The series originated from a four-minute demo tape called 'The Dark Zone' that Paul Donovan created in 1993 to seek funding for an unrelated WWI CGI film; the scene featuring security guard Stanley Tweedle refusing a docking request impressed broadcasters so much that Donovan abandoned his original idea and built the show around it.

The first season was greenlit in the summer of 1995 with a budget of $13 million, only about three months before filming began.

Creator Paul Donovan described the show's concept as 'Dirty Dozen meets Alien or Beavis and Butt-Head', citing Fires on the Plain, Dark Star, Space Precinct, and Red Dwarf as influences on the crew.

The name 'Lexx' was deliberately chosen as a word that would work in all languages without needing translation, and it also doubles as a pun on writer Lex Gigeroff's name.

Barry Bostwick's character Thodin was written specifically to trick audiences into thinking he was the series' hero and main character, only to be killed off by Kai in the premiere.

Malcolm McDowell took the role of Yottskry after a different film he was set to star in fell through, and he was drawn to the 'peculiar' and 'weird' script and his desire to visit Nova Scotia.

Tim Curry's scenes as Poet Man were filmed entirely in front of a green screen on the final day of shooting, and he compared the low-budget spirit of the production favorably to his experience on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Eva Habermann left the show after season one, so the character Zev was killed off and reincarnated as Xev, subsequently played by Xenia Seeberg.

The 'protoblood' that the character Kai consumes to survive was actually made from a mixture of honey and hand lotion.

The food produced by the Lexx for its crew was mashed yams in season one, switching to rice pudding for the remainder of the series.

One hallway set representing the Cluster was so long it extended outside the main studio, through a dressing room, and into another studio building.

The season two episode 'The Net' reuses a large amount of footage from the previous episode 'The Web' because both had to be shot in just nine days instead of the usual eight-day schedule per episode.

In the season four episode 'The Game', the chess match between Kai and Prince is a move-for-move recreation of the first casual game played between Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais and Alexander McDonnell at the 1834 World Championship.

For the episode 'Super Nova', matte paintings were used instead of CGI for new planet visuals because the production was going over budget, since a fully CGI planet could cost around $200,000.

The scene depicting the Lexx destroying a customs station was achieved by physically blowing up a model in the parking lot of the visual effects studio.

The musical episode 'Brigadoom' bases many of its songs on German nursery rhymes with new lyrics, and because of the use of existing musical themes and an outside choir, the soundtrack exists in a legal grey area and has never been officially released.

In the Earth-set season four, the destruction of Ottawa is included as a Canadian in-joke referencing the country's capital.