At this point, I’m not sure that there’s anyone left in Canada who hasn’t been cast on one budget tv-series or another. Vancouver is becoming as familiar as all those quarries and such used again and again for alien planets Dr. Who and Star Trek and such.
Ditto Just Some Guy. The operative word is “forgettable”. I won’t say the show was bad, but I can’t think of anything good about it that makes me want to tune in again.
I can live without the Fu Manchu look. I think it works if they had wanted to include it but if they want to do something different then it could work too.
But it’s a guy named Ming the Merciless and they didn’t just go nuts with it? What were they thinking?
It feels like the producers are embarrassed by the cheesy, zany Flash Gordon of yesteryear but if they are then why did they make a show called “Flash Gordon”?
I hate to be part of such a huge consensus, but yeah, it stank, not as much as I thought it would, but I thought it might REALLY stink. I was frankly surprised at some of the sets and CGI on Mongo – it was almost as if they were trying at times. And there were hint that the writers had a vague clue about the thrilling super wonder science cheesiness of it all … the fact that Ming had slavegirls, for example. With collars and dangly chain leashes on the front. Not that they’ll get to act all slavish, but hey, it’s not total PCness if there are slavegirls at all.
So I’ll watch a few eps for the slavegirls and then tape and review if itr continues to suck as much as the pilot does. But I won’t watch like I watch Eureka, with the expectation that I’ll be entertained and surprised by its inventiveness.
The thing is, the appeal in the original Flash Gordon series, and a lot of those old thrilling wonder science series, was the sense that anything might happen. With the Flash Gordon pilot, I got the sense that anything might happen, so long as it doesn’t cost anything much, or more importantly, force any of the writers to get creative in any way.
Dude, EC, you really are like a broken record, aren’t you? Did I mention the slave girls? Oh yeah, it had slave girls. Did you see the slave girls? What did you think about the salve girls? I wish it had more slave girls. The slave girls…
Dude, I feel sure I mentioned something besides slavegirls in my post. Maybe you should, like, read the whole thing.
Of course you did. I often enjoy your posts but the truth is you are predictable. The first thing I thought when I saw this thread is how long until EC posts about the thirty second scene with the slave girls. Can’t you just be content knowing that we all know that if there is any possible reference to bondage we all already know you are thinking about it? If you had left out the bit about the slave girls I would have mentally added it in to your post while reading, save you from having to type so much. See I am just thinking of you. I don’t want to Pit you maybe I should MPSIMS you, but I am lazy and it has been done to death.
/highjack
Maybe you should just relax and stop thinking about these things so much, then. It sounds like I am not spending nearly as much energy on it as you are.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say I liked it. Granted - it was low-budget, several plot points were not adequately explained, the plot twist was easy to spot, Dr. Zarkov was never referred to by name for some reason, and it was overall predictable - but isn’t that what Flash Gordon is all about? It’s not a great work of art, but it’s entertainment and it met my expectations.
Oy, did this show suck. Let me count the ways…
We, too, had been looking forward to this for a week. We, too, had been filled with curiosity and anticipation. Why were our dreams cruelly kicked aside like a mean man booting a cute puppy?
First off, THAT was Ming? That dipstick? I was hoping he was just some governor guy who would eventually lead up to Ming. The guy didn’t do very much merciless stuff, and he looked unfortunalty too much like the hero, so that one might think that he was Mister Gordon, the amazing scientist who brilliantly sticks his hand into the unknown energy blob.
Then there’s the Mongonians (?) themselves. Why they’d speak English, or have things called “Abbots” or Concubines" or “Patriots” is beyond me. Yeah, in the movie they spoke English too, but these days at least throw something at the language problem, even if it’s half-assed. Their giant killer robots, apparently made out of bowling balls and invisible till they’re ten feet away, and who need a guy’s drivers liscense or they can’t find you, and they kide behind walls despite the fact that they’re seven feet tall.
And the acting! Oh, there was eye candy, but it was like the wax fruit in display cases, a false hope. I didn’t like the lead when he was on Smallville, and I didn’t like him here. The only half-decent person was his mom, who thankfully drove away to be a lesbian cop in Metropolis, since she gave up on her cardboard man-child here.
And the writing! So many horrible lines! So much bad plot! Our personal favorite was by the heroine’s forgettable fiance “I’ve never seen anything like it! A dead body!” And she cleverly hides her taken status by turning her ring around, because if you can’t see the bling, you could still do your thing. “Don’t hit it with the blender, Mom will kill me!” Yeah, that’s your main priority when fighting a clumsy and ugly robot in your kitchen. And…
Aw hell, I could go on, but why bother? It sucked donkey dong. Given that the warrior chick moved into their house in the next episodes for wacky hi-jinks and that apparently the Hawkmen are now DUDES WITH HANGGLIDERS UNDER THEIR ARMS I have no real need to see it ever, ever again.
I now rest my hopes for a new addiction on Bionic Woman.
I left after ten minutes. My god was it awful. You had someone just finishing winning a marathon and not showing the slighest sign of sweat or being out of breath.
You had Flash and Dale, both presumably in their 20s, playing their meeting scene as though they were in the first day of junior high.
That’s when I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water. My wife joined me two minutes later. We had absolutely no desire to watch any more.
I would have sworn he was called something else on multiple occasions. I don’t recall hearing the name “Zarkov” spoken during the entire show.
I don’t object to this guy’s being Zarkov, mind you. I’m not invested in Old Jewish Zarkov the way I am in Menacing Asian Ming. But it was never made clear during the course of the episode that’s who he was supposed to be.
Maybe you counted her as the fourth, but Flash’s mother looked just like Dale, like Aura, like the cop … Kind of freaky, actually.
I thought it was better than I expected - but, having read the reviews, my expectations were way low. The only saving grace was the humor, like Zarkov’s ray gun. The guy in the serials wasn’t a dweeb and knew what he was doing. Flash without spaceships is not Flash. Even Flesh Gordon got that right.
There has been one more Flash Gordon series, one episode I have on DVD, but which I’ve never made it through. It is far worse than the present travesty, and the Dale looks dressed for Alaska. Sorry, EC, no slave girls on the episode I have.
I’m used to the old comics, and don’t like Zarkov being comic relief. Where do you get his being Jewish?
I don’t know about prior, but Zarkov was definitely Jewish in the seventies film. He says he beat Mongonian brainwashing techniques by remembering “Beatles, Talmud, … they couldn’t take that away.”
ETA Not to mention being played by the same man who played the lead in the movie version of Fiddler On The Roof.
Topol.
I had no idea. Thanks.
Did he play Zarkov as comic relief like this one who can’t build a working ray gun?
Nope. Topol’s Zarkov is an eccentric genius. He can build a rocket ship capable of interplanetary flight. He alone recognizes that earth is under attack by aliens. After the Mongonians attempt to brainwash him, he’s even smarter. He easily guesses a long security code, remarking " I thought it might be a prime number in the Reimann series".
Not having cable, I haven’t actually seen this new Flash and I feel more and more I haven’t missed anything.
I’ll stick for a while, but it doesn’t look good.
Ming doesn’t look E-vile, Zarkov shouldn’t be comic relief and while Dale should be a looker, there’s too much T&A for a guy over fourteen.
