Californication

By: Team Buzzine

August 4, 2009

The new season of the series Californication will return to Showtime starting Sunday, September 27th at 10:00 p.m. The series features David Duchovny, who won a Golden Globe last year for his performance on the show, as a chain-smoking, brilliant, self-proclaimed non-misogynist (he just really, really loves women), bad-boy novelist with a mind of gold and a prick of cold, hard steel…or at least that’s what he’d have us believe.

The new season begins with Hank Moody (Duchovny) taking a post as a professor at a southern California university. With Karen (Duchovny’s ex-wife, played by Natascha McElhone of The Truman Show) across the country in New York, Hank is left to his own devices and will be surrounded by barely legal college coeds. Dream sequence? Or a dream come true for Hank?  It should make for a very interesting Season Three.

The series has also served as the vehicle for the breakout performance for the two young women of the cast — Madeleine Martin, who plays Moody’s daughter Becca (who I had the great fortune of seeing on Broadway in the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning production of Tracy Lett’s August: Osage County, coming to the Ahmanson Theater next month) and Madeline Zima (A Cinderella Story) as the jail-bait age, unintentional object of Moody’s first-season affections. Both actresses turned in wonderfully engaging turns throughout Seasons One and Two.

Season Three will also feature some familiar Californication faces, such as Evan Handler (Sex and the City) as Hank Moody’s perverted agent Charlie, and Pamela Aldon (most well known as the Emmy Award-winning voice of Bobby Hill on Fox’s King of the Hill) as Charlie’s now fully rehabilitated wife, Marcy.

Season Three will also feature a slew of special guest stars including Kathleen Turner (Romancing the Stone, Peggy Sue Got Married), Peter Gallagher (The O.C.), Diane Farr (Numb3rs), Eva Amurri (the raucous, delectable scene-stealer from Saved!), Embeth Davidtz (Mansfield Park), Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl), and probably the most exiting appearance of the season…legendary ’80s rocker Rick Springfield!

With all of the wonderful actors affiliated with the show, and by the looks of it, Season Three promises much more of the same hilarity and drama that fans of the show have come to know and love. It’s the writing on Californication that makes it special and engaging year after year. Searingly funny, smart without being pretentious (most of the time), and unafraid to skewer anyone or anything that gets in the way of Moody’s pursuit of balance (and dare I say happiness?), the talented, award-winning staff of Californication has made the last two seasons limitless and a joy to watch.

Expectations are high. Now bring on Season Three!