title: Lexx

text: 2008 years later, Stanley H. Tweedle is an assistant deputy backup courier for the Ostral-B heretics, a resistance group fighting against the Divine Order. After unknowingly leading His Divine Shadow to an Ostral-B outpost, resulting in its destruction, he is captured by the mercenary Feppo, who extracts information from him on the locations of other Ostral-B planets and sells it to the Divine Order, resulting in the deaths of billions. He is later made a class-four security guard on the Cluster, the capital planet of the Divine Order and League of 20,000 Planets. After being reprimanded for insubordination and failing to turn himself in, he becomes a fugitive on the Cluster.


title: Lexx

text: Zev Bellringer arrives on the Cluster as a prisoner and is sentenced to be turned into a love-slave, after failing to perform her wifely duties and assaulting her fiancé. Other prisoners, including a group of Ostral-B heretics and their leader, Thodin, are sentenced to be publicly executed. Thodin attempts to use an explosive device to free himself, but the device malfunctions and releases giant Cluster Lizards from containment, wreaking havoc across the Cluster. Thodin escapes and frees the other heretics, and reluctantly rescues the cannibal Giggerota. During Zev's transformation into a love-slave, she is attacked by a Cluster Lizard, turning her into a love-slave/Cluster Lizard hybrid. Before the brainwashing portion of the transformation begins, Zev frees herself and places the 790 droid in charge of her transformation in her place, causing the robot head to be programmed to be a love-slave. Upon seeing Zev, 790 immediately falls in love with her and pursues her as she escapes. His Shadow awakens Kai from cryostasis to protect the secret weapons laboratory.


title: Lexx

text: Stanley and Zev meet up and make their way towards the secret weapons laboratory, where they find several Ostral-B heretics attempting to board a ship. They are pursued by Kai, who kills Thodin and chases the others into the ship. Although the heretics are hostile towards the "arch-traitor" Stanley, they are attacked and killed by a Cluster Lizard. Before his death, one of the heretics releases some form of energy into Stanley.


title: Lexx

text: Stanley, Zev, 790, and Giggerota reach the ship's bridge. The ship introduces itself as the Lexx, a machine-insect hybrid and "the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes", capable of destroying planets in a single blast. The energy Stanley absorbed is revealed to be the key to the Lexx, making Stanley its captain. As Stanley instructs the Lexx to fly off the Cluster, they are cornered by Kai and Giggerota is presumably killed. Before Kai can execute the others, he instead heads to the ship's hold to protect the Divine Predecessors, which are being attacked by a Cluster Lizard. After saving them, Kai regains his memories from the brain of the Divine Predecessor who killed him, prompting him to turn against His Shadow. The Lexx is pursued and boarded by His Shadow, who attacks Kai for turning against him. Stanley and Zev distract His Shadow long enough for Kai to destroy him; his essence retreats from the ship as it travels through a portal into the Dark Zone. While traversing the portal, the Lexx's memory of His Shadow and its allegiance to him is wiped. The Lexx destroys the remains of His Shadow's fleet. The three begin searching the Dark Zone for a new home, away from His Shadow.


title: Lexx

text: During their search, they encounter Kai's homeworld and explore it for insights into his past. Finding the planet abandoned, they are pursued by Giggerota who attempts to destroy the planet by disabling a series of towers that are keeping a dying star from becoming a supernova. The trio becomes separated from each other and discover the Time Prophet's prophecy of Kai destroying the insect civilization. Giggerota disables the towers, but the crew escapes aboard the Lexx without her. She and the planet are destroyed in the supernova.


title: Lexx

text: After some time, the Lexx runs low on organic fuel and lands on the nearby planet of Klaagia to feed. The group discovers a group of psychotics obsessed with "pattern", a liquid made from organic material that parasites within their bodies feed on. Stan, Zev, and Kai inadvertently awaken the parasite queen, who attaches itself to the Lexx and pursues them off the planet. The Lexx fires on the planet and destroys it, using the meteors to kill the queen.


title: Lexx

text: Meanwhile, Kai is running low on protoblood, which he needs to function in his undead state; protoblood can only be found on the Cluster. The group returns to the Cluster to find it abandoned, learning that the entire population of the League of 20,000 Planets had been killed to feed and awaken the immense Giga Shadow, the last remaining insect. With help from a defecting priest of the Divine Order, they stall the Giga Shadow's awakening long enough for Kai to plant a baby Cluster Lizard inside of it. As the Lexx and its crew are almost destroyed, the Cluster Lizard reaches the Giga Shadow's brain and consumes it, killing the Giga Shadow. With a fresh supply of protoblood, the crew returns to the Dark Zone to search for a new home.


title: Lexx

text: Before the Giga Shadow's destruction, the last remnant of His Shadow possessed Kai. Kai lies to the crew and states that he requires more protoblood to survive, leading them to the imprisoned supreme Bio-Vizier of the Divine Order, Mantrid and his servant. During their meeting, His Shadow transfers his essence into an insect carcass, resurrecting it and attempting to kill the crew of the Lexx. Mantrid is gravely wounded in the attack, and his servant transfers his consciousness to a spaceship he had created to save him. Kai kills the insect, resulting in His Shadow's essence becoming mixed with Mantrid's. Mantrid, now intertwined with His Shadow, swears revenge on humanity as the crew escapes.


title: Lexx

text: The rest of the season involves the crew searching for a new home. During their adventures, they encounter Lyekka, a plant that can transform into a human appearance and feeds on living beings. During their adventures, Zev is killed but later reincarnated by Lyekka as Xev. The crew has various encounters with strange creatures and civilizations, such as a group of astronauts from a potato planet, a planet that creates sitcoms, a vapour that changes sex organs into their opposite, a crashed prisoner transport captained by a gay cyborg, a graveyard planet for priests of the Divine Order, a cult led by the Wozzard that seeks to turn all beautiful women into ugly ones, and an island of secluded, illiterate monks.


title: Lexx

text: Eventually, the crew learns that Mantrid has been using drones to consume the universe and convert its matter into more drones, quickly bringing the Light Zone to an end. The crew, realizing they have no chance against him, attempt to flee by travelling to the centre of the universe, where the rules of causality are different, offering them a potential hideaway from Mantrid. During their escape, they encounter an interdimensional theatre crew that tells the full story of the Brunnen-G, including how they defeated the insect civilization and eventually became hopelessly depressed at their immortality, waiting for the forces of His Shadow to come and destroy them. Kai, refusing to surrender, led a small group of rebels against His Shadow in a final act of defiance. Reinvigorated by Kai's story, the crew decide to stop running and face Mantrid.


title: Lexx

text: With the help of 790, the crew finds that they can convert some of Mantrid's drones to fight for them and outsmart Mantrid's drones. During their attack on his ship, Lyekka boards Mantrid's pod and is about to destroy him, but is killed before she is able to do so. The crew, about to be overwhelmed by Mantrid drones, employs a last-ditch strategy to destroy Mantrid. Kai taunts Mantrid into pursuing the Lexx towards the centre of the universe. The resulting movement of mass creates a big crunch, which Mantrid, the drones, the Lexx, and the rest of the Light Zone are pulled into and destroyed. However, the Lexx rematerializes in the Dark Zone through a portal as Mantrid is finally defeated. Without any other nearby planets and the Lexx running out of food, the crew place themselves into stasis and the Lexx goes dormant while 790 reactivates annually to search for nearby planets.


title: Lexx

text: After four thousand years in cryostasis, the crew reaches the twin planets Fire and Water. All of season three takes place on these two planets.


title: Lexx

text: The crew meets people they knew from the Light and Dark Zones who cannot remember their past lives, though their personalities are the same. Fire is ruled by the charismatic Prince and his lackey Priest, while Water does not have a ruler. The inhabitants of both planets live in isolated towns. On Water, they live on islands in a huge ocean; on Fire, there are massive towers separated by long stretches of desert. Water is inhabited by good people, while Fire is inhabited by evil people.


title: Lexx

text: During Prince's first encounter with the crew, 790 is damaged and falls in love with Kai rather than Xev, and gradually behaves much more erratically. Prince seeks to destroy Water and attempts to win the crew over to his side, especially Xev. Believing that the Lexx is "the grain of sand that will tip the scales", he tests their sense of morality through various temptations, including taking the forms of other crew members to deceive them. The crew are frequently separated from each other, forcing them to act individually. After jumping from the Lexx to the surface of Water, Kai has trouble functioning normally without the other crew members. Deep beneath Water's surface, Kai encounters his soul essence awaiting rebirth.


title: Lexx

text: During one of Prince's attacks on Water, Stanley is killed and Prince holds a trial over the destination of his soul, revealing Fire and Water as the afterlife. All his bad decisions are weighed against his good deeds and he is ultimately sentenced to eternal punishment on Fire. Enraged over Stanley's death, Xev orders the Lexx to destroy Fire, releasing all of its tortured souls. Consequently, Prince possesses the Lexx and uses it to destroy Water. Stanley is released and returns to his body aboard the Lexx, while Prince and the other souls reincarnate on a nearby blue planet.


title: Lexx

text: The Lexx travels to Earth looking for food. 790 informs the crew that it is located in the very centre of the Dark Zone and assumes that it must be a very dangerous place. The crew again meet people they knew from the Light and Dark Zones and from Fire and Water. Only Prince and Priest are able to remember their previous lives.


title: Lexx

text: On Earth, the reincarnated souls cause chaos across the planet. Prince becomes the head of the ATF, Priest becomes the President and a puppet ruler for Prince, Giggerotta becomes a Florida real estate agent and is elected pope, and the Wozzard becomes Dr. Ernst Longbore, a paraplegic rocket scientist. The crew attempts to settle in and make Earth their home, but keep getting caught up in fights and other deadly situations with the locals. Although the crew keeps swearing not to return to the planet, they constantly find themselves back on Earth for one reason or another.


