Hung - Season 1 (Review)

I guess any show whose opening title sequence features someone stripping naked is worth a look. Hung is about Ray Drecker, a high-school teacher in a mid-life crisis. His wife left him for a another man, and his house caught on fire and his insurance policy just lapsed. With no other options, Ray takes the advice of Tanya, a woman he just slept with, to use his god given gift of a big penis to whore himself out with Tanya as his pimp. Hung feels like a combination of three fairly recent shows: Secret Dairies of a Call Girl mixed with Weeds and just a little pinch of Californication. Hung had a lot going for it before it premiered, mostly do to its casting. Thomas Jane is fine lead actor despite appearing in rather forgettable films like The Punisher, while Jane Adams in the role Tonya gives the standout performance and it took me a while to figure out that I recognized her from her brief stint as Niles' second wife on Fraiser. Sadly, while the casting and premise are solid, the execution is very lackluster.

The overall arc of this season basically sees Ray and Tanya adjusting to their new lives as prostitute and pimp. The story arc remains rather stagnate and repetitive for the whole season. Time is constantly wasted either reminding Ray and Tanya why they need to stick it out in their new line of work or watching Ray have sex with lots of pretty women. There's not much difference in plot between the first couple of episodes and the last few and the sole diversion we get during this time is a completely pointless love story between Ray and Jemma, his best client. Nothing is gained from the romance in terms of character development and the revelation of Jemma's intentions for Ray are unbelievably asinine.

Even worse is that a lot of the supporting characters have genuinely interesting stories to tell, like Ray's supposedly gay son Damon who has some complex and twisted emotions hiding beneath his surface. He gets an unresolved storyline at the end of the season that shows that he could be just a straight kid with pretensions of being gay. It would have been nice to see this aspect of his personality explored a bit more, but apparently the show was more interesting in watching Ray have sex, continually contemplate his situation and do other things we've seen him do multiple times throughout the season. There was so much opportunity for Hung to be more than it wound up becoming which was an an underwhelming debut season. The show was inexplicably renewed for a second season early in its run and I hope the show becomes a bit more engaging next year. Hung isn't a bad show, its just not what it was hyped up to be.