SummaryDavid Duchovny is the lead in this comedy about a book writer always running into trouble with sex, drugs and women, while struggling to maintain a relationship with his ex-girlfriend and trying to raise his daughter in a less than normal environment for a teenager.
SummaryDavid Duchovny is the lead in this comedy about a book writer always running into trouble with sex, drugs and women, while struggling to maintain a relationship with his ex-girlfriend and trying to raise his daughter in a less than normal environment for a teenager.
The swan-song episodes (and the pay service made all 12 available in advance) is emblematic of what’s been fun about the show but also the balancing weight of what’s wrong with it, including a slightly cloying aspect to the central relationship that makes it hard to care about its outcome.
It's incredible how far Hank has come over the last seven years from being an acclaimed writer to falling off the grid in Hollywood. The final season is growing closer to a end as the summer comes closer to us. Last time we saw our favorite functional alcoholic he was knocking on Karen's door hoping for her loving embrace, but nothing is ever that easy for him. It seems that she is seeing other people and he can only plead that she will return to him. Hank has messed up every opportunity to win Karen back, but perhaps he will finally get what he wants. The premiere ended with him finding out that that annoying kid from Project X is his son from a previous relationship. Honestly, this kid is the worst thing about this season and only the rest of the series will tell us whether he will grow into a much better character. He is a nuisance and Californication needs to do something quick to compensate for this very hated Levon. The season has a good story and the fact that Eddie Nero is back just adds to season seven's enjoyment. In fact, I like Heather Graham as the mother of his kid. it's just as casting choice and writing that makes me want to strangle Levon's neck. Considering that Elton John's Levon is one of the greatest songs of all time, it frustrates me that they named this character after it. Despite this minor hiccup, it looks like we are in for one hell of a last ride. Now Tom Kapinos, show us what you've got.
Trevor Benoit
This show is at the end of its run. The first 4 seasons of this show had a large story arch, bigger than any one individual subplot. That ended. Season 5 was an interesting change of pace. Season 6 left us the viewer, in the same state as the show's writers. Struggling to re-claim the greatness with which it began and looking for inspiration in new sources. Both those seasons had moments of excellence, despite having weak overall plots and a vague sense of direction. Season 6, despite having all the same characters we've come to know and love (or hate) has lost its direction. There are new additions to the cast.Both Michael Imperioli and Heather Graham surprisingly slide seamlessly into the cast. Both characters could have been more complex but were good. The character playing Hank's new-found son less so. In the last couple of episodes the show tries to return to its roots, but is has drifted so far it feels superficial at this point. Despite what some critics say, at least it ended with a few good moments before it could further decline into outright terrible.
One episode into the season and it seems like a totally different feel from the self-loathing, self-defeating Hank we have tuned in to see in the previous seasons. But I suppose considering how season 6 ended abruptly, something has to develop. In the first episode, seems to be going into TV writing-how creative!? I give this season 2 more episodes,,,,,
The only saving grace of this entire series was David Duchovny. He managed to make the cliché of the womanizing blocked writer with the mores of a teenager (and a jackass) into something funny.
But the endless clichés, the inept farce (some supposed comedy is so bad it had me wincing, especially when it involved a room and a lot of people), the unbelievable "love story" between Hank and his wife, the horrible bald friend whom we are forced to see in a constant state of undress, side characters that are one-dimensional and seem to exist only as a foil to Hank, constant repetition of situations that were bad to begin with, lack of imagination and bad acting -- it all makes it a series worth ending.
There could have been comedy, even broad comedy, but this needs to be based either on good characters or original characters: these were neither.
At the center of everything we have Hank whose saving grace supposedly is he loves his daughter and her mother. It isn't sufficiently clear to anyone why they are not together because the creator of the series doesn't have the courage of his convictions. In real life Hank would be an EAGER womanizer, someone actively looking to sleep with as many women as possible. In the series he is a passive one: women are constantly attacking HIM and he looks a bit bored, a bit jaded and he "gives in". Much like the fireman in Rescue Me, who also loves his wife, Hank is often in the passive role even in bed, unless he is with the woman he loves.
The series tries to say he can't help it, this is not what he wants, it just keeps happening to him -- and he gets caught at moments which are completely ridiculous where it only "seems" that he wants the woman he is with, he doesn't really.
Had he been a more truthful character the problem would be that HE can't keep it in his pants and can't stop going after everything that moves and that thus the woman he loves cannot trust him and they cannot be together.
There are other problems with him, of course, but then again seem to be happening to him rather that he actively causing them.
Even in a comedy the problem of the protagonist needs to be well developed for the laughs to work but Hank is one-dimensional and so is his story.
Finally, this last season has been more painful than usual -- with that "son" of his who looks older than his mother -- and than Hank for that matter. Who worked on that piece of casting?
Please put this thing out of its misery...