I had heard from multiple sources that the reboot of Flash Gordon was if not the worst scifi show in recent memory pretty damn close. It ran in 2008? on the Sci Fi channel for I think one full season of 22 episodes?
I checked out a few episodes of this and really? What I saw was while pulpy for sure(its Flash Gordon what do you expect?!) not terrible. I saw one where Flash goes to the ice planet? and helps the ice people princess. Saw one where helping the poor downtrodden villagers lead to disaster, hell they made Ming right! The pilot was unwatchable though, I fell asleep.
I really liked Ming, hes much more complex here(the actor was one of the few good actors) and his daughter was good too.
I think if they had better actors for Flash and Dale, and a bigger budget this would be approaching good.
So just what makes this so much worse than say Stargate? I do remember a lot of confusion when the show first came on with people thinking it was going to be about the comic hero The Flash. I also saw complaints that seemed to think the show was going to be a gritty realistic take on Flash Gordon, are you kidding me?
Flash Gordon (the comic) is about a world-class athlete who travels to another planet and fights a brutal dictator who plans to conquer and/or destroy the Earth.
Flash Gordon (the TV series) is about a guy who details old cars in his garage, who travels to a parallel dmension because an unsavory public utility executive trapped his dad in the Matrix, and who plans to steal a small lake.
If not for the characters sharing the same names you wouldn’t know they were supposed to be the same story.
I assumed that changing the method by which Flash makes it to Mongo was a budgetary decision mostly, and maybe also an attempt to make it less ridiculous to modern audiences(you cannot reach a unknown planet by rocket from earth while a portal to a parellel dimension is vaguely plausible by scifi standards). If Flash takes a ship to Mongo in the pilot the budget for sets go up if every episode is 100% on Mongo.
I don’t remember seeing any of the other details you mention, my only previous FG exposure was the 1980 movie and I am aware of but have never read the comics.
As I recall, the ice episode was later in the series, and the series got considerably better near the end. A lot of the problems seemed to deal with segments of the show on Earth, once they moved to Mongo almost full-time is when it improved. Unfortunately, people had already given up by then.
And turning the Hawkmen into people who were just really talented at using glide-suits was pretty dumb…
My favorite was the one where Earth falls under the control of a Sex-Ray from outer space and Flesh Gordon has to travel to the planet Porno to do battle with Emperor Wang the Perverted.