title: Lexx

text: Kai's soul is trapped in limbo because he is undead, and he decides to regain his mortality. He makes a wager with Prince in a game of chess and wins, but Prince does not immediately fulfill his promise.


title: Lexx

text: In the series finale, Earth is threatened by plants resembling Lyekka. The crew discovers that the fake Lyekka have destroyed other planets on their way through the Dark Zone and flooded the Earth with alien probes to sample the taste of its lifeforms. Furthermore, Dr. Longbore has created a rocket to escape Earth and, out of spite, leaves behind a particle accelerator to determine the mass of the Higgs boson particle, which will shrink the Earth to the size of a pea in the process. As Lyekka's asteroid attacks Earth, the crew flees with the particle accelerator to destroy the asteroid. As they leave Earth, Prince appears to Kai and fulfills his promise to him, restoring Kai's mortality. 790, now completely insane and still madly in love with Kai, takes advantage of the Lexx's senility and has it destroy Earth to kill any potential "competitors" for Kai. With Earth destroyed, the Lexx dying, and no other habitable planets nearby, the crew decide to sacrifice themselves to destroy Lyekka's asteroid. They travel inside the asteroid, but Kai becomes separated from the others as he is trapped inside with the particle accelerator. In a final sacrifice, Kai crashes into the centre of the asteroid as the accelerator calculates the particle's mass, destroying the asteroid. The Lexx's senility becomes terminal as it disintegrates. Xev and Stanley discover that the Lexx had created another ship within it before it died, "Little Lexx". Little Lexx gives Stanley its key as they search for a new home.


title: Lexx

text: Salter Street Films' first sci-fi production, "Def-Con 4", had been a moderate success and showed Paul Donovan that there was a potential market for similar material. Salter Street's next projects did not enjoy the same amount of success: "George's Island", "Buried on Sunday", and "Paint Cans" received praise but were not financially successful. Donovan then sought to create a World War I film using computer-generated imagery which had now become financially viable, but did not possess the estimated $35 million he needed to create it. In 1993, Donovan created a four-minute short film with a large amount of CGI and demonstrated it to international broadcasters to seek funding. The tape, titled "The Dark Zone", featured security guard Stanley Tweedle refusing to let a ship dock because of an invalid security code, then being reprimanded by his superiors. This scene would be reworked and included in the first episode of "Lexx". Broadcast companies were impressed, prompting Donovan to build off the demo tape and abandon his original World War I idea. The first season was greenlit in Summer 1995 with a budget of $13 million, barely three months before filming began.


title: Lexx

text: Donovan had trouble finding writers for the show as most resided in Hollywood and outside of his budget. He eventually came across Lex Gigeroff and Jeffrey Hirschfield, calling them "gems in the rough". Jeffrey had a background in theatre and acting, but was unable to find work and on the verge of abandoning the industry entirely until he met Paul, while Lex was working odd acting jobs in Halifax.


title: Lexx

text: Donovan described the thought process behind the show as ""Dirty Dozen" meets "Alien" or "Beavis and Butt-Head"". He also found influence in "Fires on the Plain" and "Dark Star" and considers the show to be a homage to "Space Precinct". Donovan found that many science fiction films and shows at the time were too serious and wanted to create something more "fun" with a higher production value, sexual motifs, and aspects of dark humour, which Hirschfield says comes from the desensitization of violence in Halifax, citing clubbing harp seals as an example. They rejected making the series scientifically accurate or logical, with writer Hirschfield explaining, "We only wanted enough science to get us through the stories. The Lexx has a particle accelerator, and that's all you need to know. We don't want to bother with dilithium crystals. The Lexx gets its fuel from eating. Simple enough." They openly acknowledged the large amount of sex and violence present within the script, with Gigeroff admitting that he "[wants] teenage boys to pull off to Zev's poster." When asked about Zev's appearance and the amount of sexual content, Gigeroff responded that "I think we have far too puritanical notions about sex. Sex is fun, sex is good, and I hope we can get a lot of it in the show." He also addressed the criticism he received from the Halifax film community about the sexual content, joking "God, you can't even show a woman as a sex object without someone thinking it's bad." The Lexx's name was formed by finding a word that would work well in all languages without translation, and it doubled as a pun on Lex Gigeroff's name.


title: Lexx

text: The scripts for "Super Nova" and "Feeding Pattern" were changed several times during shooting. Ron Oliver, a writer for "Super Nova", says "When I first got the script, it was all over the place because the writers had hit a wall with it. The main characters were these buffoons. That probably works on paper, but the audience needed something to hold on to. So that had to be tidied up a bit by adding some motivation for these characters." Scripts for season two were commissioned before season one premiered.


title: Lexx

text: Brian Downey had worked with Donovan previously on "Norman's Awesome Experience" and portrayed Stanley Tweedle in the original demo tape. Downey describes his character as having "some heroic qualities, but it's always a surprise when he does something heroic." Eva Habermann portrayed Zev after her love-slave transformation, saying that "She doesn't see herself as a sex slave. I like the part because she's not quite what she seems. She's tough, and people underestimate her because of her new appearance. And that's what makes it funny." After season one, Habermann would go on to other projects, leaving a gap in the show for her character after the end of season one; this was alleviated by having Zev die and later revived into Xev, now played by Xenia Seeberg.


title: Lexx

text: The character of Thodin (played by Barry Bostwick) was created to subvert the audience into believing he was the hero and main character of the series, only to have him be killed off by Kai in the premiere. Malcolm McDowell agreed to play the part of Yottskry after a previous film he was scheduled to star in fell through, saying that he was drawn to the script because of how "peculiar" and "weird" it was and that he had wanted to visit Nova Scotia. Rutger Hauer was also attracted to the part of Bog because of the script, saying "It takes a lot of liberties – but in a good sense. This goes farther than anything I've ever done." Tim Curry's character as Poet Man was filmed on the final day of shooting entirely in front of a green screen. He compared the series favourably to his time on "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", saying "I'm grimly aware that "Rocky Horror" was done on a non-existent budget over three weeks in a tiny theatre. Yet it was a good idea. Sometimes it's important to show up for guys with really good ideas."


title: Lexx

text: Nigel Bennett had previously worked with Donovan on "Paint Cans" and was approached to play the role of Prince in seasons three and four. He liked the character "because he didn't say a word for 20 pages". As part of his character, Bennett had at least three different outfits and would have his hair and eyebrows bleached "about every ten to fourteen days".


title: Lexx

text: Season one was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia, primarily at a repurposed Volvo plant on the waterfront. Additional scenes were shot at Babelsberg Studios in Berlin. The "protoblood" that Kai lives off of was a combination of honey and hand lotion. One hallway set for the Cluster was so long that it extended outside the studio, through a dressing room, and into another studio. The command "chair" for the Lexx was outfitted with easily removable "skin", allowing it to be shot from any angle. This skin would later be removed entirely after season one. The food that the Lexx produces for the crew was mashed yams in season one, and rice pudding for the rest of the series.


title: Lexx

text: Donovan rejected the sleek, futuristic look common in science fiction in favour of organic, fleshy materials. Many of the creatures and machines are a hybrid of organic material and technology. Producer Bill Fleming compares it to a surgical implant or artificial limb, saying "it's functional, but it sure doesn't look good up close." According to set designer Nigel Scott, "Our world is chaotic. All the cars and buildings are designed by different people, so nothing really matches. And "Lexx" is exactly the same - it's just chaos." The insect wars and the biological designs of the ships were made a central part of the story after they had been designed, with writers using the concept art as a basis for the plot.


title: Lexx

text: Head art director Mark Laing says that the design of the Cluster was based around medieval cities, explaining how "the whole city is built on top of a ruin built on a ruin. Buildings are built on top of buildings, incorporating still standing structures into their own structures, which are also somewhat run down."


title: Lexx

text: The Lexx itself has sexual undertones as part of its design. Laing points out how the Lexx's showerhead "is this luminous pink tube that's a little too interested in its work... It'll snake all over you if you're not paying attention. It's quite frisky." Several fans have also pointed how the Lexx's seemingly phallic appearance. Writer Jeffrey Hirschfield only incorporated the bare minimum of "accurate" science when absolutely necessary.


title: Lexx

text: Computer-generated imagery for season one was created by twenty animators over the course of fifteen months. For "Super Nova", matte paintings were used as the show was quickly going over budget for CGI work. Bob Munroe, president of C.O.R.E Digital Pictures, states that CGI shots get expensive very quickly. "So when the script said 'a brand new planet you've never seen before,' that's a lot of work, and it may translate into $200,000. It got to the point that it was easier to do matte paintings than five people building this whole world." Up to 70% of the final shots contain CGI in some form. The scene where the Lexx destroys the customs station was a model that was blown up in the parking lot of the VFX studio. Animations were done through three production houses, including C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures in Toronto and Berlin and pixelMotion in Halifax. Models and animations were created using Silicon Graphics Indigo workstations, as well as Avid 1000 and 8000 series workstations. Modelling and animation software such as Prisms, Flint, and PowerAnimator were used to create digital imagery. A render farm that was 60 times faster than the industry norm was used for rendering animations.


title: Lexx

text: Two official "Lexx" soundtracks have been released. The first album, "Tales from a Parallel Universe", consists of music from Season One. The second album, "Lexx: The Series", consists of music from Seasons Two through Four.


title: Lexx

text: "Brigadoom" (S02E18) is a musical episode that tells of the destruction of Brunnis-2 and the death of Kai in a theatre format. Many of the themes from this episode are based on German nursery rhymes with new lyrics. The usage of existing musical themes as well as the addition of an outside choir has placed these tracks into a legal grey area; as a result, they have not been officially released.


title: Lexx

text: There are four seasons of "Lexx", totalling 61 episodes. Season One debuted in Canada on April 18, 1997, and consisted of four two-hour TV movies (sometimes screened as eight one-hour episodes), alternatively titled by Sci Fi for the United States Audience as Tales from a Parallel Universe. Some episode guides do not list the two-hour movies as part of the series but list the subsequent seasons as the first through third.


