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Spoiler-lite. 13 years before the series begins, Flash Gordon's scientist father vanishes in a lab fire. Now grown, marathon runner Flash encounters Dr. Gordon's jittery lab partner, Hans Zarkov, who clues him in to "rifts," which are portals to other universes -- on the other side of the rifts is planet Mongo, ravaged by drought and ruled by debonair but greedy and sadistic Ming, who plans to steal Earth's water. Soon Flash and ex- girlfriend/reporter Dale find themselves traveling back and forth to Mongo to search for Dr. Gordon, along with alien hunter Baylin, who sought refuge from Ming on Earth. Quickly Flash earns a word-of-mouth reputation in the foreign land for his bravery and willingness to fight for what's right, and he becomes a key player in a planet-wide movement to collapse Ming's corrupt empire.
The majority of the countless negative IMDb comments about this show were penned in August 2007, shortly after a butchered 1-part SciFi Channel edit of the longer 2-part pilot aired (seems the network wanted to sabotage it from the start). Thing is, this update is a series that plays better on DVD than it did over 6 months on the TV. Yes, there were some major problems in the beginning -- mainly cheap effects and an overtly comedic tone which permeated the first half of the series -- but they ironed out a lot of wrinkles as the season progressed and were well on their way to a great second year when the show was unceremoniously canceled. And aside from some major surface deviations with Ming (who's no longer an inhuman, politically incorrect Asian slur), they took the essences of the earlier incarnations and injected them into modern characters. (And yes, I'm a lifelong Flash fan, from Buster Crabbe to the porn spoof; from the Filmation cartoons to the campy 1980 DeLaurentis flick.)
The biggest problems were budgetary constraints which forced them to set the bulk of each of the early episodes on Earth with the gang having to fend off the alien-of-the-week. "Sliders" and "Stargate" comparisons were rampant and the backlash against the show was LOUD and immediate, which forced the network to give them some more money to work with. Unfortunately, the CGI team clearly wasn't given more funds but eventually they shifted the bulk of the episodes to Mongo (with plans to keep the characters stranded there for season 2) and phased out the characters of Joe, Dale's cop boyfriend (a character which was a bad decision from the get-go), and Nick, Flash's best friend. The alien-of-the-week had been tedious on a week-to-week basis, but it ultimately served as good framework, since it slowly established most of the characters who would go on to be pivotal in the overall season storyline.
Matter of fact, this was a character-driven show with a lot of development and character arcs. Eric Johnson exuded charisma as Flash, who went from being dumb jock to defender of the universe (or of Mongo, anyway). The prim and proper Dale got to kick ass a few times -- and even be slutty once when a evil witch stole her body. Ming, who showed some signs of real humanity when the show began, became more "merciless" as he found his empire drawing nearer to ruin. And Ming's daughter Aura, who began the show as a spoiled, bratty princess probably went through the biggest character arc of all. Also worth noting are the show's two original characters -- warrior Baylen and creepy, droid-ish scientist Rankol -- as both seemed to get more layered and intriguing with each passing episode.
It's a shame this show never recovered from the backlash against initial episodes (or from the childish, mob-like mentality of Sci-Fi viewers who trolled all of the message boards, making civilized discussion utterly impossible), but I commend the crew for getting it on track and telling a complete story by the finale - so few serialized shows get closure. If only fans and the network had stuck with it, the 2007 "Flash" could've gone on to become a show that was truly great. As is, it falls short of that, but it's a show with a lot of heart, humor, action and lovable characters. If you're willing to stick with it through the first 12 episodes, or if you like light, family-friendly "Xena" and "Hercules" type of fare, it's worth the $5 at Walmart for Mill Creek's complete series DVD release.
score 8/10
VinnieRattolle 30 August 2011
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2481609/ |
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22-11-2020 13:04:14