Week of 2-25-22

Episodes like last week are really the reason I keep defending the Flash even after a lot of my friends have dropped off. We open with the flash running through Central city stopping Miner Street level crime. A robbery here, maybe push your grandmother out of the way of a truck… All before running home for game night. This he is actually the kind of stuff I’d like to see more of. Especially with such an established casting concept.

The rest of the story is a really straightforward standard adventure with a villain looking for eternal life, and draining the energy from the people of the city. We get to watch the flash grow old as he battles this guy, and it’s just a fun story.

While this episode doesn’t really connect to anything else in the series, it’s very much standalone but still doing the sort of farewell Thing as well, bringing back familiar faces. This time around it’s Captain Singh from the earlier episodes. He stepped down two seasons ago or so, it was never a big character… Always more of a background one. That’s what makes it so weird to bring him back like this. He’s got a substantial role in the story, helping Joe settle into retirement, and it’s weird because he probably gets more screen time in this one episode than in any given season.

Still, the standalone for me is good. And it doesn’t feel like filler. It doesn’t give me the same exasperation in the last couple of episodes have. It’s just a reminder of why I genuinely do enjoy the show.

With no Superman this week, I decided to take the plunge and check out Obi Wan

The first episode actually starts off with about a 5 to 7 minute recap of the prequel series. Not only is that smart, it’s actually better than watching those three movies in full. We get all the salient data, we get the best of the performances, and you basically get to know everything we need to know going into this.

It’s interesting, normally I’d roll my eyes at the idea of yet another prequel series, but this is exploring that’s strange imperial. Between revenge of the Sith and a new Hope. It’s not something that’s ever been explored before, and quite frankly, Ewan McGregor is one of the absolute best things about the prequel series.

I am intrigued by the show. McGregor is actually a surprisingly proficient action hero, and I almost wonder if we really needed this story earlier. A lot of the bloom is off the rose is off Star Wars, but fans have been clamoring for this year well over a decade. Ewan McGregor has basically made the role his – more than Alec McGuniess ever did, and it’s nice to see him back in the saddle.

The portrayal of a child Leia is also interesting. I actually see it. they’ve made her up in a way that REALLY evokes Carrie Fisher, and I can totally see this little girl growing up to be her in another ten years. Likewise, the whole Star Wars world feels right. In fact, the only thing that feels out of place is the Inquisitor Reva. That VERY 2022 hairstyle takes me right out and it feels like there’s more attention paid to her story than to Obi-wans’s….of course they DO have six episodes to fill here, and adding more subplot with her may be one of  the ways they stretched out that original two hour film idea into a six hour mini-series.

That’s at the core of any problems they are going to have here. I could see the filler stretching out Picard, Wandavision and Loki. Obi Wan is starting out strong, and very watchable – maybe the best of the modern Disney Star Wars. But filler may well kill it. I hope not. This one has enough of my intrest to keep me around for another four weeks.

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