The State of Hero TV, Summer 2017

It’s a great time to be a hero-geek. There are more and more shows, and most of them are pretty damn good. I keep hearing a few people fretting about “hero fatigue,” but I certainly don’t have it, and, judging from the box office for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, a lot of other people don’t, either. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is fantastic, with Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok coming this year. I’m a lot less impressed with the DC Expanded Universe (although I’m one of the few that apparently enjoyed Suicide Squad), but I was pleasantly surprised by Wonder Woman.

Supergirl: Nevertheless She Persisted

Supergirl gets to her second season finale with everything stacked against her. The writers aren’t even trying to be subtle anymore with their political analogies, titling this one, “Nevertheless, She Persisted.” This is a reference to the political controversy last year involving Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Supergirl: Resist

  Supergirl is almost at her season finale, and it’s a really impressive build up. There’s a mounting threat, uneasy alliances, missing heroes, and revelations about characters we’ve seen before. They manage to pack a lot into “Resist.” Lena wakes up after the fight last episode, and doesn’t get good news. She’s on a Daxamite…

Supergirl: City of Lost Children

Supergirl has a somewhat odd title this week. “City of Lost Children” sounds nice and dramatic, but there’s only one child in the episode. I suppose I can sort of see a way to expand that to a second one, but it’s a stretch. Maybe they were running low on good titles. The show opens…

Supergirl: Alex

Things get particularly difficult for Supergirl and her friends in “Alex.” While the writers manage to keep things tense throughout, they also fall back on a few crutches that don’t ring true (more on that shortly). Unusually for the show, they didn’t introduce any new aliens, or major characters with ties to the DC Comics…

Supergirl: Ace Reporter

Supergirl is back in action with “Ace Reporter,” a kind of ironic title since she’s been unemployed for a while now. That comes up in the first scene or so, when she flies around the city and then goes to the DEO. She has to face a menace that even Kryptonians aren’t immune to: boredom.…

Supergirl: Distant Sun

  Supergirl’s life keeps getting complicated in “Distant Sun.” One thing I noticed that I hadn’t caught last episode is that her intro/voiceover is wrong now. She’s not working at CatCo. Either there’s something coming down the pike about that, or the show runners are being lazy. Or both, I suppose. The episode starts off…

Supergirl: Star-Crossed

Last episode, we saw hints of a major bump in the road for Kara and Mon-El. This time, that kicks in to high gear. There’s also trouble in paradise for Winn and Lyra. It’s not a great episode for couples, but then, that’s probably why they called it “Star-Crossed.” Things start off going fairly well,…