I realize that this review is rather late coming but it has taken me quite a bit of restful meditation and learning about Zen to get a foul taste out of my mouth. Truthfully, my expectations for Flash Gordon were pretty low and I’m shocked at how disappointed I am. This new “Sci-Fi Original Series” makes the crappy movie from 1980 look like a cinematic masterpiece.

They’ve had enough time to re-imagine things but they forgot to use any imagination. Flash’s hometown is second only to the villain’s home world, Mongo, as the most boring place in the universe. The most exciting part of the show is all about who’s going to get busy with Flash first.

It’s basically like this. Flash, a professional runner with dreams of starting his own auto-repair shop, finds out that his dead father may be on the other side of a mysterious-remote-controllable-top-secret-wormhole-thingy. He decides that the smart thing to do is save his dad with the help of Dr. Zarkov and his unavailable high school sweetheart/television reporter.

The biggest problem with the show is the bad guy, Ming the Narrow-minded. He’s not scary and entirely too redeemable. All he needs to do is find a viable water supply for his city and things are good plus he looks way too much like, I can’t remember the name– Oh yeah. Flash Gordon!

In addition to the reporter, there are two more hot women that are introduced to keep us guessing about Flash’s companion choices. Ming’s daughter seems to be a basically good person, if not over-dressed, and there is a third woman that we’re not entire clear about other than she’s a really good fighter/survivor woman.

I’ve decided that I’m going to keep watching so you don’t have to. If things improve, I’ll let you know. If they don’t I’ll send the writers some boxes so they can clean out their desks.