Super Human

The first of my 2014-backlog-tackling topics is superhero shows.  This is going to be a very long post, because quite a few superhero shows debuted in Fall 2014, and I mostly watched them in binges as the fall season wound down.

Many people have tried to define “superhero”–I’d be shocked if there weren’t more than a few doctoral theses exploring the topic—but I think I define the term more broadly than many.  By my definition, a superhero is someone capable of doing things that regular people can’t, who uses that superior capability to help others.  Other definitions don’t quite work for me.  Requiring superheroes to be able to break the laws of nature excludes Batman, who is unquestionably a superhero but one who relies on technology and wealth rather than unnatural physical prowess to accomplish his super-human feats.  Requiring superheroes to wear costumes is just as problematic, as it excludes, among others, one of the greatest superheroes in TV history, Buffy.  So I include non-costumed, and I include non-nature-defying. That means I end up including a whole class of everyday professional superheroes like Cal Lightman (Lie to Me) and Alison DuBois (Medium).  I’ve had serious conversations about whether the Criminal Minds team are superheroes.  (My conclusion is yes, partly because, as a friend put it, “they solve crimes but they never have suspects. And they have their own airplane.”)  Sherlock Holmes is a superhero.  The Leverage gang are superheroes (in addition to being, as I may discuss in a future post, an Adventuring Party.)

For some reason, there are a lot of superhero shows on the air right now.  Maybe it’s that the world craves competence porn as much as I do—I really can’t get enough of watching people do what they’re good at, and do it well.  Maybe that’s in the zeitgeist because there are so many powerful forces in the world that we don’t trust, and we want to watch things we know are trustworthy.  Maybe we feel powerless and want to live vicariously through those who have the power to make this difficult world a better place.  Maybe we want to watch the privileged make the right decision for once.  Or maybe we just like the adventure of it all.

One of the most fascinating moments in superheroes’ development is the moment when they decide to use their powers for good.  Spider-Man’s is perhaps the most classic of these:  “With great power comes great responsibility.” Each of these shows gives us some of that origin story, demonstrating what makes each superhuman cross that line into superhero. The differences between what drives those choices, in large part, define the differences between the shows’ tones.  But all of the shows also implicitly point out something we may know instinctively, but may not focus on:  how uncommon a decision to be heroic really is.  There are more supervillains than superheroes in these worlds.  From a showrunning perspective, It makes a lot of sense, of course: we have one superhero (or team), and they need something different to fight every week.  And perhaps it’s human nature—we are human, after all, super or otherwise, and when presented with the ability to be superior to everyone else at something, it probably isn’t surprising that the more common instinct is to feather one’s own nest.  In the real world, those with privilege seldom put it to its full good-doing potential.

TV is like that:  it has incredible power to teach and reflect.  It can use that power for good, or it can use it in any number of evil or banal ways—boring viewers, reinforcing stereotypes, disseminating misinformation…and frankly, for a bunch of superhero shows, I expect better from many in this crowd.

The Flash (CW, new.  Superhero drama.)

Watched: season so far

Premise:  After being zapped by fortuitous lightning, a forensic scientist becomes the “fastest man alive” and teams up with a group of scientists and police (and a shady billionaire) to help make his city a better, safer place.

Promise:  This show is so full of sheer enthusiasm and glee that it’s hard not to love it.  It’s the fuzzy puppy of superhero shows.  The characters all realize that being a superhero is fun.  They also, of course, realize that it’s dangerous and inconvenient and full of secrets and social challenges.  In tone it reminds me of Lois & Clark.  The show has its sinister aspects—one can’t have a superhero show without bad guys and shady conspiracies—but at the heart of the show, they’re having a good time, and it’s contagious.  It’s organized well:  the bad guys are mostly one-offs and the shady conspiracy is a long, slow arc-plot that will drive the show’s multi-season trajectory.  There’s a comfortable team dynamic, and I really enjoy the fact that despite being about someone with physical power, the show is as much a proponent of solving problems with brain as with brawn.

The only real odd part about this show is how young it feels.  Over and over again, adults act like teens.  This is particularly true in the romantic storylines, which are often tiresome and drive more of the plot than I’d like.  The main characters’ decisions, relationships with their parents, and demeanors so often seem so young that I then find myself surprised when they do more grown-up things, like drinking in bars or traveling without their parents’ permission.   I don’t need or want more grit in the show.  But it could do with more maturity.

 Verdict:  Fun and likeable.  And considering how much of the the cast has pedigree in musical theater, whenever they decide to do a musical episode it’ll be great.

Gotham (Fox, new.  Law enforcement/gangster drama.)