title: Lexx

text: Season One consists of four 90-minute movies, following the misadventures of Stanley Tweedle, Zev Bellringer, Kai, 790, and the Lexx as they escape from the Cluster and try to find a new home in the Dark Zone, an evil and unforgiving universe. The story arc ends with their return to the Cluster as they destroy the Giga Shadow, the last remaining insect.


title: Lexx

text: Season Two consists of twenty 48-minute episodes, with a story arc concerning the evil scientist Mantrid who attempts to convert the entire mass of the two universes into Mantrid drones; flying, self-replicating robot arms. The crew tricks him into moving all the converted mass into a central point in the universe, creating a Big Crunch and destroying the Light Zone.


title: Lexx

text: Season Three consists of thirteen episodes in which the exhausted Lexx is trapped in orbit around the warring planets Fire and Water, and the crew encounters Prince, the enigmatic and cheerful evil ruler of Fire, who identifies himself as Death at the end of season four. Fire is the afterlife for all evil souls, and the location for much of season three. It shares a tight mutual orbit and an atmosphere with Water, the afterlife for all good souls in the two universes. Both worlds are locked in a perpetual war. The souls on Water and Fire have no memory of how they arrived there; they simply "woke up". They are incapable of sexual reproduction and there are no children on either planet. When anyone dies on Fire or Water, they go to a spiritual holding cell in which time stands still, giving the illusion that no time has passed no matter how long they have been there. When space opens up they "wake up" again, whole and healthy on their respective home planet. Fire is destroyed by the Lexx under the command of Xev at the end of Season Three. With Fire gone, Prince possesses the Lexx and destroys Water. When Water and Fire are both destroyed, it is revealed that both planets were on the other side of the Sun and that all the souls contained on both worlds have reincarnated on Earth.


title: Lexx

text: Season Four follows the Lexx as it arrives at Earth in the early 2000s, only to find that Prince (now Isambard Prince and head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which runs the United States) and several other old adversaries have also arrived there. The crew's arrival coincides with a large asteroid-like vessel filled with robotic carrots that sample the flavors of the various lifeforms on Earth. Between them, Prince, and the Lexx several large chunks of Earth are destroyed – including Orlando, Ottawa (a Canadian metonymical in-joke), Tokyo, the Amazon Rainforest, and Holland, which the Lexx eats – before the series finale, televised on April 26, 2002. Priest, the President of the United States, also destroys Cuba, Newfoundland, and Vietnam with thermonuclear bombs. The Lexx is also responsible for the destruction of Fire, Water, Pluto, Mars, Venus, and finally Earth.


title: Lexx

text: Salter Street Films in conjunction with Koch Vision released the first season on four VHS as 'lost episodes' in 1996.


title: Lexx

text: CFP Video, a distribution division of Columbia-TriStar Home Video, released a promo tape for 'I Worship His Shadow' in 1997.


title: Lexx

text: Kult T.V., a subsidiary of Contender Limited, released season one on VHS as 'Lexx: Stories from the Dark Zone' in 1999. They also released season two on VHS, this time as 'Lexx: The Series' in 2000.


title: Lexx

text: Acorn Media released seasons 2–4 on DVD in single volume collections as well as complete season sets between 2002 and 2004. These releases have been discontinued and are out of print. Echo Bridge Home Entertainment has released all 4 seasons on DVD in the US only. On September 3, 2013, Echo Bridge released "Lexx – The Complete Series" as a DVD box set in Region 1. The nine-disc set features all 61 episodes of the series. In Canada, Alliance Home Entertainment has released all four seasons on DVD.


title: Lexx

text: Seasons One through Three were released on VHS and Region 2 DVD in the UK by Contender Limited, although the Season Three DVDs were initially exclusive to the MVC Entertainment chain of stores and all volumes have since been deleted. Contender failed to obtain the rights to Season Four, which instead went to Momentum Pictures (a subsidiary of Alliance Atlantis). Momentum Pictures has not released any DVDs.


title: Lexx

text: All four seasons were also released on DVD in Germany. However, the Season 1 episodes of the German DVD release were cut to receive a 16 and up rating.


title: Lexx

text: Beyond Home Entertainment released all 4 seasons on DVD in Australia: Season 1 on July 11, 2007, Season 2 on September 12, 2007, Season 3 on October 17, 2007, and Season 4 on January 16, 2008. On May 13, 2009, Beyond Home Entertainment released "Lexx – The Complete Series", a 19-disc boxset featuring all 61 episodes of the series in a special collectible tin. On December 1, 2010, Beyond Home Entertainment re-released the 19-disc set as a boxset rather than the collector's tin released the year previously.


title: Lexx

text: Lexx is available through streaming television. Netflix provided versions of the show in the US as edited for US broadcast, though as of December 2013 it is no longer available. Similarly, Hulu had stopped streaming the show by November 2013 due to rights lapsing. In 2017, Lexx was available on Amazon Prime in the US, UK, and Australia by mid-2018. Although still included with Amazon Prime in the UK and Australia, the series was removed from Amazon Prime in the US in 2019, though episodes remained available for individual purchase and download.


title: Lexx

text: As of January 2020, all four seasons are available to view in the US on Hoopla and for free on Vudu. As of April 2020, all four seasons are available to view in the US and UK through The Roku Channel.


title: Lexx

text: Season One holds a 43% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on seven reviews. In a negative review, Linda Stasi of "New York Daily News" says she "can can only imagine that the great SciFi channel must have been captured by idiot monsters from outer space and Germany". Staff of "The Independent" called it "a wacky German-Canadian sci-fi import for people who find "Babylon 5" too cerebral... it's extremely gory, not a little nasty and rather fun".


title: Lexx

text: "TV Guide" called "Lexx" "a siren of distinction for its black comedy, skewed take on the human condition and open sexuality..." while calling the visual effects "stunning".


title: Lexx

text: Gavin Edwards of "Spin" gave praise to the visual effects, writing that "there was a time when a German-Canadian production like this would have had sets with wobbly walls and laughable special effects, but now computer costs are low enough that even when the story line flags – often – you will still be dazzled by state-of-the-art galactic vistas, exploding planets, and gargantuan phallic symbols streaking through the stars."


title: Lexx

text: In a retrospective, Chris Allcock of "Den of Geek" writes that "Lexx"'s appeal comes from a combination of its antiheroes, overarching plots and themes, experimentation with new ideas, and its simplistic humor, concluding that "Lexx" is "not exactly high-concept sci-fi, but damned if we didn't laugh anyway. For better or worse, "Lexx" really was one of a kind – and that's why we loved it".


title: Lexx

text: "Lexx" has garnered a cult following, primarily through word-of-mouth over the early Internet. A large number of fan sites have been created including forums, chat rooms, and sharing arts and crafts with other fans. The series is frequently referred to by the creators and fans as ""Star Trek"'s evil twin". Salter Street would host an annual "UnCon" convention where fans were invited to tour the studio and sets and meet the cast and crew. Each of the three conventions had over thirty, sixty, and a hundred guests each year, respectively.


title: Lexx

text: SciFiNow magazine included "Lexx" on their list of "Ten Overlooked Nineties Sci-Fi Shows". "Lexx" also achieved some mainstream notice with Xenia Seeberg as Xev appearing on a July 2000 cover of "TV Guide."


title: Lexx

text: The cast and crew have been asked on multiple occasions about continuing the series in the form of a spin-off or movie. While the cast acknowledge rumors about talks of a movie being in the works, Xenia Seeberg stated it is unlikely to occur due to funding and rights issues. Brian Downey also states that Sci Fi was "barely" interested in season four. The producers have stated on multiple occasions that the series was not cancelled and ended on their terms. Several members of the cast, including Downey, Seeberg, and Dubin, have stated they would love to work with each other again.


title: Lexx

text: Ellen Dubin says she was offered her role as Aunt Ilene on "Napoleon Dynamite" as the director was a fan of her part on "Lexx" as Giggerota.


title: Lexx

text: Some of the sets used in the show, such as the Lexx's cryochamber, appear as sets on "Made in Canada", which is also produced by Salter Street.


title: Lexx

text: The show's seasons had very different tones. While the original TV movies and the second season were mostly science fiction drama with dark comedy, season three took a more serious tone, exploring themes of life, death, and reincarnation on Fire and Water. The show's final season – set on Earth in the year 2000 – took many turns into pure farce and introduced magic and other new elements.


title: Lexx

text: "Lexx" was shown originally on Citytv in Canada and Showtime in the US, then later picked up by Space in Canada, Channel 5 in the United Kingdom and then the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States. On Sci-Fi, it aired in the same Friday night lineup as "Farscape", and the somewhat similar set-up for both shows (a misfit crew living on a huge, living starship) was often noted by critics, despite "Lexx" having premiered two years prior to "Farscape".


title: Lexx

text: The American release of "Lexx" differs slightly from other regions. In the beginning of the first film, the American version omits a scene in which Stanley is fooled and captured by Feppo. Other versions place this scene between the death of Kai and the time when Stanley wakes up on the cluster 2008 years later, while the American release places it at the start of "Giga Shadow". Thodin's bug bomb was also given a voice and personality. Paul Donovan says the changes were in response to TV audiences being confused about Stanley's loyalty and the bug bomb's purpose, joking that "My mother didn't understand it at all."


title: Lexx

text: As part of Sci Fi's acquisition of broadcasting rights for "Lexx" to the American audience, "Rated Lexx" was produced as a four-part serialized story to summarize the events that occurred in the series premiere. The story is told through both new and recycled footage and is narrated by the Lexx and 790 as they travel through a portal into the Light Zone, who speak directly to the audience about the events that have occurred thus far. It also provides a backstory for 790: His organic brain belonged to a waitress in a bar that attempted to bribe a priest in the Divine Order with sexual favors, but was caught and sentenced to become a 790 droid.


