I like David Duchovny. The former X-Files star, still best known for playing conspiracy-loving FBI agent Fox Mulder, has an affable, self-deprecating demeanor and an appealing everyman look that make him instantly sympathetic. Unfortunately, since leaving The X-Files, Duchovny has not exactly done much to endear himself to audiences, taking on roles as smug, grating narcissists and coming off like one himself with his self-important feature-film writing and directing debut, House of D. So maybe a better way to put it is that I want to like David Duchovny, and I keep hoping he’ll find a project that will bring his likability to the forefront.
Instead he continues to choose things like the new series Californication (Showtime, Mondays, 10:30 p.m.), in which he plays Hank Moody, a smug, grating (but self-deprecating) writer in LA, whose one popular novel was turned into a treacly mainstream movie and whose professional and personal lives are both a mess. The hard-living, self-destructive Hollywood writer is a bit of a cliché, and Duchovny’s likability doesn’t do much to elevate Hank’s general sleaziness from repulsive to endearing, although he gives it his best effort.
Despite suffering from writer’s block and the indignity of having his name on a piece of cinematic schlock starring “Tom” and “Katie,” Hank seems to live a pretty comfortable life, jetting around in a Porsche and meeting his agent/best friend (Evan Handler) at trendy restaurants. And he may endure insults to his masculinity from his ex (Natascha McElhone) and sullen 12-year-old daughter (Madeleine Martin), but he gets laid more than an A-list actor—and the show revels in chronicling his sex life in great detail. The pilot alone features five topless women in only 30 minutes, along with Duchovny’s bare backside and some partially obscured frontal nudity from one of Hank’s conquests.
At one time, the graphic depiction of sex on a premium cable series was probably shocking, but Californication doesn’t show anything you can’t see in a softcore porn on Cinemax, and its prurient obsession with sex comes off as rather disingenuous. In his wallowing in unhealthy habits and inexplicable attractiveness to beautiful women, Hank is like a high-functioning version of Ben Sanderson, Nicolas Cage’s character in Leaving Las Vegas—but unlike Ben he probably won’t be so courteous as to drink himself to death.
Billed as a comedy, Californication is more crude than funny, and sadly juvenile in its look-at-me appeals to the audience’s baser desires. Hank is theoretically a complex character—he cares deeply about his daughter and makes every effort to be a good father, and wants genuinely to repair his relationship with his ex—but his moments of sincerity are undermined by Duchovny’s constant smirking. None of the other actors get to do much more than react to Hank’s antics, although there’s a hint that the daughter of Hank’s ex’s fiancé (got that?), a teenage sexpot, could become an interesting character in her own right.
There’s that kind of potential in a few corners of Californication’s pilot, and the show the network has paired it with, Weeds, also started out somewhat clichéd and desperate before deepening into something more real and honest (although its first episode wasn’t nearly this uncouth). I want to say that with Duchovny as one of the producers, the show has the chance to develop into something worthy of his talents, but at this point it just seems like another in a line of bad choices. ............................................................................................................
Californication **1/2