Hank Moody used to be on top of the world. He was in a long term relationship, he had a smart and mature young daughter, he'd written three critically and commercially acclaimed novels, and production on a movie adaptation in the works.
And then it all went to hell. Hank stopped writing. His relationship broke up. He even hated the movie they made, though the residuals from it are more or less what's keeping him financially afloat. His daughter was still a bright point for him, but not enough to stop him from descending into an empty, embittered regimen of drinking and casual sex.
Hank is, in other words, pretty much the archetypal TV version of a novelist, though since this is a premium cable show, his sexual shenanigans are more explicit than the norm. Not that you'll see his junk, of course. Californication is much less egalitarian about its nudity than say Spartacus: Blood & Sand.
A failure to be egalitarian is certainly something of an issue with the show in general, actually. This could be some smart writing: for all Hank's angry diatribes about how LA society treats women, he treats them badly himself, and maybe we're supposed to notice that. Maybe. But I'm honestly not convinced. Hank's the kind of guy who thinks that being okay with female pubic hair makes him enlightened, and - at least in season 1 - I'm not convinced the show's actual creators don't feel the same way.
All that said, Californication is in many ways an easy and entertaining watch. David Duchovny (who had real life sex and relationship issues that I'm sure the show didn't help) has the on screen charisma to make Hank's misadventures pretty engaging, and the program isn't afraid to let us laugh at Hank himself, at least some of the time. Plus the supporting cast is really solid.
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