title: Peter Dante

text: Peter Francis Dante (born December 16, 1968) is an American character actor and comedian. He frequently appears in films from Happy Madison Productions alongside his friend Adam Sandler.


title: Peter Dante

text: Dante's roles are usually alongside Jonathan Loughran and/or Allen Covert. He played Peter in "Little Nicky". In "Grandma's Boy" he played Dante. He played a lawyer named Tommy in Adam Sandler's movie "Big Daddy". He played the quarterback Gee Grenouille in "The Waterboy" and Murph "Murphy" in "Mr. Deeds". He played a security guard in "50 First Dates".


title: Peter Dante

text: Dante was an actor and producer for the film "Grandma's Boy". In the film, Dante played a zany drug dealer with a pet chimpanzee, lion and elephant. He played a firefighter in the film "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry", and Danny Guiterrez in "Strange Wilderness". He also played the role of Steve Spirou's son in Adam Sandler's 2012 film "That's My Boy".


title: Peter Dante

text: Dante also worked in "Grown Ups 2" as Officer Peter Dante who was paired up with Shaquille O'Neal's character Officer Fluzoo.


title: Peter Dante

text: That was the last Happy Madison production he was involved in, followed by appearances in episodes of "Typical Rick" and "Sugar and Toys". In September 19 2020, Dante was arrested in Los Angeles on Wednesday at 9:40 A.M. with a felony charge after an altercation with his neighbor. He was booked in Los Angeles county jail and was released that night after posting a $50,000 bond. According to the reports, Dante was bothered by loud noises from construction work being done at a neighbor's residence and allegedly "threatened to kill" his neighbor and harm his wife and kids. This is not Dante's first arrest for making threats, the outlet notes. He was kicked out of a hotel and arrested in 2013 for making violent threats and using racial slurs. The last film production he worked in was the independent film, The Pizza Joint, released in 2021.


title: Peter Dante

text: Dante is also a musician and singer/songwriter. He recorded with Adam Sandler and Buck Simmonds. He is a member of the music group Rad Omen along with Dirt Nasty, DJ Troublemaker, Steven Laing, and Benji Madden. In 2011 he released his debut album "Peace, Love, and Freedom". He also appeared in a music video with Afroman in 2015. As of 2020, his most popular songs are "Dirty Road" and "My Purple Tree And Me" a collaboration with indie artist Shadoe.


title: Peter Dante

text: Dante spent a post-graduate year (1987-1988) at Fork Union Military Academy playing football and lacrosse. He stated in an interview that "It was a good experience going down South".


title: Peter Dante

text: He is a graduate of Hofstra University, where he played lacrosse. He was an assistant coach for the lacrosse team at Loyola Marymount University for the 2011 season, and has coached many club teams, including the Riptide lacrosse team, that made it to the state championships.


title: Silent Night

text: "Silent Night" () is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011. The song was first recorded in 1905 and has remained a popular success, appearing in films and multiple successful recordings, as well as being quoted in other musical compositions.


title: Silent Night

text: "" was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village in the Austrian Empire on the Salzach river in present-day Austria. A young Catholic priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, he had written the poem "" in 1816 at Mariapfarr, the hometown of his father in the Salzburg Lungau region, where Joseph had worked as an assistant priest.


title: Silent Night

text: The melody was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, schoolmaster and organist in the nearby village of , now part of Lamprechtshausen. On Christmas Eve 1818, Mohr brought the words to Gruber and asked him to compose a melody and guitar accompaniment for that night's mass, after river flooding had possibly damaged the church organ. The church was eventually destroyed by repeated flooding and replaced with the Silent-Night-Chapel. It is unknown what inspired Mohr to write the lyrics, or what prompted him to create a new carol.


title: Silent Night

text: According to Gruber, Karl Mauracher, an organ builder who serviced the instrument at the Oberndorf church, was enamoured of the song, and took the composition home with him to the Zillertal. From there, two travelling families of folk singers, the Strassers and the Rainers, included the tune in their shows. The Rainers were already singing it around Christmas 1819, and once performed it for an audience that included Franz I of Austria and Alexander I of Russia, as well as making the first performance of the song in the U.S., in New York City in 1839. By the 1840s the song was well known in Lower Saxony and was reported to be a favourite of Frederick William IV of Prussia. During this period, the melody changed slightly to become the version that is commonly played today.


title: Silent Night

text: Over the years, because the original manuscript had been lost, Mohr's name was forgotten and although Gruber was known to be the composer, many people assumed the melody was composed by a famous composer, and it was variously attributed to Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven. However, a manuscript was discovered in 1995 in Mohr's handwriting and dated by researchers as . It states that Mohr wrote the words in 1816 when he was assigned to a pilgrim church in Mariapfarr, Austria, and shows that the music was composed by Gruber in 1818. This is the earliest manuscript that exists and the only one in Mohr's handwriting.


title: Silent Night

text: The first edition was published by in 1833 in a collection of "Four Genuine Tyrolean Songs", with the following musical text:


title: Silent Night

text: In 1859, the Episcopal priest John Freeman Young, then serving at Trinity Church, New York City, wrote and published the English translation that is most frequently sung today, translated from three of Mohr's original six verses. The version of the melody that is generally used today is a slow, meditative lullaby or pastorale, differing slightly (particularly in the final strain) from Gruber's original, which was a "moderato" tune in time and siciliana rhythm. Today, the lyrics and melody are in the public domain, although newer translations usually are not.


title: Silent Night

text: In 1998 the Silent Night Museum in Salzburg commissioned a new English translation by Bettina Klein of Mohr's German lyrics. Whenever possible, (and mostly), Klein leaves the Young translation unchanged, but occasionally Klein (and Mohr) varies markedly. For example, "Nur das traute hochheilige Paar, Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar" is translated by Young: "Round yon Virgin mother and child, Holy infant so tender and mild" whereas Klein rewords it: "Round yon godly tender pair, Holy infant with curly hair", a translation closer to the original.


title: Silent Night

text: Alfred Schnittke composed an arrangement of "Stille Nacht" for violin and piano in 1978, as a holiday greeting for violinist Gidon Kremer. Due to its dissonant and nightmarish character, the miniature caused a scandal in Austria.


title: Silent Night

text: Several theatrical and television films depict how the song was ostensibly written. Most of them report the organ breaking down at the church in Oberndorf, which appeared in a fictional story published in the U.S. in the 1930s.


title: Silent Night

text: Several recordings of "Silent Night" have reached the record charts in various countries. These include:


title: Sons of God

text: Sons of God (, literally: "sons of the Elohim") is a phrase used in the Tanakh or Old Testament and in Christian Apocrypha. The phrase is also used in Kabbalah where bene elohim are part of different Jewish angelic hierarchies.


title: Sons of God

text: The first mention of "sons of God" in the Hebrew Bible occurs at Genesis 6:1–4. In terms of literary-historical origin, this phrase is typically associated with the Jahwist tradition.


title: Sons of God

text: That the "sons of God" were separate enough from the "daughters of men" that they warranted such a distinction, has spawned millennia's worth of debate regarding the meaning of the term. Historically, in Jewish thought, this passage has had many interpretations. Here are three:


title: Sons of God

text: Rabbinic Judaism traditionally adheres to the first interpretation, with some exceptions, and modern Jewish translations may translate "bnei elohim" as "sons of rulers" rather than "sons of God". Regardless, the second interpretation (sons of angels or other divine beings) is nonexistent in modern Judaism. This is reflected by the rejection of Enoch and other Apocrypha supporting the second interpretation from the Hebrew Bible Canon.


title: Sons of God

text: Claus Westermann claims that the text of Genesis 6 is based on an Ugaritic urtext. In Ugaritic, a cognate phrase is "bn 'il". This may occur in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle.


title: Sons of God

text: The phrase "bn ilm" ("sons of the gods") is also attested in Ugaritic texts, as is the phrase "phr bn ilm" ("assembly of the sons of the gods").


title: Sons of God

text: Elsewhere in the Ugarit corpus it is suggested that the "bn ilm" were the 70 sons of Asherah and El, who were the titulary deities of the people of the known world, and their "hieros gamos" marriage with the daughters of men gave rise to their rulers. There is evidence in 2 Samuel 7 that this may have been the case also in Israel.


title: Sons of God

text: J. Scharbert associates Genesis 6:1–4 with the Priestly source and the final redaction of the Pentateuch. On this basis, he assigns the text to later editorial activity. Rüdiger Bartelmus sees only Genesis 6:3 as a late insertion.


title: Sons of God

text: Józef Milik and Matthew Black advanced the view of a late text addition to a text dependent on post-exilic, non-canonical tradition, such as the legend of the Watchers from the pseudepigraphic version of the Book of Enoch.


title: Sons of God

text: Different source versions of Genesis 6:1–4 vary in their use of "sons of God". Some manuscripts of the Septuagint have emendations to read "sons of God" as "angels". Codex Vaticanus contains "angels" originally. In Codex Alexandrinus "sons of God" has been omitted and replaced by "angels". This reading of Angels is further confirmed by Augustine in his work City of God where he speaks of both variants in book 15 chapter 23. The Peshitta reads "sons of God". Furthermore the Vulgate goes for the literal "filii Dei" meaning Sons of God. Most modern translations of Christian bibles retain this whereas Jewish ones tend to deviate to such as "Sons of Rulers" which may in part be due to Simeon ben Yohai who cursed anyone who translated this as "Sons of God" (Genesis Rabbah 26:7).


title: Sons of God

text: Beyond this in both the Codices Job 1:6 and Deuteronomy 32:8 when the phrase "angels of God" is used in place of where the Hebrew says "sons of God". For the verse in Deuteronomy the Masoretic Text does not say "sons of God" but "sons of Israel" however in 4Q37 the term "sons of God" is used. This is probably the root reading for the reading we see in the Septuagint.


