I have always been a big fan of Flash Gordon. I first watched the cartoon on Saturday mornings and loved it. I also watched the 1930s serials on PBS when they aired them. I loved several aspects of it. I loved Mongo. It was an incredible world with diverse people, all fighting each other and not ever realizing that united they could defeat their worst enemy, Ming the Merciless. It takes one man, an Earthling, to unite the people of Mongo to bring down Ming the Merciless. I loved, the mix of fantasy and sci-fi, and the different races and cultures on Mongo.
What this new show brought was just enough to entice you but not enough to feel like Flash Gordon yet. What I liked is its potential. It only hinted at the diverse cultures, and the ruthless of Ming. It showed interesting new technologies and interesting characters, but not enough to really feel like Flash Gordon. It feels more like Sliders meets Stargate.
I am not a huge fan of Flash and friends being able to jump back to Earth whenever they feel like it. The whole dilemma was a stranger in a strange world and being stuck there. Now it’s the search for his father. I understand why they are doing that. To start out with, it is a way to save money on sets. The more you film in our real world, the less of a budget you have to have for sets, etc. So they are playing it conservatively on the budget right now. I’ll give them that. I just hope that at some point there is an option for Flash getting stuck there for maybe a season or several seasons.
So I will wait and see. It had some interesting aspects to it, so I will give it a chance. It definitely had better potential than Painkiller Jain.