Friday The 13th Blog

The slasher movie has repeatedly been accused of misogyny over the years and no franchise has been such a regular target as Friday the 13th. Yet, whilst over a dozen movies several of the victims have been teenage girls in their underwear or killed mid-coitus by a sexless serial killer, it could also be argued that no other genre has celebrated feminism like the slasher. Despite the treatment of the more sexually promiscuous young women, each movie has boasted a headstrong heroine who has shown great strength and intelligence by defeating Jason with whatever resources are at hand. Dubbed the ‘final girl,’ the likes of Alice (from Friday the 13th), Ginny (from Part 2) and Tina (from The New Blood) showed the kind of independence and courage that critics have praised Alien’s Ripley and The Terminator’s Sarah Connor for. In keeping with this spirit, Jason X saw twenty-six year old Lexa Doig as Rowan, who awakens in the distant future to find that humanity has abandoned Earth and, far worse, Jason Voorhees is onboard her spaceship. Writer Todd Farmer would base the character loosely on Ripley, a concept that Doig would remain faithful to throughout production.

Alexandra Doig was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on June 8th 1973 to Gloria and David Doig, a Filipino mother and a father of Scottish/Irish descent. Doig first became interested in acting as a child, taking a keen interest in stage productions, whilst also participating in rhythmic gymnastics. Her passion for acting was fuelled after witnessing a production of Porgy and Bess, an opera that first made its debut in the 1930s and has been reproduced countless times over the decades to great acclaim. Doig became obsessed with the character of Porgy, a crippled street beggar in an ethnic region of South Carolina, and began to audition for various plays, landing roles in such productions as Romeo and Juliet. Doig’s screen debut came in 1991 as the co-presenter of Video & Arcade Top 10, a popular game show that revolved around video games. Her first significant acting role came three years later with a made-for TV adaptation of TekWar, a series of science fiction novels by Star Trek’s William Shatner, who would also direct. The TV movie would later be followed by a series that would run for eighteen episodes, although Doig would appear in only two, reprising her role of Cowgirl.

Throughout the 1990s, Doig would appear in a variety of popular shows, ranging from F/X: The Series (based on the cult thriller F/X: Murder by Illusion) and the British drama CI5: The New Professionals, in which she would co-star alongside Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man, The Equalizer), based loosely on the 1970s hit show The Professionals. In late 1999, Doig auditioned for the role of Rowan in Jason X, the tenth installment of the long-running slasher franchise Friday the 13th, which would see its iconic antagonist, Jason Voorhees, sent into twenty-fifth century deep space. Filming took place in her hometown of Toronto and was budgeted at $14m, more than twice of any other of the movies in the series at that time (with Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan’s $5m being the closest). Despite a team of talented special effects artists and the presence of acclaimed filmmaker David Cronenberg (Scanners) in a small cameo, New Line Cinema would shelve the movie for two years before allowing a limited release.

Six months after principal photography on Jason X had come to an end Doig suddenly became a household name with the hit science fiction show Andromeda, based on a concept by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the show would see Doig team up once again with Jason X co-star Lisa Ryder, as well as meeting her husband-to-be, fellow Canadian actor Michael Shanks, during the shooting of the episode Star-Crossed. A veteran of TV, Shanks played the role of Dr. Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1, originally portrayed in the movie by James Spader, and would later appear in 24 and Stargate: Atlantis. The two would marry in August 2024 and would work together once again two years later when Doig landed a recurring role in Stargate SG-1. In 2024, Doig appeared in six episodes of the revival of cult science fiction show V (which had originally co-starred Jennifer Cooke from Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives) as Dr. Leah Pearlman.