title: Sons of God

text: The Book of Enoch, the Enochic Book of Giants, and the Book of Jubilees refer to the Watchers who are paralleled to the "sons of God" in Genesis 6. The Epistle of Barnabas is considered by some to acknowledge the Enochian version.


title: Sons of God

text: Christian writers such as Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Commodianus believed that the "sons of God" in Genesis 6:1–4 were fallen angels who engaged in unnatural union with human women, resulting in the begetting of the Nephilim. Some scholars view Jesus' comment in that angels in heaven do not marry, as a refutation to this view.


title: Sons of God

text: Other early Christians believed that the "sons of God" in Genesis 6:1–4 were the descendants of Seth. Augustine of Hippo subscribed to this view, based on the "Chronographiai" of Julius Africanus in his book "City of God", which refer to the "sons of God" as being descendants of Seth (or Sethites), the pure line of Adam. The "daughters of men" are viewed as the descendants of Cain (or Cainites). Variations of this view were also received by Jewish philosophers.


title: Sons of God

text: Traditionalists and philosophers of Judaism in the Middle Ages typically practiced rational theology. They rejected any belief in rebel or fallen angels since evil was considered abstract. Rabbinic sources, most notably the Targum, state that the "sons of God" who married the daughters of men were merely human beings of exalted social station. They have also been considered as pagan royalty or members of nobility who, out of lust, married women from the general population. Other variations of this interpretation define these "sons of God" as tyrannical Ancient Near Eastern kings who were honored as divine rulers, engaging in polygamous behavior. No matter the variation in views, the primary concept by Jewish rationalists is that the "sons of God" were of human origin.


title: Sons of God

text: Saadia, Rashi, Lekah Tob, Midrash Aggada, Joseph Bekor Shor, Abraham ibn Ezra, Maimonides, David Kimhi, Nahmanides, Hizkuni, Bahya Ashur. Gersonides, Shimeon ben Yochai, and Hillel ben Samuel.


title: Sons of God

text: Ibn Ezra reasoned that the "sons of God" were men who possessed divine power, by means of astrological knowledge, able to beget children of unusual size and strength.


title: Sons of God

text: Jewish commentator Isaac Abrabanel considered the "aggadot" on Genesis 6 to have referred to some secret doctrine and was not to be taken literally. Abrabanel later joined Nahmanides and Levi ben Gerson in promoting the concept that the "sons of God" were the older generations who were closer to physical perfection, as Adam and Eve were perfect. Though there are variations of this view, the primary idea was that Adam and Eve's perfect attributes were passed down from generation to generation. However, as each generation passed, their perfect physical attributes diminished. Thus, the early generations were mightier than the succeeding ones. The physical decline of the younger generations continued until the Flood, to the point that their days were numbered as stated in Genesis 6:3. It was immoral for the older generations to consort with the younger generations, whereby puny women begot unusually large children. "Nephilim" was even considered a stature.


title: Sons of God

text: Jacob Anatoli and Isaac Arama viewed the groups and events in Genesis 6:1–4 as an allegory, primarily for the sin of lust that declined man's higher nature.


title: David Raya

text: David Raya Martín (born 15 September 1995) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for club Brentford and the Spain national team. He began his senior career with Blackburn Rovers and transferred to Brentford in 2019.


title: David Raya

text: Born in Barcelona, Raya began his career in his native Spain, combining goalkeeping with playing as an outfield player in futsal. He later played youth football for UE Cornellà, before moving to England to join Blackburn Rovers on a scholarship in July 2012. Two years earlier, the transfer of Hugo Fernández to Ewood Park had led to an agreement between the two clubs for UE Cornellà players to join Blackburn Rovers for trials. He progressed through the club's academy and signed a professional contract on 26 February 2014. Raya gained his first senior experience with a four-month spell on loan at Conference Premier club Southport during the first half of the 2014–15 season and made 24 appearances. After his return to Ewood Park, he made two late-season Championship appearances and signed a new three-year contract in April 2015.


title: David Raya

text: Despite making just 13 appearances during the 2015–16 and 2016–17 seasons, Raya was Rovers' second-choice goalkeeper behind Jason Steele and was a frequent member of the matchday squad. Rovers' relegation to League One at the end of the 2016–17 season saw Raya take over as the club's first-choice goalkeeper. He made 47 appearances during the 2017–18 season and helped the club to automatic promotion straight back to the Championship. He retained in his place during 2018–19 and made 46 appearances during a season of consolidation in the Championship. Raya departed Rovers in July 2019, after making 108 appearances for the club.


title: David Raya

text: On 6 July 2019, Raya signed for Championship club Brentford on a four-year contract for an undisclosed fee, reported to be in the region of £3 million. Raya's performances during the first half of the 2019–20 season earned him a nomination for Goalkeeper of the Year at the 2020 London Football Awards and his 16 clean sheets in league matches during the season saw him share the EFL Golden Glove award with Bartosz Białkowski. Raya made 49 appearances during a season which ended with a 2–1 2020 Championship play-off Final defeat to West London rivals Fulham.


title: David Raya

text: Injury and transfer speculation led to Raya being left out of head coach Thomas Frank's matchday squads during the 2020–21 pre-season and early in the regular season. After being reintegrated with two EFL Cup appearances and captaining the team in both matches, he signed a new four-year contract on 2 October 2020. Raya finished the 2020–21 season with 48 appearances, 17 clean sheets and a promotion medal, earned with a 2–0 2021 Championship play-off Final victory over Swansea City. In his growing role as a sweeper-keeper, Raya attempted 300 more passes than any other Championship goalkeeper during the season.


title: David Raya

text: Raya began the 2021–22 season as an ever-present in Premier League matches, before suffering a posterior cruciate ligament injury during a 2–1 defeat to Leicester City on 24 October 2021. He returned to outdoor training on 10 January 2022. After a behind closed doors friendly appearance on 1 February 2022, Raya made his return to competitive match play with a start in a 4–1 FA Cup fourth round defeat to Everton four days later. He was an ever-present until the end of the campaign and finished a mid-table season with 25 appearances.


title: David Raya

text: After failing to receive a call-up by Spain at youth level, Raya won his maiden international call-up to the senior team for a pair of friendlies in March 2022. He made his debut with a start in a 2–1 win over Albania on 26 March and remained an unused substitute in the second match. Raya was an unused substitute in all six of Spain's 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A fixtures. In November 2022, Raya was named in Spain's 2022 World Cup squad. Prior to the team's exit in the round of 16, his only match play during the period came with a second half substitute appearance in a pre-tournament friendly versus Jordan.


title: David Raya

text: A sweeper-keeper, Raya "is renowned as a vocal keeper, as well as one who is adept with the ball at his feet". He "can play out from the back and is happy covering the space in behind", which allows a team "to play with a high line". As a result of his and Brentford's style of play during the 2020–21 season, Raya attempted 300 more passes than any other goalkeeper in the Championship.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: A high-occupancy vehicle lane (also known as an HOV lane, carpool lane, diamond lane, 2+ lane, and transit lane or T2 or T3 lanes) is a restricted traffic lane reserved for the exclusive use of vehicles with a driver and one or more passengers, including carpools, vanpools, and transit buses. These restrictions may be only imposed during peak travel times or may apply at all times. According to the criteria used there are different types of lanes: temporary or permanent with concrete barriers; two-directional or reversible; and exclusive, concurrent or contraflow lanes working in peak periods. The normal minimum occupancy level is 2 or 3 occupants. Many jurisdictions exempt other vehicles, including motorcycles, charter buses, emergency and law enforcement vehicles, low-emission and other green vehicles, and/or single-occupancy vehicles paying a toll. HOV lanes are normally introduced to increase average vehicle occupancy and persons traveling with the goal of reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, although their effectiveness is questionable.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Regional and corporate-sponsored vanpools, carpools, and rideshare communities give commuters a way to increase occupancy. For places without such services, online rideshare communities can serve a similar purpose. Slugging lines are common in some places, where solo drivers pick up a passenger to share the ride and allow them to use the HOV lane.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Since HOV lanes are unpopular, since they require drivers to find others to carpool with, high-occupancy toll lanes (HOT lanes) have been introduced in the United States and Canada. These lanes do allow solo driver vehicles, but require a fee. It turns out people are more willing to pay a fee than to accommodate other travelers and their schedules. Another way of phrasing this is to define HOT lanes as HOV lanes that allow vehicles that don't meet occupancy requirements to pay a toll to use the lane. In practice, however, they're considered more as toll lanes that just so happen to be free of charge in those (relatively infrequent) cases where you aren't alone in your car. This way, a chief purpose of the HOV lane - to reduce the number of cars on the road by making more people on average ride one car - has been supplanted by merely charging solo riders more money.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The introduction of HOV lanes in the United States progressed slowly during the 1970s and early 1980s. Major growth occurred from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. The first freeway HOV lane in the United States was implemented in the Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway in Northern Virginia, between Washington, DC, and the Capital Beltway, and was opened in 1969 as a bus-only lane. The busway was opened in December 1973 to carpools with four or more occupants, becoming the first instance in which buses and carpools officially shared a HOV lane over a considerable distance.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In 2005, the two lanes of this HOV 3+ facility carried during the morning peak hour (6:30 am to 9:30 am) a total of 31,700 people in 8,600 vehicles (3.7 persons/veh), while the three or four general-purpose lanes carried 23,500 people in 21,300 vehicles (1.1 persons/veh). Average travel time in the HOV facility was 29 minutes, and 64 minutes in the general traffic lanes. As of 2012, the I-95/I-395 HOV facility is long, extends from Washington, D.C., to Dumfries, Virginia, and has two reversible lanes separated from the regular lanes by barriers, with access through elevated on- and off-ramps. Three or more people in a vehicle (HOV 3+) are required to travel on the facility during rush hours on weekdays.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The second freeway HOV facility was the contraflow bus lane on the Lincoln Tunnel Approach and Helix in Hudson County, New Jersey, opened in 1970. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Lincoln Tunnel XBL is the country's HOV facility with the highest number of peak hour persons among HOV facilities with utilization data available, with 23,500 persons in the morning peak, and 62,000 passengers during the four-hour morning peak.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The first permanent HOV facility in California was the bypass lane at the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge toll plaza, opened to the public in April 1970. The El Monte Busway (I-10 / San Bernardino Freeway) in Los Angeles was initially only available for buses when it opened in 1973. Three-person carpools were allowed to use the bus lane for three months in 1974 due to a strike by bus operators, and then permanently at a 3+ HOV from 1976. It is one of the most efficient HOV facilities in North America and is currently being converted into a high-occupancy toll lane operation to allow low-occupancy vehicles to bid for excess capacity on the lane in the Metro ExpressLanes project.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Beginning in the 1970s, the Urban Mass Transit Administration recognized the advantages of exclusive bus lanes and encouraged their funding. In the 1970s the FHWA began to allow state highway agencies to spend federal funds on HOV lanes. As a result of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, interest in ridesharing picked up, and states began experimenting with HOV lanes. In order to reduce crude oil consumption, the 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act mandated maximum speed limits of on public highways and became the first instance when the U.S. federal government provided funding for ridesharing and states were allowed to spend their highway funds on rideshare demonstration projects. The 1978 Surface Transportation Assistance Act made funding for rideshare initiatives permanent.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Also during the early 1970s, ridesharing was recommended for the first time as a tool to mitigate air quality problems. The 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments established the National Ambient Air Quality Standards and gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) substantial authority to regulate air quality attainment. A final control plan for the Los Angeles Basin was issued in 1973, and one of its main provisions was a two-phase conversion of of freeway and arterial roadway lanes to bus/carpool lanes and the development of a regional computerized carpool matching system. However, it took until 1985 before any HOV project was constructed in Los Angeles County, and by 1993 there were only of HOV lanes countywide.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: A significant policy shift took place in October 1990, when a memorandum from the FHWA administrator stated that ""FHWA strongly supports the objective of HOV preferential facilities and encourages the proper application of HOV technology."" Regional administrators were directed to promote HOV lanes and related facilities. Also in the early 1990s, two laws reinforced the U.S. commitment to HOV lane construction. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 included HOV lanes as one of the transportation control measures that could be included in state implementation plans to attain federal air quality standards. The 1990 amendments also deny the administrator of the EPA the authority to block FHWA from funding 24-hour HOV lanes as part of the sanctions for a state's failure to comply with the Clean Air Act, if the secretary of transportation wishes to approve the FHWA funds.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: On the other hand, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 encouraged the construction of HOV lanes, which were made eligible for Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funds in regions not attaining federal air quality standards. CMAQ funds may be spent on new HOV lane construction, even if the HOV designation holds only at peak travel times or in the peak direction. ISTEA also provided that under the Interstate Maintenance Program, only HOV projects would receive the 90% federal matching ratio formerly available for the addition of general purpose lanes. ISTEA, in addition, permitted state authorities to define a high occupancy vehicle as having a minimum of two occupants (HOV 2+).


