Flash Gordon

Show Info

Genre(s): Action / Adventure, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Created By: Robert Halmi, Sr.
Robert Halmi, Jr.
Alex Raymond (comic)

First Air Date: July 10, 2007

Summary

Starring Eric Johnson, Gina Holden, Karen Cliche, and John Ralston

Flash Gordon returns--uh oh. This savior of the universe may not survive sci-fi's biggest enemy--the critics--to return for episode two.

Episode Guide & More Info: More about this show at TV.com

Also On The Web: Official Show Site

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this show is 2.1 (out of 10) based on 54 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Joe C. gave it a6:
Flash Gordon was a campy but fun show that started soft but got better as it went on. I think the writers were hitting their stride by the end of the first (only) season, but I think they knew they were being axed and tied up most of the loose ends for the season finale.

Dave T. gave it a9:
It's ashame that so many of you don't give a chance to any shows, sorry guy but this show is supposed to be funny and adapted to the low budget, you cant always suck the executive of the channel like stargate atlantis, witch has a similar way of scripting the shows, but compensating with CG effects...wow you are a bunch of suckers, did you ever saw buck rogers in the 25 century, sorry but budget, funny scripting and unknown actors played in it and the people understood it and watched it. So who are you to spit on a show when you don't know the real basic of a good show? Too bad they hire anybody as a journalist to critic shows like you guys and with limited reasons wow I could do better for sure even when its not a good show I show some respect.

Red 5 gave it a1:
The only reason this show could even consider having a score above zero is that Baylin is hot. Other than that, weak plot, dialogue, casting and crap visual effects. Oh - and Terry M, who wrote the 28-page rant above, you should spend more time honing your writing for Flash than for Meta critic. I love it when a show's writers come pollute the forums, defending their shoddy work. Bad, bad, bad - and it doesn't matter who's fault it is. It's just awful TV. This marks the beginning of the end of the Sci Fi Channel.

Alex M gave it a0:
This show is horrible beyond belief. In fairness, I have given this show a chance, but it just sucked every time and it goes on and on and on. I cannot believe that SCIFI canceled Dresden Files and Stargate SG1, for something really awful. Also, Ming is more of a tyrant than a metro sexual, but this show gives emphasis on Ming being much more of a metro sexual than a tyrant. Come on. SCIFI should rethink to reinstate Stargate SG1 and Dresden Files to somehow bring the luster they lost. It does not take a lot of brain power to notice the major suckiness of this show.

William Turner gave it a0:
I think I'm going to be sick..... Even Lexx was better.

Peter F. gave it a0:
The show is abysmally bad. I'll sit through most sci-fi shows but this is horrible. Bad acting, rubbish stories and cheap production. Sci Fi needs to extend the next season to at least 20 episodes for Eureka and bring back the Dresden Files if it hopes to keep it's audience.

