Sunday, August 18, 2019

The superhero TV graveyard (MM #128)


All the fallen shows so far.
Well, of the modern post Iron Man, Dark Knight, Arrow world, anyway.

In no particular order...


DC.













Krypton

Yep, just got word this ate a bullet a couple days ago.
Dammit.
I really liked it, and it went out on a beefy cliffhanger.

Jor-El just got born and named, and then Brainiac kidnapped him, and brought him to Earth with the clear intent to turn him into an Evil Superman.

Now I'll never know how they restored the timeline to the proper DC history.
*Sad sigh*














Gotham

Just ended.
Ran its natural course with a good run.
Finale was kind of an anti-climax.
Could have just as well ended with the penultimate episode, but they got greedy, and did a time jump to get the kid aged up to Batman, but they don't let us have a good look at him until the final seconds, and they milked it with filler up until that moment.

Ah, well.
It was up, it was down, it had cheesy episodes, and great episodes, weaker seasons, and stronger seasons, but overall, I'm glad I stuck with it.

You're a fun little addition to Batman canon, Gotham.
I don't care what anyone else says.














Powerless

Described it fairly well in the link.
In hindsight, it was probably always doomed.
It was the kind of show they would have made in the 80's to early 90's.
It just didn't fit into today's world.














Constantine

Again, described it fairly well at the link.
The lesson learned with this, and "Powerless", don't cut a deal with NBC.

NBC blows.
I can't think of anything I watch on there anymore.
Eh, SNL when I remember to.

Well, with DC at home on CW, and the streaming platform, and Marvel at ABC and Disney+, NBC doesn't have to worry about superheroes anymore.

Don't worry, NBC, with how you treated Hannibal you won't ever have any critical acclaim anymore either.

With the exception of SNL and Seth Myer, NBC is actually pretty conservative and hum-drum.
Buncha fucking game-shows and talent shows that cost zero bucks to produce.
And G rated shitcoms.
That's how you wanna go out, NBC?
Network TV deserves its death then.
Bye!
Bye, grandpa TV!
Byyyee!









I-Zombie

Said it at the link, I gotta catch up to this someday.
It's wrapping up its final season this year.
I don't think it's quite over yet.














Arrow

Yep, the one that started the Berlanti-verse is ending next year.
It's technically ending this season by wrapping up all its arcs, but they're gonna milk it for one more little 10 episode half-season just to get the character to the "Crisis", crossover.

They've hinted pretty strongly that he's probably going to die.
Or transcend to some dimensional Heaven, or something.

There's some mystery show in development to replace it.
Stay tuned for that.














Swamp Thing

The first casualty of the DC streaming universe.

Tch, poor Swamp Thing, you deserve the kind of ass-kissing treatment Batman has gotten the last 30 fucking years.
Your comics are better than his.
They just are.














Supergirl 

On CBS.
She's alive and well on CW, but the CBS incarnation was a completely different animal.

Same rant I gave about Constantine and NBC.
The networks don't deserve the superheroes.
This is the same network that cancelled 90's Flash after one season.
WTF were you thinking, DC?














Lucifer

On Fox.
Netflix picked it up for a couple more seasons, but even that's about to end.

Another one I have to catch up on.
I-Zombie, Arrow, Lucifer.


Marvel.













Daredevil

Alas, Marvel-Netflix.
You were a bold experiment that passed before its time.

Felled by advancing technology, and Disney's greed and fear.

There's rumors Daredevil will come back as a reboot on FX.














Jessica Jones

You were my favorite, Jessica.














Luke Cage

First half of the first season was the best.
Second half, almost as good.
Second season...there's a lot of good stuff, Bushmaster is a cool villain, but I hate that ending.
Moreso now that there'll never be a season 3 to redeem the cliffhanger.














Iron Fist

Nope, you were boring.
Bye!














Defenders

I wanted more of this.
I'd gladly erase Iron Fist season 2, and Luke Cage season 2 to get more of this.
Ah, what could have been....














The Punisher

Jessica was my favorite character, but this was the best made of the shows.
Bernthal owns the Punisher role now.
I've re-watched the Thomas Jane and Ray Stevenson ones, and they don't hold up.
This is the definitive interpretation now.














Agent Carter

Meh.
Said it at the link.














Agents Of Shield

Ends next year.
Finally!
Last season was really bland.
It's time for it to go.
And Ike Perlmutter needs his power taken away.
Fuckin' Trump-licker.














Inhumans

Good riddance.














Damage Control

Died in development.
We got a little taste of Damage Control in the Avengers flashback in "Spider-Man: Homecoming".














Marvel's Most Wanted

Died at the pilot stage, never aired.
A spinoff of the Mockingbird character from Shield.
Shield set it all up, it was raring to go, but ABC said "no", for some inexplicable reason.

Adrianne Palicki landed on her feet at "The Orville".














The New Warriors

They shot the pilot for Freeform, Freeform didn't want it, it's being shopped around.
I'm not gonna hold my breath.

A shame, I wanted to see Squirrel Girl be canonized.














Legion

The best Marvel show.
Dead stop.
But it's Fox.
The Fox/Disney acquisition killed this.
Although, the show-runners claim they were going to end it at season 3 anyway.

This actually fixes the X-Men movie universe, and lets Fox get the last word in.
I'll do a separate post about that, and link it back here.














The Gifted

Again, the Fox/Disney acquisition killed this.
Unlike Legion, there's no ambiguity, they flat out cancelled it.

I said it all at the link, but to summarize, this is the best onscreen demonstration of the spirit and message and philosophy of X-Men since the 90's cartoon.

Legion fixes the X-Men movies, this represents X-Men better than the movies, if you're an embittered X-Men comics fan, just collect the Blu-Rays of Legion and Gifted.


Other.













The Tick

Said it well enough at the link.














Happy!

About a drunken private eye who can somehow see his daughter's imaginary friend, a flying donkey unicorn thing voiced by Patton Oswalt.

The donkey-unicorn-thing is called Happy, and helps him fight crime.

I only saw a handful of episodes, and liked what I saw, but I'm not surprised at all that this was cancelled.
Frankly, given the track record of these shows, and the trail of corpses above, I'm amazed this got a second season.














Deadly Class

Produced by the Russo Brothers.

Eh, it was all right.
I got into it okay, but I didn't love it.

About a Hogwarts for assassins set in the 80's, and the main protagonist wants to kill Ronald Reagan for setting loose all the mentally ill homeless people, because one of them killed his mom.
So, he's going to this assassin's Hogwarts place to learn his skills as a means to an end.
Along the way, he has dramatic conflicts with the other asshole students.
It's like a bloody parody of teenage interpersonal politics and hierarchies.

Benedict Wong plays the headmaster of the school.
Brian Posehn, Henry Rollins, and French Stewart also pop up.

I really dug the whole ballsy boldness of the "kill Reagan", thing.
Cuz, y'know, fuck Reagan.

Anyway, with this, Happy, and Krypton cancelled, SyFy has wiped out all its comic book properties.
I hate everything going to streaming, but networks can't be trusted with this stuff.
We see it all through this list.

A lot of comic book stuff coming from Netflix.
Here's hoping all that stuff lands.
I'm betting it'll be 50-50.


Previously with dead TV superheroes-

Previously with MM-

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