Watched: season so far

Premise:  The interrelated back-stories of Batman, Charles Gordon, and their antagonists (such as The Riddler, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Joker, and the rest).

Promise:  This isn’t really a superhero show, but it belongs in the category because it set in, and very deeply steeped in, the DC superhero  universe.  It aims for a spot somewhere between Dick Tracy, SouthLAnd, and Dragnet, and ends up being a sort of pulpy law enforcement/gangster drama.  It’s got a “flip phones and fedoras” timelessness about it, set in an alternative universe of the modern day with a studiously noir aesthetic.  It should surprise exactly no one that Donal Logue is fantastic in his supporting role; in fact, most of the cast is excellent.  But at this point, the show is still one big easter egg for DC aficionados.  It does that very well, but for a casual viewer, it’s too hung up on its in-jokes and its cast of thousands to be independently enjoyable.  The show has to be interesting in its own right, and it’s not quite there yet.  Bruce Wayne probably wouldn’t be more than a peripheral character in the story if he weren’t someday going to become Batman. I don’t mean to say it can’t become interesting—it’s got quite a cast of gangsters and (often corrupt) cops and it can paint quite a picture with them.  But it’s got to unmoor itself more from its source material to make that work.

One other critique, and that’s about the show’s treatment of female emotions sexuality.  I can’t think of a female recurring character on this show—and that includes the young girls—who doesn’t at one point or another use sex to manipulate the men around her.  (Well, possibly the precinct lieutenant, but she’s not on screen much.)  Not to mention that a potentially great example of a ex-lesbian relationship rapidly morphs into “women are crazy” territory.  I’m not saying that the men on the show look so great—aside from our heroes, they’re mostly greedy and corrupt—but at least they have variety.  Is it too much to ask for a show that doesn’t assume all women and girls are emotionally rash and sexually manipulative?

Verdict:  meh.

Forever (ABC, new.  Law enforcement procedural.)

Watched: season so far

Premise:  Immortal doctor works as a New York City medical examiner and teams up with a police detective to solve crimes with vaguely Holmesian flair.

Promise:  It’s hard to avoid comparing this to NewAmsterdam—after all, they have nearly identical premises.  Seriously.  Identical.  In so many ways and details that it’s impossible to list them.  But they differ in tone.  While New Amsterdam was a procedural that frequently explored romance and emotions (driven by the character’s need to find his “true love” to end his curse), Forever is a procedural that focuses mostly on being a procedural, with occasional digressions into the existence of a shady and mysterious villain.  The chief difference is that Forever’s Henry Morgan doesn’t know why he’s cursed with immortality, but is on a mission to figure it out, while Amsterdam knew exactly why he was cursed, and just wanted to fix it.  As subtle a difference as it is, the shows end up worlds apart—not only in tone, but also in the way they treat women.  While love (rather than sex) was the prime objective, Amsterdam’s women were means to an end.   Morgan’s women are friends, partners, true loves.  He’s had lifetimes to learn to appreciate and respect the women in his life, and—for the most part—he lives that appreciation and respect.

Setting aside the comparison, it’s a very serviceable (if often fanciful) procedural, with a good central mystery.  The friendships between Morgan and  his police partner (Alana de la Garza) and adopted son (Judd Hirsch) are warm and realistic.  Morgan’s know-it-all tendency to lecture can become annoying, but the show knows it and often hangs a lantern on it.  In fact, the whole thing comes of feeling a little like Sherlock Holmes.  It makes a good market replacement for the ending Mentalist. 

Verdict:  Good procedural.

Scorpion (CBS, new.  National-security procedural.)

Watched:  first three episodes

Premise: so-called “geniuses” are the last line of defense against terrorist-type disasters.

Promise:  This is going to go on a bit, so I hope you can indulge me.  Decades on, I’m still a die-hard MacGyver fan.  I love brain-based heroes.  I love the team dynamic of chosen family.  I love procedurals.  So you’d think I’d love this show about a close-knit team of geniuses who fill each others’ shortcomings to make a complete hero package, solving problems with their brains rather than their brawn.  But WOW I didn’t.  I fought my way through three episodes, trying to give it a real chance, gritting my teeth the whole way.  I was relieved to drop it.  Why?  It mostly has to do with the show’s bizarre and offensive equation of the concepts “genius,” “neuroatypical,” and “rude.”  To elaborate, here’s the lineup:  (a) a leader who’s likely on the spectrum, but inconsistently so; (b) a math expert with OCD; (c) a mechanical engineer with anger management/impulse control problems; (d) a behaviorist who’s a compulsive gambler; and (e) a diner waitress with a high EQ (commensurate with the rest of the team’s high IQs) who despite her unusual talent in this area isn’t a “genius”—apparently because she can communicate with people, and “geniuses” can’t. 

