Entertainment
The Worst Ever Sci-Fi Musical Episode Isn’t In Star Trek, It’s This Raunchy Cult Classic
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
The musical episode is one of many ways Buffy changed television forever. “Once More, With Feeling” is considered one of the best episodes of the long-running series. But, it came out in November 2001, a full two years after the campy, horny sci-fi series Lexx unleashed its own musical episode, “Brigadoom.”
Airing on April 9, 1999, fans had no idea what to expect when the crew of the Lexx encountered a theater troupe in the middle of space, and they especially weren’t prepared for a full-blown musical. The cast gives it their all, and well, they try really hard to perform the elaborate song-and-dance numbers, but through the obvious limitations and stumbles, “Brigadoom” is Lexx’s greatest episode.
The First Sci-Fi Musical Episode
“Brigadoom” puts the spotlight on the backstory of Kai (Michael McManus), the last of the Brunnen-G, when he and Xev (Xenia Seeberg) take part in the troupe’s musical production. Stanley (Brian Downey) refuses to participate but returns at the end, inspired by the story of the Brunnen-G, who refused to give up in the face of overwhelming odds.
By the time the Brunnen-G perform the solemn battle song, “Yo Way Yo,” you’ll be as pumped as Stanley to charge headlong into a suicide mission against His Divine Shadow.
This was the first time fans were shown Kai’s tragic past. The last stand of the Brunnen-G, and the battle song, was seen in the very first episode of Lexx, but “Brigadoom” put it in a brand new perspective.
Tragic, beautiful, and moving, which is what a great musical does. It’s especially impressive because by the standards of musical episodes that have followed, “Brigadoom” can’t match the pageantry, the songs, and the performances, making it the first that ever aired, but also one of the worst, which ironically, makes it the best.
No Time, No Budget, No Problem
Lexx’s cast and crew only had one week to prepare “Brigadoom,” forcing them to get creative with the sets used by the in-universe theater troupe and to keep the songs simple, but manageable. Both Michael McManus and Xenia Seeberg were singers, and the entire production was keyed around McManus’s vocal range, but it’s a testament to how good they are that, with such a short production runway, they sound as good as they do. There are noticeable wobbles and notes that are out of tune; some were edited in later by music director Andre Haines.
Brian Downey, an experienced musician himself, by his own admission, was terrified of singing and dancing, which is why Stanley was kept out of the production. No one at the time knew that adjusting the story to include Stanley’s reluctance to take part would serve only to amplify the message of “Brigadoom.” Lexx may be unabashedly horny and the finest of low-budget sci-fi, but as the musical episode reveals, the cast and crew were masters at getting the most out of every single dollar and every single second of film.
Compared to “Once More, With Feeling” and “Subspace Rhapsody,” “Brigadoom” looks like a local theater production. And yet, it’s still considered the best episode of Lexx by the show’s fans and an example of how it embraced its low budget and absurd premise to tell a surprisingly in-depth sci-fi epic. Instead of being a gimmick designed to bring in eyeballs, “Brigadoom” is a heartfelt episode that reveals new depths to the crew, broadens fans’ understanding of the world, and shows you don’t have to be a perfect singer or have elaborate, ship-wide song and dance numbers to move the audience.