I really hope Eric will get more roles, and more decent roles at that, now that he's had his own show, if only for one season. Forget about the horrible writing and low production values, he did the best he could with what he was given, that's for sure.
-Meghan
This message has been deleted by an administrator
shareI just don't actually recall reading or hearing Flash get trashed anywhere other than the IMDB.
You obviously didn't look anywhere else then. Here's a selection for you:
USA Today: "Badly written, badly cast and done on the cheap in the Canadian woods, Flash is the kind of fantasy toss-off that gives sci-fi, and Sci Fi, a bad name. ... "
NY Post: "I wish I could have been in the pitch meeting for Sci Fi's latest reincarnation of "Flash Gordon." It must have been an out of this world experience - because there's no other way this incredibly dopey series would ever have, er, gotten off the ground.
I apologize to all the Flash Gordon fans around the world. I know I had nothing to do with this series , but it's so horrible I somehow feel responsible - just by watching it."
Boston Herald: "Johnson is wooden as Flash, and he and Dale have zero chemistry. Not so for Karen Cliche, best known from the last season of Mutant X. As alien bounty hunter Baylin, she radiates chemistry with even the props. As Ming the Merciless, Flashs eternal nemesis, John Ralston is as terrifying as a granola bar. Sci Fi needed an actor who could project even camp menace. This guy looks as if he got lost on the way to Dunkin Donuts.
"
Newsday: "watch Sci Fi's new "Flash Gordon" series and wonder where the magic went. It's hard to see how a show could take such a perennial fave and go this completely wrong.
"
Variety: "dimwitted banter, dimension-breaching nonsense, and a cast seemingly plucked from Revlon commercials. Nostalgia might win out, but barring a last-minute rescue, this bit of fluff will be forgotten in a you-know-what.
lacking the requisite wit, excitement or sense of adventure to survive for long in this dimension, much less the next.
"
IGN.com: "We're not even half way into the season yet, but at episode 9 we're going to call time of death on SCI FI's Flash Gordon series. Looking back over our time together, there have been good times and bad times and
no wait. That's not right. They were all bad times, except for a few brief moments that were simply "not bad." They weren't good - they just didn't cause us any physical pain....There are far better ways to spend an hour, many of them to be found on television. What really brought things into focus was the inclusion of the Battlestar Galactica "mini-sodes" that are airing in the run-up to Razor. In just these few minutes Galactica manages to so far outshine Flash Gordon that it makes the series seem embarrassing by comparison. This is probably not the effect SCI FI intended. However, if you're going to bring in fans of a show as high quality as Galactica you cannot expect them to be anything but appalled at Flash........"
Just do a search on google for the show and believe me, if you can't find more bad reviews and outraged fans of the previous Flash Gordon incarnations, then you aren't even facing the screen. It has been roundly abused across the internet AND the print press. The fans of the previous 75 years of Flash Gordon history attacked it and rightly so; it was ravaged by critics and new prospective viewers alike. Go look at the talkback for it on AICN for a sample. Or on any of the viewer comments on numerous blogs than mention it. Even the SciFi channel buried it quietly, never even admitted it was cancelled - it was just never spoken of until the new head of the channel said in interview - and I quote - "We treated the Flash Gordon story very poorly". Their own channel tracked it's viewing figures which halved at EVERY SINGLE episode, until after the mid-season break they were so low they couldn't even be counted. It was so poor, the majority of it's cast haven't worked since and I'm willing to bet more than a bit of the reason for that is due to how awful their last job was, and new employers not wanting to be tarred by association.
It was a disgracefully bad show, a slap in the face to fans of Flash Gordon and while I'm glad it's been cancelled, I'm just sorry it wasn't cancelled after it's pilot episode. How it got on the air in the first place boggles the mind.