Californication
I stumbled on this decade old Showtime series on Hulu and thought I’d check it out, solely on the merits of my favorite FBI guy, Agent Mulder. In this show Mr. Duchovny plays a writer named Hank, who tries unsuccessfully to balance his drinking, drug use and philandering ways with his on again off again relationship with his family which consists of a longtime girlfriend and their daughter. In traditional pay cable channel the show includes a lot of profanity, nudity and simulated sex acts.
The first season was pretty good fun, the second had an interesting story line weaved through it and season 3 had an absolutely filthy mouthed guest star turn from Kathleen Turner, but after 36 episodes I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch anymore. This Season 4 Episode 1 review on IMDB by user mtrodeomom pretty much summed up my feelings:
I’ve gagged my way through this series. The premise was somewhat intriguing and the first few episodes were watchable. But with the beginning of season four, I think I’m done. It’s obvious, the writers are only going for as much gratuitous nudity as they can shove into this show. The main character is disgusting. There aren’t any redeemable qualities in him. And frankly, I can’t understand why any woman would crawl into bed with him. He’s semi-famous. But he’s a washed up old writer. He isn’t that attractive, and he doesn’t offer these woman anything. He says he loves Karen and Becca, but he can’t keep his dick in his pants. So, his words are empty. Every time he’s with yet another woman, I want to throw up.
But I was sort of invested in the some of other characters, and hell, I’m still reading Dagwood on the funny pages long after they have have become cliches, so I watched season four, vowing to not go any further. As it turned out that that last show was intended to be the series ender, so it wrapped up all the story threads nicely and as a bonus was a very good episode.
So, you know what happened right? Yep I started watching season five. Why? See Dagwood line above. I got 3/4 of the way through the season yesterday afternoon and told Donna I was done watching for good now. After hunting around Hulu this afternoon looking to find something different I might watch, I caved and told myself I’d just finish the season out and quit. I didn’t make it, got close, but I shut off the season ending episode out with like 10 minutes to go. The twist at the end, in hindsight, was telegraphed throughout the episode, but it was just too much to watch. The initial screw-up in the show was not really Hank’s fault, but since then his bad decision making skills have been the root of all his troubles. Until this one, where it is his ex-New York girlfriend who slips him a Mickey Finn, that seemed to me too a cheap trick.
I’m running out of things to watch…