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: As of 2009, California was the state with the most HOV facilities in the country, with 88, followed by Minnesota with 83 facilities, Washington with 41, Texas with 35, and Virginia with 21. By 2006, HOV lanes in California were operating at two-thirds of their capacity, and these HOV facilities carried on average 2,518 persons per hour during peak hours, substantially more people than the congested general-traffic lanes.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: As of October 2016, the longest continuous HOV facility in the U.S. is on I-15 in Utah, extending approximately from Layton to Spanish Fork with a single HOV lane in each direction for a total of of HOV lanes. While the Utah facility is the longest, the I-495 Capital Beltway in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area extends but has two HOV lanes in each direction for a total of of HOV lanes.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: As of 2012, there are some 126 HOV facilities on freeways in 27 metropolitan areas in the United States, which includes over 1,000 corridor miles (1,600 km).


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The first HOV facilities in Canada were opened in Greater Vancouver and Toronto in the early 1990s, followed shortly by facilities in Ottawa, Gatineau, Montreal, and later Calgary. As of 2010 there were about of highway HOV lanes in 11 locations in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec, and over of arterial HOV lanes in 24 locations in Greater Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Gatineau. The Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) in 2006 estimated that commuters in Toronto using the HOV facilities on Highways 403 and 404 were saving 14–17 minutes per trip compared to their travel time before the HOV lanes opened. The MTO also estimated that almost 40% of commuters were carpooling on Highway 403 eastbound in the morning peak hour, compared to 14% in 2003, and 37% of commuters were carpooling on Highway 403 westbound in the afternoon peak hour, compared to 22% in 2003. The average rush hour speed on the HOV lanes is , compared to in general-traffic lanes on Highway 403.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Temporary HOV lanes were added to selections of 400-series highways in the Greater Toronto Area for the 2015 Pan American Games and 2015 Parapan American Games.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: As of 2012, there are a few HOV lanes in operation in Europe. The main reason for this is that, in general, European cities have better public transport services and fewer high-capacity multi-lane urban motorways than do the U.S. and Canada. However, at around 1.3 persons per vehicle, average car occupancy is relatively low in most European cities. The emphasis in Europe has been on providing bus lanes and on-street bus priority measures.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The first HOV lane in Europe was opened in the Netherlands in October 1993 and operated until August 1994. Its facility was a barrier-separated HOV 3+ on the A1 near Amsterdam. The facility did not attract enough users to overcome public criticism and was converted to a reversible lane open to general traffic after the judge in a legal test case ruled that Dutch traffic law lacked the concept of a car pool and thus that the principle of equality was violated.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Spain was the next European country to introduce HOV lanes (), when median reversible Bus-VAO lanes were opened in Madrid's A-6 in 1995. This facility is Europe's oldest HOV facility that is still in operation.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The first HOV facility in the United Kingdom opened in Leeds in 1998. The facility was implemented on A647 road near Leeds as an experimental scheme, but it became permanent. The HOV facility is long and operates as a HOV 2+ facility.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The first HOV lane in Norway was implemented in May 2001 as an HOV 3+ on Elgeseter Street, an undivided four-lane arterial road in Trondheim. This facility was followed by HOV lanes in Oslo and Kristiansand.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The first HOV lane (known as a Transit Lane T2 or T3) in Australia opened in February 1992, located on the Eastern Freeway in Melbourne travelling inbound. In May 2005, T2 Transit lanes were opened on Hoddle Street in Melbourne. As of 2012, there were also T2 and T3 facilities in Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In Auckland, New Zealand, there are several short HOV 2+ and 3+ lanes throughout the region, commonly known as T2 and T3 lanes. There is a T2 transit lane in Tamaki Drive, in a short stretch between Okahu Bay Reserve and downtown Auckland. There are also T2 priority lanes on Auckland's Northern, Southern, Northwestern, and Southwestern Motorways. These priority lanes are left-side on-ramp lanes heading towards the motorway, where vehicles with two or more people can bypass the ramp meter signal. Priority lanes can also be used by trucks, buses, and motorcycles, and the priority lanes can be used by carpoolers at any time. Eleven lanes were opened to electric vehicles in a one-year trial from September 2017. There are also several short T2 and T3 facilities in North Shore City operating during rush hours.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In Jakarta, HOV 3+ is known as "Three in One" ("Tiga dalam satu") and was first implemented by governor Sutiyoso. HOV 3+ is implemented on weekdays in existing roads of Sisingamangaraja Road (fast and slow lane), Jalan Jenderal Sudirman (fast and slow lane), Jalan M.H. Thamrin (fast and slow lane), Medan Merdeka Barat Road, Majapahit Road, and sections of Jalan Jenderal Gatot Subroto. The policy was originally implemented only between 7:00 am and 10:00 am. Since the introduction of Jakarta's bus rapid transit in December 2003, the policy was extended to 7:00 am – 10:00 am and 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm. In September 2004, the evening time was changed to 4:30 pm – 7:00 pm. Car jockeys are paid by drivers to ride on vehicles, so that those vehicles would bypass the three in one restriction. On August 30, 2016, an odd–even rationing ("ganjil-genap") system began to replace "3-in-1" rule, after a successful trial. Odd plate numbers can enter former "3-in-1" areas on odd days and even plate numbers on even ones.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In Shenzhen, HOV 2+ has been implemented on Binhai Avenue since 25 April 2016. The policy was then extended to 7:30 am – 9:30 am and 5:30 pm – 9:30 pm.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In Chengdu, from January 23, 2017, HOV 2+ has been implemented on Kehua Road South, Kehua Road Middle, and Tianfu Avenue Section 1 and 2, during 7:00 am-9: 00 am and 5:00 pm-7: 00 pm.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In Dalian, an expressway (Northeast Expressway, or Dongbei Expressway) linking old town and new town had one lane in both outbound and inbound directions set to HOV 2+. Starting from September 20, 2017, commuters can opt to drive in HOV lane on Northeast Expressway during the morning peak hours of 06:30-08:30, and evening peak hours of 16:30-19:00. A fine of CNY100 (about USD15) will be enforced for first violators. For a second violation, the fine will double.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: HOV lanes may be either a single traffic lane within the main roadway with distinctive markings or a separate roadway with one or more traffic lanes either parallel to the general lanes or grade-separated, above or below the general lanes. For example, Interstate 110 in California has four HOV lanes on an upper deck.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: HOV bypass lanes to allow carpool traffic and police to bypass areas of regular congestion in many places and an HOV lane may operate as a reversible lane, working in the direction of the dominant traffic flow in both the morning and the afternoon. All lanes of a section of the Interstate 66 in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., are treated as an HOV during the rush hour in the primary direction of flow.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The traffic speed differential between HOV and general-purpose lanes creates a potentially dangerous situation if the HOV lanes are not separated by a barrier. A Texas Transportation Institute study found that HOV lanes lacking barrier separations caused a 50% increase in injury crashes.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: A business access and transit (BAT) lane is a type of HOV lane that allows for all traffic to enter the lane for a short distance in order to access other streets and business entrances.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Because some HOV lanes were not utilized to their full capacity, users of low- or single-occupancy vehicles may be permitted to use an HOV lane if they pay a toll. This scheme is known as high-occupancy toll lane (or HOT lanes), and it has been introduced mainly in the United States. The first practical implementation was California's formerly private toll 91 Express Lanes, in Orange County, California, in 1995, followed in 1996 by Interstate 15 north of San Diego. According to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, by 2012 there were 294 corridor-miles of HOT/Express lanes and 163 corridor-miles of HOT/Express lanes under construction in the United States.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Solo drivers are permitted to use the HOV lanes upon payment of a fee that varies based on demand. Tolls change throughout the day according to real-time traffic conditions, which is intended to manage the number of cars in the lanes to maintain good journey times.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Proponents claim that all motorists benefit from HOT lanes, even those who choose not to use them. This argument applies only to projects that increase the total number of lanes. Proponents also claim that HOT lanes provide an incentive to use transit and ridesharing. There has been controversy over this concept, and HOT schemes have been called "Lexus" lanes, as critics see this new pricing scheme as a perk for the rich.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: HOT tolls are collected by staffed toll booths, automatic number plate recognition, or electronic toll collection systems. Some systems use RFID transmitters to monitor entry and exiting of the lane and charge drivers depending on demand. Typically, tolls increase as traffic density and congestion within the tolled lanes increase, a policy known as congestion pricing. The goal of this pricing scheme is to minimize traffic congestion within the lanes.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: New York City HOV lane codes prior to 2008 did not allow motorcycles leading to ticketing of motorcycle drivers and complaints from the American Motorcyclist Association, but have since been revised to comply with the federal regulations listed above.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In some jurisdictions such as Ontario, Canada, taxicabs and airport limousines are allowed to use HOV lanes even when no passenger is present because that vehicle "will be able return to duty faster after dropping off a fare or arrive sooner to pick up a fare, thereby moving more people to their destinations in fewer vehicles".


