Tag Archives: Smallville

Surprisingly good TV Shows

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sleepyhollowEvery TV season the networks hope to lure in viewers for their new programs, and that will require a lot of pre-publicity on the shows. When deciding what you are going to watch, a lot of judgment goes into trying to decide what you are going to watch and what is not worth your time. Over the last three TV seasons, I have come to learn that I cannot trust my initial assessment of shows based on preview material. I can name six shows, two from each of the last three seasons, that I was convinced were going to suck, and now are shows I don’t want to miss.

These shows are Once Upon a time, Grimm, Arrow, Hannibal, Sleepy Hollow, and The Blacklist.

So what was it about these shows that caused my initial dismissal of them, and what do they have that has made them appointment viewing?

Let’s find out.

For the first question, my answer is that I didn’t think any of them would be a sustainable series and be able to get up to nine episodes. For everything, but The Blacklist, a big part of my negative view was due to their being adaptations. Once Upon a Time and Grimm took it a step further, in that they were both shows using fairy tales as their basis, and I figured one would eventually cannibalize the other. In the case of Arrow, it was another superhero show on the CW and so I was expecting another watered down and drawn out story like Smallville. Hannibal was doubted because I didn’t see how a network TV show could possibility go to the dark places that the story would demand. With Sleepy Hollow I will admit that I assumed it was going to be a Twilight like take on the story. Finally, The Blacklist just seemed to be a thin premise that I could not see sustaining a season believably.

Clearly, I was wrong on all counts.

Once Upon a Time and Grimm are nothing alike, I don’t even think of them as having a common origin point anymore. Arrow is not watered down in the least. Watching Hannibal I am regularly shocked at how far the network has allowed this series to push the imagery. Sleepy Hollow, while nothing like the story that inspired it, is not following in the Twilight path. And The Blacklist is a fun series that teases at a greater mystery.

But I think there is more to it than my being wrong in my initial assumptions. All of these shows have two things in common that make me tune in week after week.

First is the fact that there is focus on characters and their story arcs. I am invested in what happens to these people and want to see where they are going. Even the worst written of these six shows (Once upon a Time) has me hooked by this, even for the villains.

The other thing is the overall story and series mythology. Each show is going somewhere and doing it at a good pace. To use Smallville as an example again, they dragged out their main arc, Clark Kent becoming Superman, for 10 years. By the end, it just felt ridiculous. In contrast. Arrow dealt with its main arc (Oliver going after the people on his father’s list in the first season) and wrapped that up; Once Upon a Time also wrapped up its main arc (breaking the curse on Storybrooke) in the first season. Both of these series then went on to have new arcs in their following seasons.

So good characters and good story pacing, really this is what we should want from any series.

And to wrap up, I would like to point out that I am not always wrong. I had bad feelings about both Dracula and The Tomorrow People. I was not wrong. In fact the only reason I am still watching Dracula is to give it a fair shot for when I review it, so you have that to look forward to.

If you have not checked out any of the series I have focused on here, I would recommend giving them a try. Of course, we will have to see how the rest of the season plays out. And maybe we will visit them again after this season is over.

Another Wonder Woman Pilot

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Here we go again with another Wonder Woman pilot.

CW, being a subsidiary of Warner Bros. has a long track record of bringing DC comics’ properties to the TV, or at least trying to. Obviously they had the 10 year run of Smallville and the 13 episode long Birds of Prey series. They produced a pilot for an Aquaman series. There were proposals for a show about teen titian member Raven and about the Grayson family before Dick became Robin that never got past the proposal stage. And of course you have the current series Arrow.

I’ll be honest, I am really apprehensive about the announced Wonder Woman pilot. It shares several traits from the other shows and pitches mentioned above that I think are not workable. On the other hand I had doubts about Arrow too and I have ended up liking that series.

Basically CW has some habits when it comes to DC shows that I am convinced are just there to annoy long time comic fans.

The first is that they seem to think that the best way to go is with a series that functions as a prequel to the comics, with Arrow and Birds of Prey being the exceptions. This started with the original pitch they made over a decade ago, a series that was going to be titled Bruce Wayne, detailing Bruce’s life between his return to Gotham City at 18 and becoming Batman. The reason the series did not get past script stage was that the WB movie division also wanted to explore Bruce’s development into Batman, which ultimately resulted in Batman Begins. On that point let’s go ahead and say that this turned out for the best.

So when Bruce Wayne was shut down they turned around and created Smallville. And as I have said before, at first this was not bad, but it went on too long and stretched the premise beyond the breaking point.

The Aquaman pilot used the exact same idea, only with Arthur Curry. I remember liking it when I first saw it, but in retrospect I think it would have ended up a weak premise for the same reasons that Smallville did not work long term.

The Graysons was just baffling as a pitch. Following Robin’s family and their adventures prior to their murder and Dick’s being taken in by Bruce. This would basically be a series where we know that it will end with the murder of the main characters. Also if we go with the general idea that Dick becomes Robin around 13 than the age you have him at the beginning of the series would set the lifespan of the show. All this of course assumes you intend to remain faithful to the comics, which Smallville showed was not necessarily going to happen.

We now add Wonder Woman to that list, as the pitch is literally the same as Smallville, but with Diana coming to America and I guess learning what it means to be a hero.

Another issue with DC shows on the CW is the names. I think the only show that got to keep its title from the comic was Birds of Prey. Besides Smallville and Bruce Wayne, You had the Aquaman show being called Mercy Reef, Green Arrow became Arrow, and now Wonder Woman’s show will be called Amazon. I assume this is a marketing issue with the film division in case they want to develop a movie using the characters, but it does seem like they are running from the franchises they want to develop.

