A couple weeks ago I saw a billboard advertising Showtime's new show Californication along with its ever popular Weeds series. Admittedly, I only took interest because it's called Californication. Lindsay sent me details from the show's Wikipedia page. At first it didn't look too promising:

Californication is an Showtime 12-part mini-series production created by Tom Kapinos and starring David Duchovny as Hank Moody, a troubled novelist whose obsessions with sex and drugs interfere with his personal and professional lives, as well as the relationships with his ex-wife Karen (Natascha McElhone) and daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin).

It sounded a bit cliché, but I had to check it out anyway. The pilot was leaked onto file sharing networks a long time ago, an obvious move by Showtime to build some buzz for the show on blogs, like this one. I wouldn't bother taking the bait unless I thought it was worth it.

The pilot was amazing. The Wikipedia page doesn't do justice to the many layers of Duchovny's character and his dark humor that make him both interesting and entertaining. The Newsweek writeup is much more apt to describe the show:

Comedy has always been an underrated skill for Duchovny, now 47, but Hollywood has done him no favors in getting the word out. You might've missed the glimmers of his talents in movie duds like Evolution and Connie & Carla. He's long seemed like a capable actor and a highly intelligent guy—he has a graduate degree in literature from Yale -- who never quite landed in the right role. But finally, the perfect gig has come along: in Showtime's new comedy Californication, which debuts Aug. 13, he plays an unhinged novelist named Hank Moody who's got a bad case of writer's block, an even worse habit of saying whatever pops into his mind, no matter how rotten—and an ex-wife and a daughter who have just about given up on him. The show is sexy, profane and darkly funny, but Duchovny has another trick up his sleeve: it's also got heart.

Showtime has only ordered 12 episodes of Californication. I'm hoping that this is a pilot series and not a mini series. It's rare that I'm invested in a show after seeing a single episode, but Californication sold me. It would be a shame to limit its run to only 12 episodes.

The premiere is tomorrow, August 13th. But, you can of course download the pilot from your favorite file sharing network.