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In Virginia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Houston, and other HOV lane locations, commuters form sluglines where drivers pick up one or more passengers from a designated "casual carpool" or "slug lines" to drive on HOV lanes; the driver pulls over near the sluglines and shouts out their destination, and people in the line going to that destination enter the car on a first-come, first-served basis.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Following the introduction of HOVs, some drivers placed inflatable dolls in the passenger seat, a practice that persists today, even though it is now illegal. Cameras that can distinguish between humans and mannequins or dolls were tested in the United Kingdom in 2005.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In the United States, law enforcement officials have documented a variety of methods used by drivers in attempts to circumvent HOV occupancy rules:


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In early 2006, an Arizona woman asserted that she had been improperly ticketed for using the HOV lane because the unborn child she was carrying in her womb justified her use of the lane, while noting that Arizona traffic laws do not define what constitutes a person. However, a judge subsequently ruled that to qualify as an "individual" under Arizona traffic laws, the individual must occupy a "separate and distinct" space in a vehicle. Likewise, in California, in order to use HOV lanes, there must be two (or, if posted, three) separate individuals occupying seats in a vehicle, and an unborn child does not count towards this requirement.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In 2009 and 2010 it was found that non-compliance rates on HOV lanes in Brisbane, Australia, were approaching 90%. Enhanced enforcement led to increased compliance, average bus journey times dropped by about 19%, and total person throughput increased by 12%.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In February 2010, a 61-year-old woman tried to pass off a life-sized mannequin as a passenger in order to use the HOV lane in New York State. A police officer on a routine HOV patrol became suspicious when he noticed that the so-called passenger was wearing sunglasses and using the visor on a cloudy morning. When the officer approached the vehicle, he discovered that the "passenger" was, in fact, a mannequin wearing lipstick, designer shades, a full-length wig, and a blue sweater. The driver was issued a traffic ticket for using the HOV lane without a human passenger, which carries a fine of $135 in 2010 and two points on a driver's license.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In January 2013, a motorist tried to claim that the Articles of Incorporation of his business, which had been placed unbuckled on the passenger’s seat, constituted a person, citing the principle of corporate personhood and California's state Vehicle Code, which defines a person as "natural persons and corporations". This argument was rejected in traffic court, where the presiding judge commented, "Common sense says carrying a sheaf of papers in the front seat does not relieve traffic congestion."


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In March 2015, a motorist tried to use a cardboard cutout of actor Jonathan Goldsmith to access an HOV lane in Fife, Washington. The officer noted that other drivers had used sleeping bags in earlier attempts to access the HOV lane.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: In July 2022, a pregnant woman in Texas argued that her fetus counted as a passenger for the purpose of using the HOV lane following the "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization" decision and Texas law subsequently considering fetuses people.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: According to 2009 data from the U.S. census, 76% drive to work alone and only 10% rideshare. For suburban commuters working in a city, the solo driving rate is 82%.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Some underused HOV lanes in several states have been converted to high-occupancy toll lanes (HOT), which offer solo drivers access to HOV lanes after paying a toll.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: HOV lanes are also an effective way to manage traffic after natural disasters, as seen in New York City after Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. At the time Mayor Bloomberg banned passenger cars with fewer than three occupants from entering Manhattan. The restriction affected all bridges and tunnels entering the city except the George Washington Bridge.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: Critics have argued that HOV lanes are underused. It is unclear whether HOV lanes are sufficiently used to compensate for delays in the other mixed-use lanes.


title: High-occupancy vehicle lane

text: The situations have caused social problems in Indonesia, where some people become "car jockey", people who make their living by offering drivers to fill their car in order to meet the occupancy limit. Reportedly, the situation caused people stay in unemployment for doing so, increased congestion and let parents profit from their babies.


title: Empirical research

text: Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of one's direct observations or experiences) can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. Quantifying the evidence or making sense of it in qualitative form, a researcher can answer empirical questions, which should be clearly defined and answerable with the evidence collected (usually called data). Research design varies by field and by the question being investigated. Many researchers combine qualitative and quantitative forms of analysis to better answer questions that cannot be studied in laboratory settings, particularly in the social sciences and in education.


title: Empirical research

text: In some fields, quantitative research may begin with a research question (e.g., "Does listening to vocal music during the learning of a word list have an effect on later memory for these words?") which is tested through experimentation. Usually, the researcher has a certain theory regarding the topic under investigation. Based on this theory, statements or hypotheses will be proposed (e.g., "Listening to vocal music has a negative effect on learning a word list."). From these hypotheses, predictions about specific events are derived (e.g., "People who study a word list while listening to vocal music will remember fewer words on a later memory test than people who study a word list in silence."). These predictions can then be tested with a suitable experiment. Depending on the outcomes of the experiment, the theory on which the hypotheses and predictions were based will be supported or not, or may need to be modified and then subjected to further testing.


title: Empirical research

text: The term empirical was originally used to refer to certain ancient Greek practitioners of medicine who rejected adherence to the dogmatic doctrines of the day, preferring instead to rely on the observation of phenomena as perceived in experience. Later empiricism referred to a theory of knowledge in philosophy which adheres to the principle that knowledge arises from experience and evidence gathered specifically using the senses. In scientific use, the term empirical refers to the gathering of data using only evidence that is observable by the senses or in some cases using calibrated scientific instruments. What early philosophers described as empiricist and empirical research have in common is the dependence on observable data to formulate and test theories and come to conclusions.


title: Empirical research

text: The researcher attempts to describe accurately the interaction between the instrument (or the human senses) and the entity being observed. If instrumentation is involved, the researcher is expected to calibrate his/her instrument by applying it to known standard objects and documenting the results before applying it to unknown objects. In other words, it describes the research that has not taken place before and their results.


title: Empirical research

text: In practice, the accumulation of evidence for or against any particular theory involves planned research designs for the collection of empirical data, and academic rigor plays a large part of judging the merits of research design. Several typologies for such designs have been suggested, one of the most popular of which comes from Campbell and Stanley. They are responsible for popularizing the widely cited distinction among pre-experimental, experimental, and quasi-experimental designs and are staunch advocates of the central role of randomized experiments in educational research.


title: Empirical research

text: Accurate analysis of data using standardized statistical methods in scientific studies is critical to determining the validity of empirical research. Statistical formulas such as regression, uncertainty coefficient, t-test, chi square, and various types of ANOVA (analyses of variance) are fundamental to forming logical, valid conclusions. If empirical data reach significance under the appropriate statistical formula, the research hypothesis is supported. If not, the null hypothesis is supported (or, more accurately, not rejected), meaning no effect of the independent variable(s) was observed on the dependent variable(s).


title: Empirical research

text: The outcome of empirical research using statistical hypothesis testing is never "proof". It can only "support" a hypothesis, "reject" it, or do neither. These methods yield only probabilities. Among scientific researchers, empirical "evidence" (as distinct from empirical "research") refers to objective evidence that appears the same regardless of the observer. For example, a thermometer will not display different temperatures for each individual who observes it. Temperature, as measured by an accurate, well calibrated thermometer, is empirical evidence. By contrast, non-empirical evidence is subjective, depending on the observer. Following the previous example, observer A might truthfully report that a room is warm, while observer B might truthfully report that the same room is cool, though both observe the same reading on the thermometer. The use of empirical evidence negates this effect of personal (i.e., subjective) experience or time.


title: Empirical research

text: The varying perception of empiricism and rationalism shows concern with the limit to which there is dependency on experience of sense as an effort of gaining knowledge. According to rationalism, there are a number of different ways in which sense experience is gained independently for the knowledge and concepts. According to empiricism, sense experience is considered as the main source of every piece of knowledge and the concepts.