Terry M gave it an8:
I’ve seen a lot of trash talking about this show, and I feel compelled to defend it. Not because it is super-good and I’m completely happy with it, but because it is a pretty good show that is getting trashed for reasons that aren’t its fault. The consensus of vitriolic opinion here seems to be that the show sucks, its not the Flash that people remember, it’s low budget, woodenly acted, and the stories lack spark – so off with its head and on to the next victim. And that’s not fair. Firstly because the franchise hasn’t been touched in any meaningful way for over twenty five years, but mostly because these starry-eyed critics forget some very basic things about the franchise. If this incarnation is bad, for whatever reasons, it isn’t bad because of the special effects, the plot, the characters, or the budget. It’s bad because Flash Gordon was originally bad. And that’s OK. Flash Gordon, as most people have forgotten, was originally a comic strip – so if the characters seem two-dimensional, that’s how they’ve always been. After five episodes, now, I have to say that the actors have begun to find their characters and that the characters are beginning to escape their two-dimensional origins. We’ve only just met them, after all, and we’ve only seen the histories of the immediate Gordon family. Expecting full-blown characterizations this early in the game ignores the essential nature of episodic sci-fi. The argument that the show is low-budget is unfair. Sci Fi channel isn’t swimming in bucks. Attempting to portray an alien world that doesn’t look like Earth is expensive, and I think that with a little suspension of disbelief and willingness to accept the exotic, this issue will clear up. So that leaves the story, and the story, all the way back to the comic strips was bad. Really bad. An alien invader shooting meteors at Earth for no particular reason? An alien despot with no real past, no real soul, and no real motivation for his actions? A trio of oftentimes-vapid heroes who alternate poor judgment and inhuman bravery all under a cloud of 1950s era cultural mores? Please. The original Flash’s showy heroism wasn’t motivated by much more than a desire to be a bad-ass and a duty to defend the Earth from Communist-surrogate bad-guys. Storywise, it was pathetic. If these detractors are upset with the plotline, they have only Flash to blame. It was never meant to be anything more than a minute and a half of daily escapism, and so the stories were built to those specs. The good things they remember from the strip and subsequent serials, the bravery, the action, cool alien cultures, and scantily clad alien women, are all potentially present in the show. It’s early in the first season – give ‘em a chance to bring more of those things to the surface. The whole point of episodic sci-fi is to tell a complicated storyline over many episodes, not offer a series of thinly-connected one-offs. A few specific observations: I like the rift technology as an answer to the Mongo issue, since interstellar travel is extremely expensive to portray on the small screen. It also fleshes out a more realistic motivation for Flash, with the plotline of his father having invented the technology, than the “whoops, we’re on Mongo, let’s kill someone!” style of the original. I like Dr. Zarkov. There, I said it. He looks like plenty of scientists I’ve worked with, and his slightly-unsavory appearance and whiney attitude are a good counter-point to the Aryan splendor that is Flash. Making him Dr. Gordon’s assistant links him with Flash better than the original kidnapping plot point, and he still comes across as mad enough to be helpful to the story. I wasn’t sure about Ming, at first, but I like him, too. This isn’t your dad’s Ming the Merciless, here, this is a despot who has all of the burdens of world domination to contend with, not just the perks. He has had a few chances to show his vileness, but make him too much of a bad guy and he becomes de-characterized. A little more background on Ming and his people and how they rose to power would be helpful. The Dale Arden storyline is also interesting (and cheap, budgetwise). Her fiancé, Joe, seems like a stable counterpoint to the whackiness of interdimensional invasion. Dragging him into the team looks inevitable. Likewise Flash’s Mom is becoming a compelling character, if she gets the chance. The fact is, the new retelling is trying desperately to make plot sense out of a churlish original, a story that never made sense in the first place. The fact is, the original Flash Gordon was never science fiction, it was barely “sci fi”, and it is best considered fantasy. Still, there is plenty of room for improvement here, and here are my suggestions: 1. More action. Sure, ray gun fights cost like bejeezus in post-production, but the fact is that the main draw for Flash Gordon is action. There should be at least 2-3 good fight scenes every episode. 2. More skin. Where’s the scantily clad alien babes? Where’s the beefcake? Need lots more of both. Flash’s main motivation was his thinly-veiled sexual hunger for Dale. I see a little of that, need to see more. More skin. More sexy. Aura can’t do it all on her own. 3. Dialog. I know sci fi channel can’t afford Joss Whedon (or we’d be in the 4th or 5th season of Firefly, right now) but some Whedonesque dialog would be a welcome injection into the mix. Some of the exchanges have been cute. I’d like to see more Buffy-style patter. 4. Flash needs to get pissed off and start kicking butt. Seriously. Turn him from a track star to a warrior. No mercy. 5. Find some freakin’ way to give the hawk-men real wings. Even big phony ones like in the 1980 movie. Metal ones, even. But the cloak gliding thing was just kind of insulting. 6. I’m liking Barin (have enjoyed Steve Bacic since Andromeda – another show that never quite lived up to its potential) but I think we need to see more Robin Hood style stuff from his people. 7. What about the other tribes/cantons? Let’s get some Lion Men and more Lizard Men. Shark Men? Why the hell not? It’s Mongo, after all. 8. Who the hell was Aura’s mom? And what does Aura want out of life? 9. How come no dangerous Earth stuff has traveled to Mongo to wreak havoc in one of those spare rifts? That would be cool. 10. Finally, we haven’t heard anything further about the Imex. That should be a motivating plot-point by now. 11. Get Flash a real gun, for gods sake. Maybe something with bullets that won’t power-down at an inopportune moment? 12. More opportunities for Ming to be evil would be good. While I like a sympathetic Ming, a little craziness would be welcome. Haven’t the Patriots opened fire on an angry crowd, lately? That’s just a few. I’m sure people will have plenty more. But don’t cancel the damn thing. Sure, it’s technically “bad” sci-fi, but most of us LIKE “bad” sci-fi. It’s possible to do it right without capitulating to campiness. Remember: the Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12, and you aren’t going to make those people happy whatever you do. You’ve got a decent thing going here – better than that horrible Wizard show last season. Much. So run with it, let’s see plenty of bad episodes with big boobs, hunky half-naked men, ray guns and rocketships. Let the ass kickings begin!

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