I don’t doubt that the show’s geniuses are actually geniuses, but I take issue with the idea that it’s their genius that makes them unable to function in the world—it’s their disorders.  And lest you think this is just someone complaining that “not all geniuses are socially inept,” that’s not the issue.  Well, it’s an issue.  Genius and emotional disorder are really different things, and the show equates them.  But the real issue is that the show, at every opportunity, conflates genius and neuroatypicality, and equates all neuroatypicalities with each other.  It feels ridiculous to have to say it out loud, but OCD is not the same thing as Asperger’s Syndrome.  Nor—again, it goes without saying—is either the same thing as gambling addiction or poor anger management.  And it’s ridiculous to think that any of these things is what makes a genius different from anyone else.  I get the idea that being smarter than everyone else might make it difficult to relate to them.  But the idea that all “geniuses” are somehow unable to relate to “normal” people but are able to relate to each other merely because they’re all “geniuses” is as ridiculous as the idea that OCD is the same thing as Asperger’s.

You know what else is weird?  How the men on the show are all get a complete pass on being rude because it’s part of their “genius,” but the two women are (a) the one whose “problem” is poor emotional regulation and (b) the one whose core skill is understanding others’ emotions. I try to imagine it flipped around, and it doesn’t work as well: it’s easier to sympathize with an angry woman than an angry man, and having the group’s emotional lifeline be male (perhaps a male diner waiter?) would be cool, it doesn’t conform as easily to the audience’s expectations.  It just highlights for me how much our society associates “emotional” with “female.” 

…but ok, /rant.  Even if you could get past that, which I can’t, it’s still a terrible procedural.  The solutions are so completely wacky that they’re insulting the intelligence of the viewer to think that we won’t notice the gaping lacunas in their logic.  I’m not saying I’d give the show a pass if it were a good procedural.  But it would be easier to make excuses for the show if it were.

Verdict:  Both disappointing and bad.

Librarians (TNT, new.  Action/Adventure)

Watched: season

Premise:  A team of smart, adventurous types investigate magical mysteries and protect the world from rogue magic.

Promise:  The series is built on the Librarian made-for-tv movies.  The show is very much in the same vein, but it’s more charming than its source material because it has the family-like dynamic of a team show rather than focusing on a single swashbuckling hero.  It’s as if Indiana Jones were a team.  The comparison to Warehouse 13 is inevitable, but the shows actually occupy rather different territory.  Like New Amsterdam and Forever above, here the similarities are in setup rather than tone.  (A few historical notes: the Librarian movie actually came first.  W13 certainly made the formula work in the series format, but neither originated the smart-people-and-rogue-artifacts genre, even on tv.  I’ll always have a soft spot for Friday the 13^th The Series, which I watched religiously during my insomniac days.  And of course they all owe a debt to Indiana Jones.  But back to the topic at hand.)  In tone, The Librarians finds itself somewhere between Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and Psych, with a soupcon of Leverage (with whom it shares a production team and some cast).  Wonder and whimsy predominate over danger and drama, and the mythology is firmly grounded in fantasy.  The team is definitely an Adventuring Party, and uses a combination of brains and brawn (often more brains) to solve problems. 

So it’s fun.  It’s also cool that the ass-kicker and the STEM type are both women.  (Although I wish that the STEM character were treated more like a grownup, more often.)  My only complaint is a relatively subtle one having to do with the show’s romance dynamic.  To start, the show sets up a romance that it doesn’t earn.  I know there was a lot to set up in the two-hour pilot, and I appreciate the show’s decision to set up a long-distance romance rather than tease us with will-they-wont-they—but the romance felt so sudden and foundationless that I don’t quite believe it.  Second—and here’s the subtle part—it implies that the otherwise-stoic female lead falls instantly in love with Noah Wylie’s brainy adventurer.  She simply can’t resist his charismatic charms.  But wouldn’t vice-versa be different and fun? It evens out; as the season progresses, it’s clear that the relationship is a reciprocal one—but I was brought up short by the “the woman always falls for the hero” assumption that went into that first move.  All told, though, it’s more quibble than complaint.  The show does exactly what it sets out to do—to have a good time with capers, quips, and cons—and has a good heart while it does so.

Verdict:  Good silly fun.  Sometimes even great silly fun.

On the DVR/Unreviewed:  From 2014:  Tyrant, Manhattan, The Knick, Red Band Society, The Mysteries of Laura,  Madam Secretary, Survivor’s Remorse, The Missing, State of Affairs, Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce.  From 2015:  Galavant, Agent Carter, Empire, Babylon, Eye Candy, 12 Monkeys.