Moral of the story of Californication: women, and I include myself in this, will watch anything with David Duchovny in it, especially if he takes off his shirt. (I mean, I sat through the first Red Shoe Diaries for that guy. To my eternal shame.)
You know, kind of the way you guys all at least considered sitting through "The House Bunny" when you saw this in the preview:

Seriously though, Californication isn't a terrible show. Duchovny is a very good actor (he proved that in The X-files), and this material suits him. probably for the reasons Undeath mentioned above but hey, anyone who can make any sort of decent show nowadays gets kudos in my book.