And the next round of TV shows…
Jupiter's Legacy (Netflix, Season 1) - A knockoff Justice League who all got powers in the 30s are trying to deal with their superpowered children in the modern world. Millar was clearly trying his hand at a generational superhero story that was trying to deconstruct the Silver Age (which, honestly, was done better in a bunch of other places), and then translated it to the screen with middling acting, bad wigs, and more attempted gravitas than it deserved. They also spent way too much time having the same conversation about the Code and skipped over all the actual relationship-building among the younger generation. (Netflix cancelled it after one season, so we’ll never find out what the mastermind’s evil plan was, how Hutch was going to find his father, what happened to Skyfox or Blue Bolt, or if Paragon will ever get laser vision.)
Young Justice: Outsiders (DVD, Season 3) - Important opening point: Though this continues the plot of the previous series (two years later), it is not for kids-it doesn’t have the swearing or sex talk that Harley Quinn does, but the violence is genuinely bloody and they don’t shy away from characters dying. Interestingly, this starts (and ends) with a Markovia plotline featuring Black Lightning and, in fact, sharing a lot of similarities with the last season of Black Lightning that I watched. (To be fair, he’s a founding member of the Outsiders in the comics, along with Geo-Force and Halo, who are quickly introduced.) That’s only a lead-in to a much bigger Apokolips plot, though. They have freakin’ everybody in this show, and it’s always a guess whether a character will randomly appear as an established hero, or if their origin story will get an episode. I was not expecting Cyborg to be one of the new young characters, I’ll admit, and they used a variation of his origin from the Justice League movie. G. Gordon Godfrey, now a clear line to Tucker Carlson (or any other Fox News idiot), is just as relevant as an evil plot to confuse and mislead the populace as he always was. The Doom Patrol Go! parody episode, mostly in Beast Boy’s mind, was a hoot. I loved the recurring appearances of Lucas “Snapper” Carr as the “old man” of the group, having been the very first sidekick to the Justice League. Random trivia: My dad was credited (episode 3.20) with creating both Karen Beecher and Mal Duncan. He didn’t create Mal-Mal predates his time at DC-but he was the first writer to put him in costume. (Season 4 has been announced; there are clearly plenty of hanging threads for it to address. It’ll be interesting to see how much of a time-skip there is this time. And apparently the Legion will be involved!)
What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu, Season 2) - Though the show remains heavily episodic and the characters don’t grow or change much, they do keep some continuity and introduce some worldbuilding. There was clearly a realization that “these guys are dumb and kinda useless” wasn’t enough to drive an ongoing series, so they had to build out the world from there. Guillermo leans into his vampire hunter heritage by killing lots of vampires except the ones he works for and then heavily justifying it. Episode 5 shows us a lot more about what energy vampires are capable of and gives hints to their life cycle. And Episode 6, guest starring Mark Hammill as Jim the Vampire and showing us Laszlo’s alter ego Jackie Daytona was absolutely delightful. Overall, I think the series got stronger and I’ll likely watch season 3 when it comes out.
Love, Death & Robots (Netflix, Season 2) - Another eight shorts by various authors and in various animation styles. Still of varying quality but on the whole pretty decent. (The last two lines of the first episode, “Automated Customer Service,” are what really make it and clearly why they put that first.) I wondered aloud if video game modelers are doing some of the animation work on this, because several of the episodes (the “realistic” ones) really look like a cutscene from a PS4 game.
Young Justice: Outsiders (DVD, Season 3) - Important opening point: Though this continues the plot of the previous series (two years later), it is not for kids-it doesn’t have the swearing or sex talk that Harley Quinn does, but the violence is genuinely bloody and they don’t shy away from characters dying. Interestingly, this starts (and ends) with a Markovia plotline featuring Black Lightning and, in fact, sharing a lot of similarities with the last season of Black Lightning that I watched. (To be fair, he’s a founding member of the Outsiders in the comics, along with Geo-Force and Halo, who are quickly introduced.) That’s only a lead-in to a much bigger Apokolips plot, though. They have freakin’ everybody in this show, and it’s always a guess whether a character will randomly appear as an established hero, or if their origin story will get an episode. I was not expecting Cyborg to be one of the new young characters, I’ll admit, and they used a variation of his origin from the Justice League movie. G. Gordon Godfrey, now a clear line to Tucker Carlson (or any other Fox News idiot), is just as relevant as an evil plot to confuse and mislead the populace as he always was. The Doom Patrol Go! parody episode, mostly in Beast Boy’s mind, was a hoot. I loved the recurring appearances of Lucas “Snapper” Carr as the “old man” of the group, having been the very first sidekick to the Justice League. Random trivia: My dad was credited (episode 3.20) with creating both Karen Beecher and Mal Duncan. He didn’t create Mal-Mal predates his time at DC-but he was the first writer to put him in costume. (Season 4 has been announced; there are clearly plenty of hanging threads for it to address. It’ll be interesting to see how much of a time-skip there is this time. And apparently the Legion will be involved!)
What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu, Season 2) - Though the show remains heavily episodic and the characters don’t grow or change much, they do keep some continuity and introduce some worldbuilding. There was clearly a realization that “these guys are dumb and kinda useless” wasn’t enough to drive an ongoing series, so they had to build out the world from there. Guillermo leans into his vampire hunter heritage by killing lots of vampires except the ones he works for and then heavily justifying it. Episode 5 shows us a lot more about what energy vampires are capable of and gives hints to their life cycle. And Episode 6, guest starring Mark Hammill as Jim the Vampire and showing us Laszlo’s alter ego Jackie Daytona was absolutely delightful. Overall, I think the series got stronger and I’ll likely watch season 3 when it comes out.
Love, Death & Robots (Netflix, Season 2) - Another eight shorts by various authors and in various animation styles. Still of varying quality but on the whole pretty decent. (The last two lines of the first episode, “Automated Customer Service,” are what really make it and clearly why they put that first.) I wondered aloud if video game modelers are doing some of the animation work on this, because several of the episodes (the “realistic” ones) really look like a cutscene from a PS4 game.