This show is unwatchable. Bad story writing, bad acting, bad sets, bad concept. It's like watching an episode of Zena where she does a crossover on low-budget version of Sliders.

"Stick around past the second episode"? What about those of use that got violently ill and had to turn it off within the first half-hour of the first episode? I guess being cursed with a sensitive stomach and/or a desire to watch something non-nauseating on television is where I went wrong?

Its been a thing of the past for years. B5, DS9, Ent, West Wing all suffered in the end from the need to watch the ENTIRE season to get the show, and if it started out like hell like Flash did, well your screwed.

A good show gets everything set up in the first few episodes (a great show locks it down in just the first). This crapload has taken no less than sixteen friggin' episodes to finally get going and that still doesn't alleviate the lousy acting or the sneak suspicion that this was another project altogether and they slapped "Flash Gordon" on top of it in order to sell it.

Bad show, perdiod. A Lost Room show would be great however...

@Falconfire:

I disagree. I think that B5, DS9 and the like were all energized by their long arcs. In these times, it's much easier to catch up on a show via torrents, DVDs or iTunes. Many people have jumped onto LOST or Battlestar because of it's positive reviews; these were shows worthy of doing a little extra homework.

Of course, the king of all the one-offs was Quantum Leap. That series was DESIGNED around single arc shows with only the tiniest of threads running through it.

Oh and for the record, I bailed on Flash after the second episode as well. I just couldn't suppress my gag reflex any longer.

Flash Gordon has a great premise and with a little imagination it could have been great.

Stick a jock, a reporter and mad scientist on an alien world. They just want to get home but in order to do that they have to do a chain of favors that starts off small, building over the episodes and seasons until the end up overthrowing the tyrant who has everyone enslaved. The B story is the sexual tension between Dale and Flash. The C story deals with their interacting with the culture: the longer they stay on Mongo, the more Flash starts to resemble a popular savior myth among the downtrodden people. he has to deal with being the idol to a whole planet when he really just wants to go home and be a famous football player again.

Get the Henson company to design the aliens and creatures and you're golden.

How come I can come up with this stuff off the top of my head and it sounds better than their supposedly well thought out series?

The worst part was that Mongo looked like backwoods earth with a lense filter.

You io9ers can keep polishing this turd all you want, but guess what? It'll still be a turd.

being a nerd as a child, I actually liked the OLD flash gordon they'd show on Captain Cosmic on KTVU here in SF....when I heard about a remake I was curious....and then I tried my best to like this thing but....it sucks.

it's just not that fun, interesting or exciting. I mean, where's the rocket? where's teh fun? where's the sense of danger? And WTF is up with Dr Zarkov being some doofy doofus?

it's just sad that this is the direction SciFi channel is going, and with BSG in limbo thanks to the writer's strike...I fear the worst.

@Ken: Yeah series arcs are great, but each individual episode has to be good for it to work. This show commits the worst sin of all - it is merely boring.

This is the same sort of delusional ranting you get from B&B now about Star Trek, let's hope she's not around for 7 seasons of garbage.

@rakdaddy:

As of my post I see no turd polishing going on, WTF are you talking about?

@Ken: You may think that, and storywise yes they where better because of them, but their ratings suffered for it. And if the arc is poorly planned (like Lost post season 1 or Hero post season 1) then you just squander your entire audience away.

I can see what it's been building up to, it's just taken a painfully long time to get there.

This show is unwatchable... they keep jumping to-and-fro mongo like they're hopping a bus? Ugh. Beyond Lame.

I love when folks neuter/destry the central concept in SciFi classics (worst offender: talking humans in Planet of the Apes... Tim Burton's unforgivable sin)

Hey SciFi get a clue: don't cancel Battlestar until you shoot the last 13 episodes, cancel Flash Gordon, show Doctor Who a week after the UK and you'll be on your way...

@ComicDork: I'd love to see Torchwood on there too, but something tells me it's not gonna happen.

@Gyrus: I own a public-domain copy of Flash Gordon: Rocket Ship (1936 "pilot") and you got it right, and then some. I'm watching your tv show.

The best thing about this show, it it cost less to make then SG-1, so SciFi could go and get us other quality programming...like Wrasslin'... and dozens of other crapware Canadian genre shows... like the one with the hockey stick carrying magician... oh Jeebus... the suck so hard... at least we get quality Saturday movies like... we... the one with the crappy CGI... oh wait... that is all of them...
I could go on.
Flash Gordon sucks.
Pain Killer Jane sucks.
Ghost Hunters, both domestic and imported, SUCK.
I can't wait for BSG.

@Epaminondas: Convincing people to watch an unentertaining sack of crap like this incarnation of "Flash Gordon" counts as turd polishing in my book. Though turd fluffing would probably be a better term.

The show is pretty lame. Very poorly written and the special effects are right out of high school. There are positives however; the 69 Pontiac Firebird Ram Air 400 and the 'ladies'... yes, I like the cheesecake.

Gyrus said: How come I can come up with this stuff off the top of my head and it sounds better than their supposedly well thought out series?

Because you aren't smoking crack like the Flash Gordon folks are. :-)

As for leaving after the second episode, I left after the first act of the pilot. Honestly, it made the movie look like silver screen gold.

What Horvath seems to be missing is that individual long story arc episodes have to entertain in and of themselves to keep us coming back. Bab5 had a long story arc, but I was almost immediately sucked in. One of the problems I had with the premiere is that it didn't seem to know whether it wanted to be a cheesy over-the-top comedy or a drama, so it ended up neither. Ming doesn't even seem very merciless.

I stuck around looooong after the second episode, and the hate just kept building.

It might be passable camp if not for having the Flash Gordon name awkwardly stamped on it.

Oh and Painkiller Jane made my eyes and brain bleed.

@btgoss: Seriously, YES... WTF is the deal with wrasslin???

And AniMonday pales greatly in comparison to even reruns of Inuyasha on Adult Swim.

Flash Gordon and the new Doctor Who have made the same mistake IMO (though Doctor Who is 50X the show Flash Gordon is). The mistake is that they so easily shuttle between space and back home on Earth. Where's the peril, the adventure? It's so "domestic" to use the 9th Doctor's disparaging phrase. In both the classic versions, they were "lost in space" as it were and never knew if they'd make it back home. I really miss that element of peril, and subsequently, the element of exploring weird, wild worlds.

I actually enjoy the new Flash Gordon. It's quality, B Science Fiction - which I've been severely missing these days.

@Mercurypdx:

Torchwood has been showing on BBC America. The new second season is going to start January 26th at 9, just two weeks after the UK premiere.

THAT'S how you do it right.

Animonday did sho Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society.

Where did my reply button go?

@Seth L: What!? How come every time I catch it it's Noein or the other dumb one?!??!?

[Plans to beat on Tivo when he gets home]

I would like to throw my vote in with the anti-Flash crew. I find the show boring beyond description. I mean, like Mutant X boring. With shows like Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Reaper and Dexter whomping things up Flash Gordon just doesn't compare. BSG Razor barely scratched that BSG itch (not that it wasn't awesome, just not enough of it!).