Entertainment
Raunchiest 90s Sci-Fi Series Features Worst Captain Of All Time
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Science fiction is filled with incredible spaceship captains. Star Trek alone gave the world Picard, Kirk, and Janeway, Firefly has Malcolm Reynolds, Farscape’s John Crichton, and Battlestar Galactica’s Adama, all of them are fantastic characters. All are noble and inspiring figures who make their crews better.
On the other end of the spectrum is Stanley H. Tweedle, captain of the Lexx, the most powerful weapon ever created. He’s a coward, a traitor, self-centered, shallow, and the last man in existence who should have the keys to the most powerful weapon in both galaxies.
Lexx’s Stanley H. Tweedle Is Sci-Fi’s Worst Captain
Stanley H. Tweedle, played by Brian Downey, kicks off the events of Lexx by skipping work to the point he’s deemed a fugitive from justice by the servitors inside His Divine Shadow’s headquarters and runs into another fugitive, Zev (Eva Habermann). Taking shelter on board the organic spacecraft Lexx, the command codes embedded in Stanley’s tooth are activated, and the ship recognizes him as the Captain. It’s not the most glorious origin story for the man who would eventually, sort of, save the galaxy. It gets worse.
Technically, Stanley’s responsible for the deaths of 685 billion people. He didn’t give the order to fire, and he was being tortured, but he did give the codes to the Lexx over to a band of mercenaries, and then they sold it to His Divine Shadow, and 100 worlds ceased to exist. No other captain in sci-fi can say thay also have the title “Arch-Traitor.”
During Season 2, “Stan’s Trial,” we learn that the root of Stanley’s cowardice is his fear of death. The threat of death causes Stanley to break under the smallest bit of pressure from any of the villains, which all comes to a head in Season 3 when he actually dies and has to face the judgment of Prince from the Fire Planet, Lexx’s version of the Devil. You’d think that anyone who’s that cowardly wouldn’t be respected by his crew, and you’d be right.
No One Respects Stanley
The Lexx’s crew of castoffs, including both Zev and Xev (Xenia Seeberg), the undead assassin Kai (Michael McManus), and the love robot 790/791 (Jeffrey Hirschfield), don’t respect Stanley. Eventually, Xev and Kai start to have a modicum of respect, but 790, competing with Stanley for the affection of both Zev and Xev, constantly belittles and insults its captain. Even Lexx has some difficulty with Stanley, often misunderstanding what he wants, including misinterpreting the captain’s request for the coordinates to a planet of loose women.
Early on in Season 3, Stanley’s desire for women comes to a head when Prince offers to revive Maya, a gorgeous woman from the Water Planet, if he’ll use the Lexx to destroy the Water Planet. Stanley doesn’t only think about it, he spends most of the second episode actively devising ways to betray everyone. Not even Kirk, sci-fi’s most famous womanizer, would contemplate an offer like that for a single second.
Stanley H. Tweedle is both sci-fi’s worst captain and one of the most interesting characters, because he is so detestable and openly not a good guy. At all. He helped save the galaxy from thousands of years of control under His Divine Shadow, but he’s still a coward and a lech. Worst of all, we never learn what the H stands for.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login