Californication -- Pilot vs. Script

A few months ago, I read Tom Kapinos' pilot for Californication and fell in love with the energy and the characters. It also hit home a bit for me since it's about a novelist whose work has been adapted for film (though his goes through a slightly more significant change). There's quite a bit in there about the writing process (or lack thereof), sexuality in relation to creativity, and how the expectations that others have for us pale in comparison to those that we have for ourselves.

I knew that Showtime (or Kapinos) had decided to make the show a 30-minute instead of the hour it was written as, but I assumed that they'd just clip the one-hour pilot in half and mess with it so it could function as the first two episodes. It was too good of a script to shorter or so I thought.
The other night, I watched the pilot On Demand, and saw that instead of splitting it, they took the pilot and snipped snipped snipped until it was down to 33 minutes or so. And here's the kicker:

I didn't miss a thing. The script that I thought was so perfect, so fun, was just as good on the screen about half as long. I'm sure there were many babies that were killed during this process, but it was enlightening to see such deep cuts result in little to no loss of theme, energy, or character. I should probably study it further and make a real meal out of such a lesson.
In the meantime, I'd recommend a viewing. May not be everyone's cup of tea, but both the wife and I dug it quite a bit, and it's great to see Duchovny doing his thing again. I think it premieres tonight on Showtime.

Oh, plus, being Showtime, there are naturally a lot of naked women. So there's that.
emg