title: Empirical research

text: In general, rationalists are known for the development of their own views following two different way. First, the key argument can be placed that there are cases in which the content of knowledge or concepts end up outstripping the information. This outstripped information is provided by the sense experience (Hjørland, 2010, 2). Second, there is construction of accounts as to how reasoning helps in the provision of addition knowledge about a specific or broader scope. Empiricists are known to be presenting complementary senses related to thought.


title: Empirical research

text: First, there is development of accounts of how there is provision of information by experience that is cited by rationalists. This is insofar for having it in the initial place. At times, empiricists tend to be opting skepticism as an option of rationalism. If experience is not helpful in the provision of knowledge or concept cited by rationalists, then they do not exist (Pearce, 2010, 35). Second, empiricists hold the tendency of attacking the accounts of rationalists while considering reasoning to be an important source of knowledge or concepts. The overall disagreement between empiricists and rationalists shows primary concerns in how there is gaining of knowledge with respect to the sources of knowledge and concept. In some of the cases, disagreement at the point of gaining knowledge results in the provision of conflicting responses to other aspects as well. There might be a disagreement in the overall feature of warrant, while limiting the knowledge and thought. Empiricists are known for sharing the view that there is no existence of innate knowledge and rather that is derivation of knowledge out of experience. These experiences are either reasoned using the mind or sensed through the five senses human possess (Bernard, 2011, 5). On the other hand, rationalists are known to be sharing the view that there is existence of innate knowledge and this is different for the objects of innate knowledge being chosen.


title: Empirical research

text: In order to follow rationalism, there must be adoption of one of the three claims related to the theory that are deduction or intuition, innate knowledge, and innate concept. The more there is removal of concept from mental operations and experience, there can be performance over experience with increased plausibility in being innate. Further ahead, empiricism in context with a specific subject provides a rejection of the corresponding version related to innate knowledge and deduction or intuition (Weiskopf, 2008, 16). Insofar as there is acknowledgement of concepts and knowledge within the area of subject, the knowledge has major dependence on experience through human senses.


title: Culture of Australia

text: The culture of Australia is primarily a Western culture, originally derived from Britain but also influenced by the unique geography of Australia and the cultural input of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and other Australian people. The British colonisation of Australia began in 1788, and waves of multi-ethnic migration followed. Evidence of a significant Anglo-Celtic heritage includes the predominance of the English language, the existence of a democratic system of government drawing upon the British traditions of Westminster government, parliamentarianism and constitutional monarchy, American constitutionalist and federalist traditions, and Christianity as the dominant religion.


title: Culture of Australia

text: Aboriginal people are believed to have arrived as early as 60,000 years ago, and evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia dates back at least 30,000 years. Several states and territories had their origins as penal colonies, with the first British convicts arriving at Sydney Cove in 1788. Stories of outlaws like the bushranger Ned Kelly have endured in Australian music, cinema and literature. The Australian gold rushes from the 1850s brought wealth as well as new social tensions to Australia, including the miners' Eureka Stockade rebellion. The colonies established elected parliaments and rights for workers and women before most other Western nations.


title: Culture of Australia

text: Federation in 1901 was the culmination of a growing sense of national identity that had developed over the latter half of the 19th century, as seen in the works of the Heidelberg School painters and writers like Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson and Dorothea Mackellar. The World Wars profoundly impacted Australia's national identity, with World War I introducing the ANZAC legend, and World War II seeing a reorientation from Britain to the United States as the nation's foremost ally. After the second war, 6.5 million migrants from 200 nations brought immense new diversity. Over time, the diverse food, lifestyle and cultural practices of immigrants have been absorbed into mainstream Australian culture.


title: Culture of Australia

text: The oldest surviving cultural traditions of Australia—and some of the oldest surviving cultural traditions on earth—are those of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Their ancestors have inhabited Australia for between 40,000 and 60,000 years, living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In 2006, the Indigenous population was estimated at 517,000 people, or 2.5 per cent of the total population. Most Aboriginal Australians have a belief system based on the Dreaming, or Dream time, which refers both to a time when ancestral spirits created land and culture, and to the knowledge and practices that define individual and community responsibilities and identity. Conflict and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has been a source of much art and literature in Australia, and ancient Aboriginal artistic styles and iconic inventions such as the boomerang, the didgeridoo and Indigenous Australian music have become symbols of modern Australia.


title: Culture of Australia

text: The British Empire expanded across the whole continent and established six colonies. The colonies were originally penal colonies, with the exception of Western Australia and South Australia, which were established as a "free colony" with no convicts and a vision for a territory with political and religious freedoms, together with opportunities for wealth through business and pastoral investments. Though Western Australia became a penal colony after insufficient numbers of free settlers arrived. Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, grew from its status as a convict free region and experienced prosperity from the late nineteenth century.


title: Culture of Australia

text: Contact between the Indigenous Australians and the new settlers ranged from cordiality to violent conflict, but the diseases brought by Europeans were devastating to Aboriginal populations and culture. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, during the colonial period: "Smallpox, measles, influenza and other new diseases swept from one Aboriginal camp to another ... The main conqueror of Aborigines was to be disease and its ally, demoralization."


title: Culture of Australia

text: William Wentworth established Australia's first political party in 1835 to demand democratic government for New South Wales. From the 1850s, the colonies set about writing constitutions which produced democratically advanced parliaments as Constitutional Monarchies with Queen Victoria as the head of state.


title: Culture of Australia

text: Women's suffrage in Australia was achieved from the 1890s. Women became eligible to vote in South Australia in 1895. This was the first legislation in the world permitting women to stand for political office and, in 1897, Catherine Helen Spence, an Adelaidean, became the first female political candidate. Though constantly evolving, the key foundations for elected parliamentary government have maintained an historical continuity in Australia from the 1850s into the 21st century.


title: Culture of Australia

text: During the colonial era, distinctive forms of Australian art, music, language and literature developed through movements like the Heidelberg school of painters and the work of bush balladeers like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, whose poetry and prose did much to promote an egalitarian Australian outlook which placed a high value on the concept of "mateship". Games like cricket and rugby were imported from Britain at this time and with a local variant of football, Australian Rules Football, became treasured cultural traditions.


title: Culture of Australia

text: The Commonwealth of Australia was founded in 1901, after a series of referendums conducted in the British colonies of Australasia. The Australian Constitution established a federal democracy and enshrined human rights such as sections 41 (right to vote), 80 (right to trial by jury) and 116 (freedom of religion) as foundational principles of Australian law and included economic rights such as restricting the government to acquiring property only "on just terms". The Australian Labor Party was established in the 1890s and the Liberal Party of Australia in 1944, both rising to be the dominant political parties and rivals of Australian politics, though various other parties have been and remain influential. Voting is compulsory in Australia and government is essentially formed by a group commanding a majority of seats in the Australian House of Representatives selecting a leader who becomes Prime Minister. Australia remains a constitutional monarchy in which the largely ceremonial and procedural duties of the monarch are performed by a Governor General selected by the Australian government.


title: Culture of Australia

text: Australia fought at Britain's side from the outset of World War I and World War II and came under attack from the Empire of Japan during the latter conflict. These wars profoundly affected Australia's sense of nationhood and a proud military legend developed around the spirit of Australia's ANZAC troops, who came to symbolise the virtues of mateship, courage and endurance for the nation.


title: Culture of Australia

text: The Australian colonies had a period of extensive non-British European and Chinese immigration during the Australian gold rushes of the latter half of the 19th century, but following Federation in 1901, the Parliament instigated the White Australia Policy that gave preference to British migrants and ensured that Australia remained a predominantly Anglo-Celtic society until well into the 20th century. The post-World War II immigration program saw the policy relaxed then dismantled by successive governments, permitting large numbers of non-British Europeans, and later Asian and Middle Eastern migrants to arrive. The Menzies Government (1949-1966) and Holt Government maintained the White Australia Policy but relaxed it, and then the legal barriers to multiracial immigration were dismantled during the 1970s, with the promotion of multiculturalism by the Whitlam and Fraser Governments.


title: Culture of Australia

text: Some States and Territories of Australia retained discriminatory laws relating to voting rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people into the 1960s, at which point full legal equality was established. A 1967 referendum to include all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the national electoral roll census was overwhelmingly approved by voters. In 1984, a group of Pintupi people who were living a traditional hunter-gatherer desert-dwelling life were tracked down in the Gibson Desert and brought into a settlement. They are believed to have been the last uncontacted tribe.


title: Culture of Australia

text: While the British cultural influence remained strong into the 21st century, other influences became increasingly important. Australia's post-war period was marked by an influx of Europeans who broadened the nation's vision. The Hawaiian sport of surfing was adopted in Australia where a beach culture and the locally developed surf lifesaving movement was already burgeoning in the early 20th century. American pop culture and cinema were embraced in the 20th century, with country music and later rock and roll sweeping Australia, aided by the new technology of television and a host of American content. The 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the first to be broadcast to the world, announced a confident, prosperous post-war nation, and new cultural icons like Australian country music star Slim Dusty and dadaist Barry Humphries expressed a uniquely Australian identity.


title: Culture of Australia

text: Australia's contemporary immigration program has two components: a program for skilled and family migrants and a humanitarian program for refugees and asylum seekers. By 2010, the post-war immigration program had received more than 6.5 million migrants from every continent. The population tripled in the six decades to around 21 million in 2010, including people originating from 200 countries. More than 43 per cent of Australians were either born overseas or have one parent who was born overseas. The population is highly urbanised, with more than 75% of Australians living in urban centers, largely along the coast though there has been increased incentive to decentralise the population, concentrating it into developed regional or rural areas.


title: Culture of Australia

text: Contemporary Australia is a pluralistic society, rooted in liberal democratic traditions and espousing informality and egalitarianism as key societal values. While strongly influenced by Anglo-Celtic origins, the culture of Australia has also been shaped by multi-ethnic migration which has influenced all aspects of Australian life, including business, the arts, cuisine, sense of humor and sporting tastes.