Folks scrambling through the bargain bins in search of the perfect ghoulie get-up would do better to plant themselves in their living rooms and succumb to the alternative universe of Star Crash. If the public-access women’s sci-fi show doesn’t provide inspiration for this year’s costume party, it should at the least illustrate the myriad ingenious uses for your homemade duds after Oct. 31.

At Saturday’s premiere party at Bardo, writer/director/producer Edie Meyers is ecstatic about her brainchild’s success. “It took almost a year to do this second episode. It’s a very complicated TV show…[and] the level we’ve reached is good enough to be on in New York. This is an exciting time for America,” she says. Star Crash, which is airing on District Cablevision Channel 25 throughout October, is a soap opera set in the not-so-distant future, when the male population is devoured by disease and women reign as the unchallenged ass-kickers of the universe.

Exploiting the versatility of such everyday items as curtains, silver-painted bubble wrap, tin foil, and pink body-stockings, Meyers creates a fantasy world that is part Buck Rogers, part Dr. Who, and all bitch. “I’m from New England; I think in a very European way….I did make [the women] catty,” she says. “I wanted to bring out their acting abilities.” According to actress Dani McCall, although the previous episode leaned towards the “spoofy,” the show is now making an effort to be “more melodramatic.” The single man in the cast, Nyk Englander, who plays the blue-faced “mandroid” Photar, expresses some regret over the change in attitude. His character no longer sports silvery eyebrows, because “now [the show]’s more serious,” he says.

No soap would dare call itself complete without a steamy situation or two, and in the current episode of Star Crash a pair of space vixens engage in a “mind-bonding” session. Meyers admits to the lesbian subtheme: “Everything [television does] is inside the box. I want to do something outside the box. I want to do what Star Wars and Star Trek won’t do.” The “sex” scene has all the nuance of drugstore porn, but don’t bother waiting for the money shot.

The cast is due to finish shooting next year’s episode in January, and it promises not only a barbarous gladiator duel but “another planet, another ruler, another adventure.” It’s difficult to predict what sort of following Star Crash will attract, but if the show’s popularity is anything more than negligible, I’ll be forced to echo the sentiment expressed by Mariel Buhler’s character, Invincion: “How can such mindless creatures exist in the universe?”

—Sharada Chidambaram

DCTV Channel 25 broadcasts Star Crash Oct. 20 at noon, Oct. 26 at 5:30 p.m., and Oct. 30 at noon.