TV Tuesday - Super Heroes

Today I feel like talking about TV, as most of you know I am unemployed and thus am blessed with an abundance of time to watch TV. This is just some of the stuff I have been enjoying lately.


Arrow/The Flash

Bundling these together since they share their universe or whatever. The CW has really put together a fun couple of shows that pretty well embrace their silly premises and just dive into their worlds, with plenty of references to the larger DC universe that may never be acted on but at least make nerds like me happy.

Arrow tells us the story of Oliver Queen, a billionaire playboy who secretly fights crime in disguise using a cave and an arsenal of gadgets, with the help of his loyal manservant and young protege. OK it is pretty clear they wanted to make Batman, but had to settle for this, turns out that is fine, it has managed to keep itself from actually becoming "Batman light" and is managing to have fun with what it is doing. To be fair here, I read very little of the Green Arrow comics, I am not even sure he has a proper list of villains to call his own. From what I can see the writers are snagging characters from Batman, Justice League, and The Flash instead, so we get The League of Assassins, Slade Wilson, Deadshot, and so on, with appearances by Amanda Waller and Ray Palmer: The Atom as well. Also John Barrowman is in it, so if you missed watching him in Dr. Who and Torchwood you can get him here.


The Flash is significantly sillier, spun off from Arrow during it's second season, it actually sticks fairly faithfully to the comics, and it turns out that is both awesome and hilarious at the same time, somehow it is a lot harder to take Weather Wizard or Captain Boomerang(not making it up) seriously when people actually say his name. They make very little attempt to explain the super powers stuff in a way that makes sense, which I appreciate, it is harder to poke holes in it and be mad at it that way, but they do a good job with the super speed and the effects and fight scenes, for both shows really, are pretty darn well done. Also Mark Hamill just showed up, he plays the Trickster and it is clear he only has one laugh for gag and gadget based villains, so if you missed him as the Joker from Batman: The Animated Series, now is your chance to relive those days a little.


Gotham

After a rocky first couple episodes, Gotham is probably my favorite procedural drama on TV, it tells the story of young Detective Gordon, on the job for the first time after transferring to the Gotham City Police Force, and the first case he gets is the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, parents of Bruce.
The first episode or two go kinda slow, spending a lot of time setting up the ongoing meta-plots, which I don't mind, as well as spending a lot of effort pointing out various characters and villains in their early years, which while it does push my nerd buttons, kinda made the episodes drag a bit, but they have since gotten away from that and the show spends a good amount of time following a "Villain of the week" format while developing the ongoing plots as well.

I also like it because unlike many police procedural shows, it make no attempt to suck the dick of the police department, Gordon is literally the only uncompromised individual in the entire GCPD, and even he ends up making unwise choices throughout the show, and the writers make no attempt to portray it as anything other than bad and the way it shouldn't be. So many of the shows today have their police treating various rules like the right to phone calls, or having a lawyer present, or warrants to search homes, as minor inconveniences that should be ignored whenever possible, that it is refreshing to see one where it is quite clear that this stuff is wrong. On any given day the GCPD probably breaks the same amount of laws as the NYPD does on the show Castle(Which I do like) but they are quite literally bad guys in Gotham, whereas in Castle it is taken as standard, good practice.
Ahem...
I got off track, sorry, basically watch Gotham is what I am saying, the actors are all a lot of fun to watch, and their city is delightfully seedy.





 
Powers

A Playstation network exclusive show, which probably explains why I had no idea it was happening, this is another procedural based on the pseudo-independent comic of the same name written by Brian Michael Bendis, it follows the normal humans in a police department tasked with dealing with the crimes committed by super powered individuals. Special effects are terrible and the actin is erratic, but the story is fairly compelling and the setting is fairly cool. I always like to see "real world" ideas about how super heroes would work, including their influence on culture, and this does a good job of giving us that. This is definitely an adaptation of the comics, 6 episodes in and only a couple things are the same here, so it really doesn't matter if you read it or not, you won't be spoiled or anything. Most entertaining character so far is played by comedian Eddie Izzard, who does a great job being terrifying and chewing the scenery, along with everything else.


 
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD

Now in it's second season, this spun off from the Avengers movie and directly ties in and influences the Marvel cinematic universe, which is cool. It doesn't feature the A list heroes or villains hardly at all, rather following the usually more subtle villains like HYDRA, and giving a lot of it's super powered characters rather horrible disadvantages to go along with their gifts. Like a lot of Joss Whedon productions, the writing and dialogue is very snappy and Clark Gregg does most of the heavy lifting in the charismatic leading man department. The rest of the cast is serviceable, it does seem to be suffering from an escalation issue as every new plot thread seems to raise the stakes more, which is starting to detract from the idea that this team doesn't do Avengers stuff, and as with most comic book related things, it has a hard time killing anyone off permanently, which I think is sort of leading to villain bloat. Every so often it tries to portray some of the villains as tortured souls who deserve our sympathy because they had a hard life, but it is hard to really feel for them when they can and do kill people at random for no particular reason.



So that is some of what I have been watching... I kinda really like super hero stuff.