Californication

If you're bored enough to be reading this, you're also possibly bored enough to need a new TV show in your life. I've just watched the first series of Californication and am mightily impressed. There are very few tv shows that i've actually enjoyed or had more than a passing interest in but this one i've both enjoyed it and feel genuinely invested in the characters involved, the lead in particular. In a nutshell David Duchovny (of X-files fame) plays Hank Moody, a washed up author living in LA, his wife has left him for a rich guy and taken their daughter with her, while Duchovny's character hasn't written anything new for years. And his prized novel 'God Hates Us All' has been filmified into a romcom starring everybody's favourite scientologists Tom and Katie.
It's set around (primarily the most expensive parts of) LA, and centres on a few main themes of Hanks life. His endless series of explicit liasons with a vast multitude of women, his longing to have his family back, and his inability to write anything. Hank's a laconic, witty and highly likeable character, possesed of New York disdain for the city he's in and a general loathing for most of the people in it, replete with various references to punk rock and Bob Dylan. Duchovny's great in the role and soon dispels any X-files related fears about his acting ability, the show's well paced, funny and i've found it's that rare thing - a TV programme who's characters i can actually indentify with, in one way or another.