TV Magic #1

Viewers of last weeks Californication were, prior to the credits rolling, treated to a truly definitive image. Hank Moody, played by Fox Mulder, is in a classroom full of attentive women, all gooey eyed and seductive, and writes, in bold, capital letters, “FUCK” on the white board. It became immediately apparent that this was somebody’s fantasy, but whose?

Not the characters, certainly. This is reality for Hank, for whom women are immediately, constantly available. Neither can it be a surprise for the female characters, who act as though their entire lives have depended upon the possibility of sleeping with Mr. Moody. This, I conclude, leaves two and a half options, either the writers of the show, the viewers, or both.

Californication has never been a show about subtlety, but recently, now in its third season, it’s traversed the line between distractingly, and occasionally amusingly, banal, and borderline offensive.

Originally, and sometimes in its second season, it was about a cult writer, the aforementioned Hank, struggling to both write a new novel and win back the love of his life. The main obstacle to Hank quickly became himself, as his addictions to alcohol and womanizing stood in the way of his success. If this is starting to sound like a serialized version of “Bad Lieutenant”, don’t worry (or worry, perhaps), it’s played for laughs.

Hank isn’t creepy, he’s charming, and his accidental bedding of a teenager in the first season is a faux pas in an uptight, conservative society where roguish man-children are forced to conform to out-dated standards of behaviour. The problem with the stance this program takes is that Hank is himself an out-dated stereotype, albeit one with an evidently long shelf-life.

Hank, you see, propagates unfortunate clichés about both male and female roles. He’s the televisual uber-mensch, the man inside all men, because, deep down, all men are promiscuous, misogynistic, drunk children, waiting to be tamed by the perfect mate. Women, on the other hand, just want a handsome shit, someone who talks the talk, is charmingly irresponsible, and has had plenty of sexual experience with multiple partners. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Californication in essence: a one-note show where the note is being played by a fifty year old trombone. A trombone that dresses in AC/DC shirts and ill-fitting tight leather pants in an attempt to be “cool”.

While this formula was serviceable throughout the first two seasons, where at least Hank had some kind of job and relationship with his ex (the love of his life), it seems that the writers have given up in season three. Hank no longer writes, or even pretends to write. Instead, he’s serendipitously awarded a temporary professorship while accidentally attending a party where he also accidentally gets the original temporary professor drunk, who, coincidentally has a drinking problem. Oh, and there’s a crusty old dean who likes expensive liquor and fancy cheese thrown in for good measure as Hank’s foil. Do I need to mention that the dean’s wife inexplicably is constantly throwing herself at Hank or that, despite the writers desperate attempts to make her husband unlikable, I actually kind of like him (due, probably, in no small part to his part being played by Seth’s dad from The O.C.)?

But perhaps the most irritating part of this show is the constant “edginess”, thrown in at random, that either drastically misfires or ends up coming across as fairly creepy. Or both. Take, for example, a recent episode with a comedy side-story themed around rape fantasies. That’s right, rape fantasies. In this, Charlie Runkle, Hank’s agent played by the bald guy from Sex In The City, catches a man “raping” his ex-wife. It turns out that this is in fact a rape fantasy, cue hilarious situations such as Runkle “raping” his sleeping ex, who angrily informs him that she only wants to have rape fantasies with guys she wants to sleep with. I genuinely didn’t know how to react to this scene, and I still don’t. It’d be like the Carry On Team incorporating snuff elements into their movies, you just wouldn’t know how you should be feeling at the end of it.

All of which brings me back to my initial question: just who is this show for? At the risk of being banal and obvious, I can only conclude that it’s for people who are actually entertained by this, people who perhaps fantasize about being this vacuous idiot. That and the idiots that watch it regularly for no apparent reason. Which would be me. Um…