So much TV! – week of 6/22/22

It’s gonna be a crowded week. I know my wife was just complaing that it’s all summer reruns for her, but for me, everything is firing on all cylinders, full speed ahead.

Superman and Lois is back, and there’s something to be said for a series like this… Where every single episode feels like the penultimate episode. As bizarro world attempts to merge with earth, Superman is down for the count and powerless. It’s up to all of our second string heroes, including Jordan as well as stealing his daughter to protect Smallville. In the meantime, The evil doppelgängers are back, looking for their counterparts and looking to take out Clark while he’s still vulnerable. All of this goes on, Lana finds herself coping not only was just learning the job of being the newly elected mayor, but also dealing with an extinction level superhero crisis and trying to pull the town together in the midst of it.

I gotta say, the thing that keeps coming back to me here, the thing that appeals to me the most about the show is that they genuinely get Superman. Clark feels helpless, worthless because he can’t get out there and save everybody, but Lois remind him that it’s not the powers that make him Superman… And right now the town needs Superman… Someone to rally around someone to give them hope. It’s just brilliant. It shows a true understanding of who Superman is, and what his appeal really is. Superman is an aspirational figure, more than just a hero.

Over in The Flash, I gotta say, I almost feel now like I’m reading comics again. This episode picks up where last week left off, with our new speedster, and her boyfriend who is definitely not the reverse flash. Definitely not. While flash attempts to train her, and iris tries to cope time jumping sickness, the avatars of the different forces show up again, this time very definitely the villains of the piece. I’m enjoying this, because we get a lot of interesting continuity, despite these being very self-contained episodes. We’re getting callbacks we’re getting characters from various stories mingling, it’s very much a comfortable old friend. It’s very much pulp fiction. It’s very much just like reading a comic book… And I think that’sThe Flash achieving its highest and best destiny.

 

Then there’s Miss Marvel… which is nothing like reading a comic book. Last week I mentioned that I was starting to see a pattern, and I think I really have cracked their formula. 85% world building, 15% action. Because that’s really what this is. It’s a very talky 35 minutes or so and 15 minutes of superhero shenanigans. The story is mostly concerned with Kamala getting ready for her brothers wedding… And the wedding itself. The Band playing the wedding by the way? “BROWN Jovi“. I absolutely screamed. I’m not sure if I’m finding it appalling or hilarious… Equal parts both probably.

They frontload the episode with an infodump, that the aunt who the bracelet belonged to, she and a bunch of her friends are actually aliens from another world, and the inspiration for the legend of the djinn. I’ll admit, I like this, it actually gets me back into the mood to watch Wishmaster again. It’s also an interesting take.

The rest of the episode is basically Kamala struggling to decide whether or not she’s going to help them and maybe escape with them or whatever… Kamala is actually the McGuffin of the story! Our alien friends however, aren’t waiting around. They come for her… right in the middle of the wedding reception and chaos ensues.

Do you know what bugs me here? We’re three episodes in and we have yet to see that costume that they were so quick to show off and all of the promotional materials. Honestly, I’m watching this because I want a superhero show, and Disney+, in typical fashion are dragging their feet! Yes, I’m probably gonna follow this all the way through, but it’s incredibly frustrating and there’s a reason why the show had the lowest debut numbers of any marvel show yet. In the words of falcon… Do better. Seriously Disney, do better.

So, does Obi-Wan stick the landing? It’s a really hard question to answer. It does and it doesn’t. I get all the resolution I was looking for and a lot of what I wanted… But it also comes with a lot of stuff that I just don’t care about. You see the problem with stretching this film script out into a six hour mini series, is all the stuff you have to fill-in, and I have said repeatedly, I am certain that Reva is an add-on designed strictly to stretch this thing out to six hours with a B storyline. The thing is, we still need to wrap up that be a storyline… And she takes up half the episode to do it. I feel a little bit like I did back in the day, watching the Phantom Menace. Specifically, watching the finale of the Phantom Menace. I did not care about watching little Anakin Skywalker fly a fighter craft, I didn’t care about the Gungan massacre, all I wanted to do was watch Qui-Gon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi fight Darth Maul. Every time they cut away from that fight and the jewel of the fates, I would just roll my eyes and count down the minutes until I can get back to the A storyline… The thing that mattered to me. I felt that a lot in this episode. Reva heads out to Tattooine to murder Luke… And she gets an attack of conscience, flashbacks of Anakin killing younglings… And just can’t. That’s it. That’s all it is. But it takes up at least 20 minutes of this episode, interspersed through what we really want to see… The showdown between Vader and Kenobi.

I almost wonder if they’ve been watching the Orville… Because this episode was full of ship porn, with tons of beauty shots of that huge star destroyer. We get all of the aesthetic from the Empire strikes back that we ever wanted, and if you’re a fan of the Star Wars style spaceships, this is absolutely gonna fill you with glee. Obi wan abandons the refugee ship, and the star destroyer predictively follows him. Vader comes down to the planet and they have at it.

