Nancy Spungen's Dungeon

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Californication, season 1 Review

After much recommendations from a few different people, including my beloved sister, I watched Californication's first season.

First of all, it has nothing to do with the Red Hot Chili Peppers song and album of the same name, but the show does feature some Warren Zevon songs and anything that features Warren Zevon gets major points from me. The cool points for Zevon are pretty much the only thing I enjoyed about the show though. I like David Duchovny generally and he does a good job in this but I don't care for his character. I don't care about any of the characters in the show, and in a drama you want the audience to care about at least one.
Duchovny plays a semi-has been writer named Hank Moody. He has a 12-year old daughter he loves with an ex-girlfriend he still kinda loves but she's engaged to another guy that of course is boring and uptight in all the ways Hank is interesting and easy going. The season ends with the ex and fussy guy's wedding and you know it features Hank in a fist fight and his ex running off with him in the end.
Most of the other drama in the first season is provided by Hank sleeping around with pretty much every woman he sees and the usual sitcom complications they provide; angry husbands, awkward morning afters etc. In the first episode he sleeps with a young woman after he sees her reading his book in a cafe. He later finds out she's his ex's fiance's daughter and she's sixteen. So our protagonist commits statutory rape and we're still supposed to find him a likable guy because he tells people that talk on phones at the theatre to shut up. I do not like him. The lolita starts to blackmail him and I still don't feel sorry for him. His best friend/manager starts spanking his secretary (kinda like that movie Secretary with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal but not interesting or sexy at all) and then she starts blackmailing him and I don't like him either.
I don't like Hank Moody or anyone in this story, I don't like the story either. I liked the Warren Zevon music but I hated the rest of the music. I can't say I recommend it. What I do recommend is you save yourself a few hours and just listen to Warren Zevon and look at that picture of David Duchovny naked with the teacup on his junk.