David Duchovny, You’ve Done it Again

It finally happened: I found the perfect premium cable show for me!

Sure, The Sopranos and Weeds and blah blah blah. Entertaining, sure, but never like this. Behold the wonder that is Californication. (And I’m talking about the show here, not that annoying Red Hot Chili Peppers album/song.)

Last night, a friend and I started watching the pilot at 2am. Well, go figure that by 4am we’d watched the first 5 episodes of this series and loved pretty much every minute of it. It features David Duchovny as Hank Moody, a writer and New York expat (sounds familiar…) whose creativity and family life has crashed and burned since moving to the Southland. This guy is everything I’ve ever dreamed of being: a washed up writer, a ceaseless Lothario, a consummate smartass and defiant as the day is long. Did I mention brutally acerbic? Overall, he’s like a cross between Hugh Laurie’s House, Mystery from The Pick Up Artist and Charles Bukowski.

Moody does some sketchy stuff, occasionally unwittingly. (For example, turns out the chick to his left is not only 16, but the daughter of his ex-girlfriend’s new fiancee — and yes, he slept with her. Whoops. The plotting is brilliant, as this chick is a recurring character, representing something of an anvil ever-dangling over Hank’s head.) But the guy isn’t evil or morally bankrupt. He’s just broken and, as he points out in the show, “drowning in a sea of pointless pussy.” Moody’s life is pretty much in shambles and he’s trying to piece it back together. In the meantime, booze and broads, work as a blogger, punching people and more broads.

Duchovny’s comedic gifts are let out to play in this series. Gone is that overly serious and funless tone of his most well-known character: The X-Files’ Fox Mulder. The scripts by creator and Executive Producer Tom Kapinos are sharp and poignant. Sometimes, amidst the decadence and delirium of it all, he quietly sneaks in important reflections on the nature of love, creativity and parenting. And those reflections really do mean something.

I’m pretty sure this whole series started as a masturbatory exercise for Kapinos, whose only prior credit is some work on Dawson’s Creek (OK…). The comparison to Bukowski isn’t a minor one; there’s a lot of it in this script. However, it’s a thoroughly 21st century take on that womanizing old curmudgeon. Amplified by the great core of actors next to Duchovny, Californication is an entertaining and effective show. Natascha McElhone (who some of you may know as “the chick from Ronin“) does a spledid job of playing Moody’s ex. Evan Handler is pretty hilarious as Hank’s agent. Plus, they show a lot of boobs and that’s never a bad thing.

Kudos also to Tree Adams for his tasty original score… and to the rest of the music department for using established pieces so effectively.

Anyway, you should give this show a whirl. The opening scene of the pilot — Moody dreams about a nun giving him a blow job, then must make a hilarious escape from his one-night-stand’s bed as her boyfriend rolls in — lets you know exactly what you’re in for. Those in possession of more delicate scruples will be unimpressed and likely repulsed. But for all those misanthropic writer types who equally romanticize sleeping with hot women every night and pining away for that one ex-lover… well, your show has arrived.