If I have one real criticism of this showdown, it’s that the set just looks so cheap. I mean seriously, it’s planet hell from Star Trek… It’s not even Star Trek next generation, it’s Styrofoam rocks and light painted backgrounds from the original series with some fog thrown in for good measure. It’s just cheap. Even Uncle Owens farm where Reva is hunting Luke feels cheap. Still, a good story and good dialogue can rise you above that. This mostly manages to do that. Not entirely, but mostly. There is some good banter, and considering the way the tide turns and how spectacularly Vader loses the duel, you can almost justifying him saying that he was perhaps, “still a student” the last he met Obi-Wan… But now in a new Hope he considers himself the master. You may even argue, that is perhaps because he has in the interim between this and a new Hope, given up on his hunt for Obi-Wan. He’s finally squashed his feelings and become a true Jedi master… I’m sure there’s 1000 fan explanations for this… Though, it might’ve been nice if they’d give us a proper one.

There is one particular wonderful moment that I think Star Wars really needs to learn from and do more of. Vader is down, but he assures Obi-Wan that his failure with Anakin wasn’t entirely his fault. Vader says “you didn’t kill Anakin, I did.“ This is a brilliant piece of dialogue. Seriously. It’s the sort of ‘member berry that doesn’t just explain nostalgia, but enhances what it’s come before. I’ll give them full marks for this very smart moment. I will also extend a heartfelt F@#$ YOU to everyone who is sharing this photo 12 hours after the episode dropped. I didn’t get to watch it for two days, and all of you ruined what should’ve been a moment for me. This should’ve been a shocking surprise, but it was all over the Internet, and that does piss me off. I didn’t even get a day grace… And it’s one of the reasons I’m getting less and less patient with the Star Wars community.

By the way, this series just hates Luke doesn’t it? Not only is he just background… When we finally do get any of kid Luke, he’s just the McGuffin for the B storyline. Leia gets to be a fully developed character in the center of the action, and Luke is just… Well, throw away. It does seem like they are setting up for season two of the adventures of Obi-Wan and Leia by the way, and I’d really rather they didn’t. Oh I want a second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi… But I’d like to fast forward another five years and see him watching over Luke on tattooine and maybe getting him out of a jam or two as a young teenager. I don’t need any more Leia. Truth be told, the whole meeting and relationship between young Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi… That feels 100 times more canon breaking to me then this meet up between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader.

So at the end of the day, did it stick the landing? I think it did. But I stand by my opinion that I really would’ve rather of seen this as a 2 to 3 hour film, rather than this mini series… And I needed to see it sooner. 10 years ago, this would’ve done gangbusters. I’d probably even own a copy. On the other hand, the real question is is it good enough for me to ever revisit it? Certainly I’m gonna pull the Prequel recap for my daughter once we finish return of the Jedi… But I don’t know that I really care to sit through six hours of this again. Two hours? Yeah that I might do… Especially with friends at a party. But no, I can’t see me ever coming back to this series… Although of all the Star Wars that’s come out since return of the Jedi… This might be the most likely candidate.

And then, there is The Orville.
The Orville has done an excellent job of really being Star Trek… Copying the aesthetic and the trajectory… And for the first time I wonder and worry if they’ve also swallowed the poison pill of modern Star Trek. The Orville hasn’t been without its social justice and political points… Although it’s generally been fairly evenhanded with them. But with this episode, featuring the election of the Krill… The bad guys, basically religious Klingons, I wonder if they’re getting a little heavy handed with their political commentary. We have an election that changed suddenly… mysteriously… almost overnight! And yet we have the leader who wins being very much A nationalist and an ideologue… All the things they said President Trump was. Of course one could also apply that to current President Biden, who governs every bit as an extremist as they all said Trump would be. The fact that there is suggestions of a stolen election… Or a challenge to it… Like I said. It’s heavy-handed and I’m feeling a little attacked. I actually chatted with us a little bit with one of my friends who does not share my political leanings. He’s not necessarily my opposite or even in the middle, but more of a cynic… and unlike other people who I hear frequently say “I hate all politicians“ and claim to be independent… He actually is. From his viewing, he saw a bit of skewering of both sides… And I’m content to leave it at that. I know my bias. Still, it’s clumsy and really not what I want to watch The Orville for. It’s a shame too, because the episode is gorgeous. The Krill homeworld is shocking how detailed and well realized it is. It’s just gorgeous and a monstrous bit of science-fiction design. Is everything you want from a future alien city.

With the upset of the election, a potential peace treaty with the galactic union is also shot down… Leaving our representatives on planet in peril. It’s a good time to mention that Bruce Boxleitner is guest starring in this episode… Except they’ve buried him under a ton of prosthetics! Still, that voice is unmistakable and as soon as you see the eyes paired with it… I know exactly who I’m looking at. He gets a good performance despite it all and of course, it’s another one of those ways where The Orville really does established sci-fi cred. The new Krill leader by the way, is Seth MacFarlane’s old lover… One who had infiltrated the ship in the previous season… And she’s got a secret! There’s a child… All of this makes the whole situation more complex and politically charged… And in a different political climate, I think I’d be a lot more into this intrigue. This is another one of those series where I’m watching and kind of wondering if they’re gonna stick the landing, or if they are going to stumble into the political Meyer like far too many other shows half. The Orville has until now, been a safe haven for a lot of us political refugees from science fiction… I’m still a fan, but when it comes time to revisit the season… This may be the episode I skip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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