K-SCORE: 44
Creator: Tom Kapinos
Directors: David von Ancken, Adam Bernstein
Starring: David Duchovny, Natascha McElhone, Madeleine Martin, Evan Handler, Pamela Adlon, Madeline Zima
Spoiler Level: Minor
“ it grows stale quickly, and moldy soon after that”
They say write what you know. They, though, are notoriously missing the big picture. It’s an expression I’ve always disagreed with much like the one that claims the definition for insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Flip a coin; see what happens. But there’s something to the idea as writing on subject matter that you’re familiar with helps greatly with authenticity and limits the power of the imagination needed to craft a successful story. Taken to the extreme, however, and every writer would write about writing. Then if ever they wrote about their lives they’d have to write about how they are writers who write about writing. Down the spiral they go into a world small, distant, and easily ignored. As one who writes frequently, I tend to hate such stories, and so probably should have steered away from Californication. Perhaps I was drawn by the fact that the other thing creator Tom Kapinos and star David Duchovny seem to know about is the depravity of Hollywood and sex addiction. For in their show they managed to create a rare combination of wretchedly pretentious high-brow art bullshit, and smut where topless teenagers punch older men in the face while riding them cowgirl style. While I admit that’s rare, it doesn’t make it good.
Californication had enough momentum for about one season. Plodding pacing and a constant desire to keep a story going for job security purposes meant the creators of the show extended it as best they could. Their primary narrative ended completely when they sent away actress Madeline Zima who played Mia, the only truly compelling counterpart to David Duchovny’s Hank Moody. She’s technically in seasons three and four, but by then her narrative is either miniscule or mostly played-out. So that it runs for seven seasons before ending prematurely and with no satisfactory or even half-assed conclusion makes it an agonizing experience if viewed start to finish. Even in the low-stakes world of already successful Hollywood people with conflicts that could be solved with a firm, “Stop that!” the writers of this series couldn’t bring things together at the end. It’s pathetic. David Duchovny’s performance during season seven is emblematic of the laziness of the show by that point; he has zero emotional range and is never convincing that he cares about any of the stupid micro storylines the writers whipped up to replace Madeleine Martin, who played his daughter. But even well before that, the show is a never-ceasing cycle of Hank Moody and his agent Charlie Runkle getting themselves into precarious and embarrassing sexual scenarios, ravaged and chastised by every woman they come across, all physically lovely, always costing them what little career success they stumbled drunkenly into. Sure, it’s shallow, which makes it harder to appreciate the talent of writer Hank Moody and the brilliance that streams from his ancient typewriter, but there’s some appeal there. Once. Maybe twice. And even then only at it’s best, hottest, and when the actors actually care. But it grows stale quickly, and moldy soon after that.
The other problem Californication has, in addition to being a one-lame-trick pony, is that it’s main character becomes tremendously unlikable. He’s not unlikable in the way that the show would have you believe, however. It’s constantly judging Hank Moody for his drinking and his womanizing, sometimes even literally through a court of law. No, that’s not it. James Bond is a womanizer and drinker and one of the most likable heroes ever. Hank Moody drifts into an apathy and a laziness that makes you want to slap him in the face. Literally dozens of gorgeous women throw themselves at him and then yell at him for his inability to pick one, but as the show progresses, he’s less and less culpable for the problems that his relationships cause. Like a spineless, weak-willed moron, he let’s Karen, Becca, and the others berate on his character flaws him without the slightest hint of a defense. If any man bothers him too much, his only solution is a right cross to the face. The problems he has with his career draw even less sympathy than the plight of a man beset by sexually aggressive beauties. All his work has representation, financial reward, and the potential to become films and television, and if he really hates all that, he could solve all of it by just writing another fucking book. In the final scene we learn perhaps why he’s been so hesitant to write anything through the seven seasons as he reads a love letter he typed up for his muse and mother of his child and reads it dramatically on an airplane. (TV show writers fear the gods will smite them if they don’t end things on a plane or with an airport chase.) The letter reads like a 5th grader’s best attempt at powerful, and it’s a 5th grader who recently learned all the curse words and wants to try each one at least once. Pathetic. Hank Moody’s a hack.
In the end Californication is as tired as its lead actor looks. It rehashes the same concepts over and over again, perpetuating its problems indefinitely with no resolution coming at any point. The only thing that changes is how ludicrous and lame the stories become as they cast an an annoying, inarticulate, overweight, black-curly-haired jew as the biological offspring of David Duchovny and Heather Graham. The only reasons I can come up with for anyone to watch it are if you really want to see Rob Lowe make fun of Tom Cruise giving a blowjob to another man under the guise of role research or if you somehow have access to this series but have lost access to porn.