Day: August 14, 2007

Cowboy Pete Gives Flash the Pan

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

I didn’t think it was possible for any version of Flash Gordon to bore the living crap out of me, but the Sci-Fi Channel managed it.

When BSG was reimagined, Ron Moore removed all the kitschy and campy aspects but replaced it with adult drama and sex. In the case of Flash, the producers likewise removed all the kitschy and campy elements from Flash Gordon, but replaced it with blandness. How colorless was Doctor Zarkov? How staggeringly dull was Ming the Merciless, no longer an evil, vaguely Asian guy but instead an unimposing Caucasian with the amazing ability to convey a total lack of threat. Were the producers REALLY that concerned about protests from Asian groups if they’d portrayed this decades-old iconic character in the classic manner?

And, hey…there was a REASON that Whitney was written out of Smallville: He was colorless and dull. So using him to anchor the series here only succeeds in that, like an anchor, he weighs things down and slows them to a halt.

I wanted to love this series, I really did. I mean, they had me with the prospect of evil aliens invading a bowling alley. (Which I have to think is a tactical mistake on the part of the aliens. If evil aliens showed up on league night standing at the far end of the lanes at my local bowling alley, we’d all just start chucking fifteen pound bowling balls at them.) But the flat writing, miscasting, and non-existent budget sank the pilot episode and I have, frankly, very little hope for subsequent outings.

Is it possible to do a tongue-in-cheek space opera for today’s audience? Sure. The producers of “The Adventures of Captain Zoom,” an underrated cable gem not even available on home video, accomplished that, featuring a lunkheaded hero, a hilariously offhand villain outing by Ron Perlman, a bewildered-looking Nichelle Nichols who didn’t quite seem to understand how she’d wound up there, and a budget of what looked to be $1.79. “Flash Gordon” from those folks would have killed. What we got instead was simply something that killed time, and even that, not very well.

PAD