. It is agreed.

Even in Texas it seems a bloodbath is not old-hat, and the police duly turn up to find out what all the fuss is about. The captiain starts questionning Xev, as the only survivor, and is not impressed with her story of being a love-slave from B3K. No, it's not nearby, it's in the light zone, she tells the silly policeman. Strangely, Xev is immediately arrested.

And life is not all plain sailing for Stan either, for he finds himself tied to a wall, a hundred feet up in the air, next to that poor 12 year old boy we saw at the beginning of the first episode. "Prince!" yells Stan, into the dark void below.
"Don't worry", replies the plucky youth, "After 8 weeks you get used to it."

But Stan might not have 8 weeks, because in the far reaches of the solar system, that asteroid with engines is heading towards Earth. And now it's surrounded by what looks like a cloud of flying carrots.