KEY POINTS:
Right, so we know David Duchovny has had therapy for a sex addiction and that in Californication he plays Hank, a writer who should be having treatment for sex addiction.
Does knowing this make Californication (last night, 9.30pm, TV3) more interesting, less interesting or about as interesting as it was last season? It's just a distraction, of the sort that makes you wonder why we even know such stuff.
I quite liked Californication last time around. It didn't take itself too seriously and the bonking, while boring, was too silly to be taken too seriously - or for anyone to get seriously upset about, although that didn't stop some people.
And Duchovny played Hank with a languid, casual nastiness aimed, really, at himself. He had an endearing world-weariness, and the perfect face for wearing it on. He is possibly not a sex addict. He doesn't chase after sex; sex just seems to happen to him.
Last night he sort of, accidentally, had sort of sex with a woman at a party because she was naked and it was dark. "It was an honest mistake. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong ..." well, body part.
This was his attempt to explain to his partner what had happened. He's back with Karen. Has he been to sex addiction therapy? No, but he had a vasectomy (which is one way of getting in plenty of rude jokes).
Even on the doctor's table, the doc's blonde assistant was coming on to him. He went to the supermarket, and in the frozen food aisle a former bed mate came on to him. He resisted. A guy in a wheelchair said, "What are you? Some kind of pussy?" Hank said to wheelchair guy, "You don't even need that thing ... It just makes you feel special."
Wheelchair guy (wheeled in and then out for the punchline) informed Hank that he had a prolapsed rectum. "Rectum?" said Hank. "Damn near killed him."
Groaners of jokes are part of the world weariness. They're also a way of signalling that Californication is a comedy, but, hey, it's too cool to try too hard to be funny. Or to be sexy. This is bonking as slapstick. And Hank's adventures usually end in a slapping. Last night he ended up face down on the road after being pulled over by a cop.
"Is there a reason you're not wearing a shirt, sir?" the cop had asked.
Yes, said Hank, there was a very good reason and he couldn't begin to explain. Karen suggested he might try, and while he was at it, he could ask the officer's opinion on whether the wrong body part explanation was an honest mistake.
What the cop couldn't understand was what a woman like Karen was doing with a loser like Hank. No, well, that is rather the problem - neither can we.
Hank has given up having sex with anyone who offers it, has given up smoking, has taken up being a good partner and father. In other words, he's given up being Hank, so we have to have ridiculous accidental sex scenes. Otherwise we'd be left with Hank and Karen being lovey dovey and Hank having laconic but meaningful exchanges with his daughter, the one with a shrine to Norwegian death metal bands.
The sex, like the actor's sex addiction, is just a distraction - but without it, all you've got is another show about happy, dysfunctional families.
