Superman & Lois (2021) s01e02 – Heritage

I’ll just admit I’m sort of rooting for “Superman & Lois.” Nothing outrageous like making my wife sit through it, but I’d like it to go well enough I can keep watching it. I’ve liked Elizabeth Tulloch’s Lois Lane, I’ve been OK with Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman. Now, they’re the only things with any continuity to the “Supergirl” show at this point, as I realized Adam Rayner’s villain is an Adrian Pasdar recast. Now, Pasdar quit “Supergirl” after its move from CBS to CW (and L.A. to Vancouver), and getting him back would’ve been a boon.

There’s no boon. Though “S&L” doesn’t really have any casting boons. It sets up another couple of “surprise” casts—but it’s just misunderstood super-villain Wolé Parks; the back of his character’s head appeared last episode, not Parks. Because even though it’s 2021, the promise of a Black Lex Luthor has a wow factor. At least “S&L” did it in the spring; “Loki” did it in the summer. And then the other surprise casting possibility is a fake-out.

Oh, wait. Angus Macfadyen as the Jor-El hologram. Macfadyen’s kind of stunt cast; I’ve really liked him before. He’s terrible here, playing the role as a gruff military-type. Kind of like Dylan Walsh as Tulloch’s father and Hoechlin’s de facto boss. This episode doesn’t just drop a big Injustice nod; it’s also got some shades of Dark Knight fascist pawn Superman stuff. It kind of helps the show, actually, showing Walsh being able to manipulate Hoechlin. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or if Hoechlin’s just not that good? But it definitely leads to some sympathies towards the end.

Plus the return to Smallville stuff, particularly the brother drama between Superboy-in-training Alex Garfin and got-his-mommas-DNA Jordan Elsass, their first days of high school with potential love square Inde Navarrette, everyone having to go to a cookout at Erik Valdez and Emmanuelle Chriqui’s where a bunch of white people call it a barbecue, and then we find out Chriqui’s kind of a lush… it’s all right. Garfin and Elsass might be way too old for their parts, but they’re getting close to appearing sincere. Like the brother relationship stuff is solid.

And there’s more of the “Superman is a bad dad” stuff, with Hoechlin a lot more comfortable with Garfin and Elsass.

Sadly the muscle suit hasn’t improved enough. It’s improved a little, but now Hoechlin has an extra pair of biceps growing out of his shoulders. Only in the suit too. They haven’t just run with it, and Kryptonians have a weird extra set of muscles or whatever.

Lastly, since I started the episode noticing all the continuity breaks with “Supergirl”—she doesn’t seem to exist (no one mentions her when they should be), and Hoechlin no longer has a badass Fortress of Solitude. Instead, he’s got a sad man cave with a single hologram table and then Macfadyen yelling at him. It’s really shitty how “Supergirl” spent multiple seasons having to justify itself against a literally absent Superman (to become the stronger, more capable hero of the two) only for the “Superman” spin-off from it, ignoring all that work.

It’s not hopeless—my rooting aside; Hoechlin and Tulloch on the porch playing super-parents? It’s a good concept. The show just may have too many constraints to realize it well.

Superman & Lois (2021) s01e01

There’s a lot going on with “Superman & Lois” before we even get to Tyler Hoechlin wearing the worst Arrowverse muscle suit in memory. There’s also Hoechlin wearing spandex dress shirts to look more ripped. There’s also the zero Arrowverse crossover aspect—Melissa Benoist really should’ve shown for her aunt’s funeral, and Hoechlin’s recap of his life-to-date has a Lex Luthor-sized hole in it—but it’s also post-Crisis crossover and apparently Hoechlin’s forgotten he remembers life before he had two teenage sons and instead just an infant one.

Also, it’s unclear if Jenna Dewan’s Lucy Lane (from “Supergirl”) exists anymore. Also in Crisis the Sam Lane character changed entirely, no longer character actor asshole Glenn Morshower (on “Supergirl”), now more affable Dylan Walsh. Walsh is still a hard-ass and a bit of an asshole, but he loves both his grandsons, not just the jock.

“Superman & Lois” is two parts teen drama—Jordan Elsass and Alex Garfin play the super-twins, no discussion yet on how mom Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch) got through labor without one of them kicking a hole in her—one part parent drama (“S&L” is running with the Superman Returns Superman as bad dad plot, though downgrading Hoechlin to a distracted, absentee dad), and one part superhero action. Muscle-suited Hoechlin circles the globe fighting a bad guy in a super-space suit who knows his Kryptonian name (which is usually public knowledge but, hey, post-Crisis continuity, right); the bad guy likes causing disasters at nuclear plants, so the first action sequence is basically a CGI Superman III iced lake riff. It’s all right. The muscle suit is annoying, but it’s far from terrible live-action Superman.

I was going to make a Dean Cain joke here but let’s just talk about the Trump politics.

The premise of the show is simple. Ma Kent (Michele Scarabelli, in a somewhat forced but not bad performance) has died, and the show will be the big city Kents coming back to the farm. Even though Elsass has just made quarterback as a freshman in high school, and he’s got a girlfriend, he’s the actually good sports bro, so he doesn’t care. He also doesn’t care he didn’t get the superpowers. Instead, Garfin, who’s got depression and anxiety, gets the more powerful than a locomotive gig. Hoechlin, Garfin, and Elsass will do old-time farming while Tulloch, I don’t know… works remotely. The Daily Planet lays Hoechlin off in the first act (the pilot runs an extra-long sixty-four minutes, and they have no idea how to pace it past forty-two), so he’s ready for something else.

