"We made two versions. In different parts of the world there are different censors. Right now in England it's become an election issue - who can become more critical of squishiness on video? As a matter of fact, I have a scientific background, and my analysis of the data is that it may provide a cathartic reaction to a natural violent tendency in human beings. In our show, I'm perfectly comfortable with it. But in case it's a political problem, I have to be realistic, so we've also made a green fig leaf version, which is stripped down."

The real standout feature of Lexx, however, are the effects. As Donovan explains, "In the first movie, 52% of the shots include effects elements of some sort. In the fourth, it's 45%. We're way out there... And our budgets are way over."

Jeff expands on this: "It's a whole new way of doing television. In a typical Trek episode they do maybe two minutes maximum per show of ships flying back and forth. Whereas we've got new things coming up all the time. We want to up the ante big time in terms of effects on television."

But it's not only the effects that parallel Babylon 5.

"There are whole load of elements that aren't visible yet," confides Donovan. "Really, in number one there's a lot of set up for number four. We had this thing where we described the insect wars which were referred to in the past... Well, they're not over yet."

Sounds like a story arc to us...

"Well, we have a short arc in these four and then later, should we go to a series, we have quite a big arc," agrees Hirschfield. "Some of the themes that we used, they're only even introduced in these four movies. We'll revisit a lot of the stuff in the series."

Donovan agrees: "In the first movie, it isn't quite a stand alone piece. There are references to things that don't entirely play out in that story. We know what the final episode will be."

"Remember: 'You're worm is your friend,' adds Hirschfield cryptically. It sounds bizarrely like something from a Swedish porn movieŠ

"That was very much an inspiration," says Donovan without a hint of irony. And when you see the second film you might understand why. A large part of the first 20 minutes is taken up with the main female character, Zev, naked in a shower with a nozzle attachment that looks suspiciously phallic. This is also the movie with a, you'd better believe it, song-and-dance routine.

"That can be explained as desperation at the script level," laughs Gigeroff.

"Nah," interrupts Donovan. "We want to take risks with this series, and that was one of those risks. We're working on the concept, and it's a very challenging way of producing television. I think we're getting better as we go along. We've been working on this project for two and a half years now, and we don't want to get too rigid. We want to keep a bit of a sense of, 'Well, let's just try it and see if it works.' Once shows become very successful and established then it's hard to break out of that mould. Maybe if our canvas is big from the beginning, then we'll have more freedom to go off in surprising directions. Besides, he adds, "the second episode is the cheapest. That was our intention. We'd blow it on the first one then cool it off a bit in the second one, then go right back up and go out with a big bang."

Talking of the Big Bang reminds ex-physicist Donovan of one of the main themes unpinning the show. "One of things about this universe is that time goes in a circle... That's theoretically possible according to conventional physics. Time goes forward then the inertia of the Big Bang comes to an end and time goes backward and then time begins again. That's something we'll be exploring."

So how do they divide the writing between them?

"I write one line, Jeff writes the next and Lex writes the one after that," comes back Donovan. I was asking for that I suppose. "Actually, there are no rules because each story has its own requirements."

"It really is whatever it takes," adds Hirschfield. "We've gone through every combination and permutation of writing together possible. It's been crazy, a real soup."

But it soon becomes clear that the one thing they love collaborating on is finding new ways to gross out the audience. "Sure," agrees Donovan. "Other than the song-and-dance routine in the first movie, the grossest things we've done have been the brain removal in the first flick, and the pattern worms in the third. We dwelled on the brain removal more, but the concept of the worms is the grossest."

Hirschfield agrees: "We worked out quite a nice universe for the pattern worms. They have an, um, interesting life cycle and biology."

Donovan is clearly back on his favourite subject: "The more shit we can blow up the better. You know, and I know, we all know there are a lot of people out there who deserve to be blown up and we're going to try our darnedest to do it."

According to Donovan, the chances of the show going to a series are around 80%. "The TV companies we sold it to loved the original ten-minute trailer we showed them, but were a bit weirded out when we delivered the actual movies. But they're committed now, so the future of Lexx isn't in our hands or their hands, it's in the hands of the audiences."