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Californication is the brainchild of Tom Kapinos, who was previously known for his work on Dawson’s Creek.  This series is a far cry from the ‘Creek, following the exploits of a failing New York writer as he struggles to reclaim his lost love in the city he’s grown to hate.

Hank Moody (David Duchovny) is a guy with a different set of problems than the rest of us: he spends most of his time drunk and/or high, falling in and out of the beds of numerous women while pining away for the love of his life that got away.  He’s a writer who isn’t writing anymore, and his career is beginning to feel the strain as his agent/best friend Charlie (Evan Handler) tries to drag work out of him.

Hank moved to LA after his successful novel was purchased to become a film.  The Hollywood system typically turned a book called God Hates Us All into a film starring Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes called A Crazy Little Thing Called Love, and Hank’s obsession with the film and his own celebrity left his longtime girlfriend Karen (Natascha McElhone) and their 12 year old daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin) out in the cold.  She eventually turned to the charms of a client whose home she was re-decorating and left Hank.  Her new fiancé Bill (Damian Young) is the antithesis of Hank, dull, safe and not as commitment-phobic; Hank was with her for 12 years and never wanted to marry.

The series opens with a series of events to set the tone of what is to follow in the season: Hank dreaming of getting head from a nun, Hank getting into a fist fight with a guy on his cellphone in a movie theater, Hank bedding a young groupie he spots in a bookstore reading his book.  All of these sequences paint the picture of the man quite well; reckless, foolhardy and self-destructive.  This sort of nihilistic behavior is tempered by the interactions with Karen and Becca, he is a doting father who would do anything for his precocious child, and he’s very much still in love with his ex.

The first few episodes of the season set up several major plot points as the bookstore groupie from the first episode is revealed to be Bill’s underage teen daughter Mia (Madeline Zima), the next job Charlie finds for Hank is writing a blog for Hell-A Magazine, which is owned by his rival Bill, and Charlie himself ends up in a quandary when his secretary makes untoward advances that he’s too stupid to rebuff.  Charlie’s marriage to his wife Marcy (Pamela Adlon) is threatened over the course of the season, but with very comedic results.  Becca tries her hand at becoming a rock star, Mia makes Hank’s life difficult in a variety of ways and virtually every woman who wanders into the show may end up sleeping with Hank.

The show’s writing is amazingly sharp and fun to watch, though the viewer may tire of the ease with which Hank manages to bed any woman he happens upon, but hey, the show would be a lot more boring if that weren’t the case.

Californication arrives on a two disc set that includes all 12 episodes of season one, as well as cast bios, a still gallery and web enabled content that provides access to the first two episodes of Dexter and The Tudors, a preview of the show’s soundtrack, and a chance to enter a contest to win a trip to Los Cabo, Mexico.

I personally love this show, it’s not going to be for anyone who’s easily offended, but for fans of clever writing and edgy material this is well worth a look.

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