Back in Smallville, the only people they really know are Hoechlin’s high school girlfriend, Lana Lang (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and her dog-whistle-blowing husband, Erik Valdez. Maybe they’ll do a subplot about Valdez falling for “Supergirl” white supremacist Sam Witwer’s movement. Probably not. Post-Crisis plus Arrowverse is post-institutionalized racism. Even though Valdez sounds like he’s about to start spouting MAGA (or Q or anti-mask), he’s just a sad regular working-class guy who’s upset all the intelligent kids moved away for college degrees and never came back to Kansas to improve his life for him. He’s a firefighter, after all, and Smallville’s full of meth cookers who burn down their houses and kids.

The pilot’s a mix of comics references (the 1930s-inspired suit looks terrible, but the Superman for All Seasons nod is cute), Man of Steel imagery and editing, and earnestness. Is the earnestness going to make up for Hoechlin’s okay but definitely not ready for the lead Superman? We’ll see. The show’s biggest ask as far as willful suspension of disbelief is the family dynamics. Sure, Hoechlin’s supposed to be aging at a reduced rate, and Tulloch’s forty, but she’s not having two teenage sons forty. Especially not since she was already a world-famous reporter when she and Hoechlin met. So maybe she’s supposed to be playing older too? Elsass and Garfin are playing fourteen. They’re not fourteen. Is “S&L” going to be able to gin up good character relationships when Hoechlin looks like his kids’ older brother? We’ll see.

I just hope they fix the ridiculous muscle suit.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s01e02 – The Dark Baptism

I started this episode very happy Lee Toland Krieger was directing and then immediately regretted it because Krieger uses these camera filters—the iMovie version of wiping Vaseline on the lens—to center viewer attention. So while “Sabrina” has that questionable streaming 2.1:1 aspect ratio… the action takes place in a traditional 1.33:1 TV frame. Not even 16:9.

It gets really, really, really annoying this episode, which just turns out to be a testament to the rest of the show’s quality. Save Miranda Otto, who’s not good enough, not opposite Lucy Davis, Kiernan Shipka, or even Chance Perdomo. Davis gets an amazing scene this episode. She’s a star reserve player.

Continuing from last episode are the days of the week title cards, including a very nice homage to Halloween, and by the finish, it’s clear Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa wrote this episode and last as the pilot. I wonder how it plays without an artificial break, like a two-hour pilot or like a very open-ended two-hour feature. I’m thinking the former, just because of Aguirre-Sacasa’s attention to detail.

Sadly some of that detail is in a… I’m not even sure what the right phrase is—a gay panic blackmailing bit. Shipka’s done with the football players who are bullying friend Lachlan Watson and decides to teach them a lesson. So she enlists the mean girls from the witch school she’s going to be attending to help her. Her plan involves using witchcraft to get the guys to do gay stuff, then taking polaroids and blackmailing them. It doesn’t play well. Even if the scene ends up being effective because lead mean girl Tati Gabrielle is good and because Shipka’s able to act through even when the script’s off, which is both a good and bad thing.

The episode resolves what Shipka’s going to do about her sweet sixteen, which is also when she signs her soul over to Lucifer and goes off to witch boarding school, leaving her human friends behind.

The beginning of the episode has some more bonding with secretly possessed teacher Michelle Gomez—who’s awesome—the end is mostly about the soul signing ceremony and fall out. Dark Pope Richard Coyle is a little more effective when not a peculiar stunt cameo but he’s still not enough; Shipka, even when she’s playing coy, dominates their scenes. Coyle’s bombastically clawing at scraps while Shipka’s nonchalantly walking all over him. It works for the character too. The show, two episodes in (one episode in?), is a great showcase for Shipka.

Though type-casting fears are probably justified.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018) s01e01 – October Country

The opening titles of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” are, for the most part (if memory serves), Robert Hack art from the source comic book. Now, not only is the comic super-gory, it’s also a period(ish) piece; the show is set modern but none of the teenagers has a smartphone, so it’s a bit removed from reality. The episode opens in a movie theater, with Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) hanging out with her group of very modern friends. While boyfriend Harvey (Ross Lynch) is a non-jock white guy, Jaz Sinclair is the only Black girl in the town, and Lachlan Watson is non-binary. There’s a somewhat awkward thing about the bully-enabling principal—a fully dramatic Bronson Pinchot—isn’t an ally.

So some of the dialogue’s a little forced, but all the acting is good and, hey, at least there aren’t some mean girls causing problems too. Just some jocks, who bully and—oh, wait, physically assault—Watson, which Pinchot’s cool with because Watson doesn’t want to give up any names. Shipka tries to convince Bronson otherwise to no avail, which will eventually lead to her using witchcraft to even the playing field.

Shipka’s got the opening narration to set everything up: half-human, half-witch, raised by aunts Lucy Davis and Miranda Otto, T-minus five days until Shipka’s got to sign her soul over to Satan and go off to witch school in New England. Only Shipka’s not entirely sure she wants to leave her human friends, especially since her future witch classmates are mean to her for being half-human.

Further complicating matters is Michelle Gomez, one of Shipka’s teachers who just happens to have been possessed by a witch from Hell, whose job it is to make sure Shipka commits to her future as a minion of Lucifer only Gomez has to pretend to be the teacher. Of course, Gomez is playing a character from the comic and the show seems like a sequel to said comic, which show creator and episode writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa never finished because he started making TV shows. So I’ve got baggage and expectation with Gomez.

But it all works out, partially due to the great pacing.

Though Richard Coyle seems to be going way too hard on a Ewan McGregor impression; Coyle’s the cliffhanger arrival guest star… the Dark Pope, arrived to tempt Shipka to the cause. For the amount of build-up he gets, it’d be better if it were Ewan McGregor… It needs a final oomph.

Or would if Shipka’s acting weren’t on point enough to cover, which it is, which she does.

The show works because it’s well-written, Shipka’s a great lead, and the soundtrack is awesome.