So here is my main issue with the new stab at a Wonder Woman series. They are using a format that fans are going to be apprehensive about. The whole “Diana before she was Wonder Woman” is at best only sustainable short term. If they are going that route I hope they do not take the “no flight, no tights” mandate that ultimately hamstrung Smallville.

I think if they are going to do this they make it the arc for the first season, with the finale having her become Wonder Woman. From second season on have it be like Arrow, the beginnings of her career.

Do I see that happening? No I do not. I’m afraid they will get locked down into the prequel mode like Smallville and the problems that it brings.

On the other hand if they manage to stay true to the characters roots and persona maybe it will be worthwhile, or at least wipe out the bad taste left by the last Wonder Woman Pilot.

Two things I want to address real quick before I wrap up.

First, the whole Iris thing, where a casting sheet was released stating that the character’s name is Iris along with other back story alterations. This is a not uncommon practice when casting for a very well-known character. It is done in hopes of getting an audition that is not just an attempt to fill the preconceived notions about the character. Rest assured her name will be Diana in the series as has been confirmed by Geoff Johns.

The other is the Justice League movie. Obviously it is being developed and there is a general assumption that Wonder Woman will be in it. How will that work? Good question, and there are a lot of ways to do it. One is they just assume that audiences can deal with two different version of the character at once like when Superman Returns came out during Smallville’s run. Another is that they do not include Wonder Woman in the Justice League movie. This all of course assumes that Amazon makes it past pilot stage.

So there we have it. Let’s hope that DC can give their most iconic female character the adaptation she deserves.

The Smallville Smackdown

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This week it was announced that DC entertainment will release a weekly digital comic called Smallville Season 11.
I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence.
Be thankful I haven’t launched the Fanboy News Network video series yet, I would have been yelling.
So why would I be yelling about a continuation of Smallville? Well let’s go over the reasons.
First, while I assume that if you read this blog you know what Smallville is, just in case you don’t here is the quick recap. The show is about the Life of Clark Kent between his freshman year in high school and his assuming the identity of Superman. It lasted 10 seasons. The mantra of the show was “No Flight, No Tights.”  
Ok on to the ranting.
Frist thing that springs to mind: Smallville already lasted five seasons too long. Seriously the idea was to show the events that lead Clark on the road to becoming the greatest hero of all time. The first four seasons were ok. It was never stellar Television. It was Superman as seen through the lens of Dawson’s Creek. It had two things going for it, a sense of destiny as we know how the two main characters would turn out, and the performance of Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor.
Of course those early seasons had their issues too. Chief amongst them was the miscasting of Kristen Kreuk as Lana Lang. She had no chemistry with series lead Tom Welling. This would not have been so bad except that they cast Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan, a character that had an unrequited crush on Clark. Mack had tons of chemistry with Welling, making Kreuk’s lack of it jarring.
The point here is that at the beginning you had an ok show that did surprisingly well in the ratings. And that may have been its curse. By season five the show had really run its course, but for CW it was doing great ratings so it was renewed. And they kept renewing it.
Maybe if the story had advanced it would not have been awful, but merely bad. But “No Flight, No Tights” meant they had to keep Clark as not quite Superman. What ended up happening was an amazing hack job of the Superman myth that made most fanboys rage. What was worst is that every now and then they actually had something good, like Geoff Johns love letter to the Golden Age with his JSA episode. But mostly it was crap that went on five years past its expiration date.
The final season was particularly bad in that it started out like most Smallville seasons, but part way through someone in the writers’ room must have woken up.
“Oh crap, this is the last season, we should take the Clark Kent character we have developed and shoehorn him into the personality from the comic books.”
I’m not kidding. It was the 9th episode of the 10th season that Clark Kent started wearing glasses. And was the 13th before he started with the mild mannered nerd persona. Like people who know him before would not figure out that the Clark Kent they knew for years was Superman.  I think it would ended up like being the Saturday Night Live Sketch with the Rock as Clark Kent where everyone know he was Superman and just humored him.
 A lot of this could have been forgiven, if they had nailed the series finale. If they gave us that rousing moment when Clark Kent became the Man of Steel and defeated the villain becoming the champion he was meant to be.
That would have been nice.
But Smallville had a history of unsatisfying season finales and I guess they saw no reason to make the series finale any different.
It was a two hour finale, and when Clark finally confronted the bad guy there were 14 minutes left in the episode. In that time the following happened:
·         He learned to fly
·         He defeated Darkseid, one of the most powerful entities in the DC Universe, by flying through him
·         He went to the Fortress of Solitude and got the Superman Costume.
·         He saved the airplane Lois Lane was on.
·         He flew in the sky and pushed a planet away from Earth.
·         Then there was an epilog.
And in none of that was there ever a clear shot of Tom Welling actually wearing the Superman costume. The rumor I keep hearing is that Welling, who was also a producer on the show, refused to wear it. I guess he felt that he should never fully been seen as Superman. What it did was leave the audience feeling cheated.
10 year build up with no pay off.
So now, I assume due to the success of the Buffy Season 8 and 9 comics DC feels they can give us this pay off.
I have an idea. If you want to see Clark Kent at the beginning of his career as Superman read the current run of Action Comics. At least they are going about it honestly.
For me the big mystery is why I watch that damn show for all ten seasons.
The only answer I can come up with is that I am such a comic fanboy that since It was something related to Superman thus I was obligated. 
Or maybe some part of me knew that one day I would write a geek culture blog and I would need to know the shows history to really tear into it.
I’m going with that last one. It makes me feel better.