As far as sci-fi goes, few franchise approach the notoriety and sheer age of Flash Gordon.

From hilarious racist comic strip to campy black and white drama to children's cartoon to campy cult movie to children's cartoon and now to sci-fi original drama.

The most obvious deviation from the established premise is that there are zero rocket ships. Or at least so far. No, instead the show has opted for a far easier plot device... WORMHOLES! Well, almost. They're called "rifts"... presumably because after Farscape and SG-1, they don't want to look like the only idea they have are wormholes.

Anyway, it starts out with Flash winning a marathon (if you've watched Smallville, you could be forgiven for thinking flash had fallen through one of these rifts from the eponymous town) but of course, it's not long before aliens are invading all the hot spots - highways, bowling alleys and minimarts. Flash doesn't seem too smart though - he punches a metal robot, stops his car to get out and run across an open field and jumps through a rift in the small hope that he'll find his father.

Which naturally gets him and ex-girlfriend Dale - who despite her engagement still have some chemistry - into trouble when they arrive in Mongo and meet Ming. Here we find out why they're sending robots to Earth and so on before they manage to escape and ponder on what an "Imex" is.

Overall, it's not so bad. The acting is decent enough and the effects - while not plentiful - are solid. The main let down is that this really doesn't have much to do with Flash Gordon. It really seems as if the format of the show means that we'll have aliens of the week and Flash saving the world but home for his tea. Not to mention that the "rifts" make this feel as if it's trying to be teen SG-1... or Smallville meets SG-1. It really feels lacking in the kind of epic stuff you had in the movie... and while it's obvious that you can't really compare the two, this doesn't really have any sense of grandeur. Which is rather a shame.

It's clear that there is going to be some kind of story arc (possibly) with Flash's father but beyond that, there isn't really anything to indicate that this will be an episodic drama where we have some enemy come through every week or have Flash go to Mongo every week. Either way, it's a rather lacklustre start that might indicate Sci-Fi feel the name alone will give it time... but hell, that worked for Star Trek for a decade.