Why You Should Be Watching Superman and Lois by David Isaac of the Vintage Geeks Podcast
May 23, 2021 12:05 pm |
I have never been the biggest fan of Superman. He was always too
wholesome, damn near invulnerable and just seemed boring. Nothing about the
boy scout image appealed to me because I myself was not a boy scout. Of
course I watched Superman The Movie and Superman II and loved them
because if you’re going to try and pull off the wholesome character, the person
playing him had to be as convincing. To me, especially when I was younger, I
truly believed Christopher Reeve embodied that character almost as if he was
indeed the man of steel himself.
Growing up, all superhero tv shows had an air of campiness to them, from
the ’66 Batman to the “77 Wonder Woman and let’s not forget the 1974 Shazam!
and The Amazing Spider-Man. Of course there were exceptions such as The
Incredible Hulk which is one of my all time favorites, but it wasn’t until the 90s
with DC’s The Death of Superman in the comics that I started to really become
interested in him. With this storyline, I was intrigued why and how they would kill
off their longest running and arguably their most popular character. In death, DC
actually found a way to make him relatable to the humans he chose to protect.
Yes, I know he could’ve always died if someone found a way to kill him with
Kryptonite but those efforts were always thwarted. While I started to understand
him more and grew to like the character, he was never my favorite (not by a long
shot), simply because other characters always seemed more interesting, such as
Spider-Man, The X-Men and Batman.
As I grew older, when new superhero shows premiered, I always gave them a
chance. I watched The Flash (1990), Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of
Superman and Smallville (and admittedly only watched it sporadically at best).
It wasn’t until CW’s Arrow that I actually started watching superhero shows as
part of what seemingly has become my everyday life. That’s mostly because my
life became more regulated. I got married and settled down and that kid who
partied and wanted no part of being a boy scout, no longer found any of that
appealing. Also, around this time, characters I loved started being made into
serious movies such as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, The X-Men, Batman Begins
and so on. It was as if overnight, somehow being a geek had become a huge
mainstream part of pop culture. It was during this time that I rewatched
Superman The Movie and Superman II and fell in love with the simplicity of
Superman’s code – “Truth, Justice and the American Way”. He wasn’t so much a
boy scout as he was able to reign in all this power and truly use it for good
without ever being tempted to use it for his own personal gain (something I know
I would never be able to do completely if I had those powers). In Star Wars
terms, I would be labeled a true Grey Jedi, because I could never completely turn
to the Dark Side and conversely could never follow the insane amount of rules as
the Light Side.
All this and I have yet to even speak to the reason why you should be watching
Superman and Lois, but I promise you the backstory is important. Superman first
appeared in the 2nd season premiere of Supergirl in 2016, back when the
mainstays of comic book TV characters took place on The CW, Netflix or ABC.
My current podcasting partner Joe Vitale and I were actually on another podcast
at the time and we watched the CW shows fairly regularly and reviewed them
weekly. With Tyler Hoechlin’s first appearance as the Man of Steel, I was actually
taken aback as to how close his portrayal was to the Christopher Reeve/Richard
Donner version of Superman . At the time, Joe and I said there was absolutely no
way they were bringing Superman back to the small screen with his own solo
show. Actually I have to believe back then, the execs at WB said the same thing
too. Eventually, Superman and now Lois (played by Bitsie Tulloch) would pop up
on the yearly CW “Arrowverse”. These crossover events were fast becoming the
best part of all the CW shows not because of Superman and Lois but because
the writing was more condensed and told a tighter story that revolved, loosely,
around Elseworlds stories or major comic events like Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Truthfully I was becoming quite the fan of Tyler’s portrayal of the last son of
Krypton but not completely sold on Bitsie’s portrayal of Lois.
When WB announced that they were indeed going to proceed with Superman
and Lois as a show I would say I was probably luke warm to the idea at best. My
main question was always, “How are they going to make a show where you have
to have almost weekly world ending events for Superman to be important”
because these CW shows have really painted themselves into a corner. These
shows kept using the tired trope of needing a bloated team or the dreaded
“person in the chair” mentality and those formulas were all running a bit thin.
These shows always seemed at their best in their first season when the heroes
were tackling issues that really mattered. Black Lightning’s first season
addresses the real societal issues of black people in their community and The
Flash’s focused on becoming a hero and finding a way to use his powers while
trying to solve his mother’s murder to which his father was framed for. It was the
Netflix series ‘Daredevil’ that really changed the game. With its 10 episode
season, it delivered an incredible story, great fight choreography and made the
character feel real and true to what I would’ve read in a Frank Miller written
Daredevil comic.
With my expectations tempered, the first episode of Superman and Lois
dropped and to my surprise, I felt like I was watching an alternate universe as if
somehow Superman The Movie picked up 20 years after Clark tells Lois he was
Superman and they had some adventures, got married and had children of their
own. There was something else to it though. Maybe my sensibilities changed or
maybe it was just the reverence in which they treated the characters but I could
relate to Superman on a level like I never had before. It brought forth themes of
fatherhood and trying to balance your home life with your work life. He was no
longer an alien who ended up on Earth fighting and punching the biggest and
most powerful villains ad nauseam. His real problems were trying to connect with
his hormonal, teenage children and finding ways to relate to them without
revealing to them that he was Superman which would have explained his
unexpected absences and his aloof demeanor. What sold it was Hoechlin’s
performance of not just Superman, but how he played Clark. He was clumsy,
socially awkward, unsure of himself and not at all in control. The Clark persona is
the reason you never acknowledge his real identity not because of the glasses,
but by the way he carries himself.
Having established this, the first episode doesn’t require a plot with “a big bad”
that can go toe to toe with Superman. Instead, the show puts him in situations
where he is uniquely qualified to handle the situation which no one else can.
They put him inside a nuclear reactor (complete with an epic superhero pose)
that is melting down but show him using his super hearing to listen to people
talking about if he uses his cold breath it would make things worse.
In what has to be an homage to Superman III’s chemical fire rescue, Superman
realizes this crisis needs a slow cool down so he flies to a nearby lake and
freezes a large portion of it with his cold breath. He then flies a huge chunk of
the frozen lake and drops it over the fiery reactor whose heat melts it essentially
to rain which cools the reactor down properly. This scene in it’s simplicity makes
his powers and the way he uses them meaningful and impactful. The first 6
episodes are full of these examples, but this is not what makes this a good
Superman show…it’s Lois. This show shows Lois as strong, sure of herself,
competent and the true head of the Kent household. She is what glues the family
together and she still maintains her individuality. While I did not enjoy her
portrayal in the Arrowverse crossovers, she is one of the standouts as to why
this show is so good. She is written perfectly and better yet, Bitsie’s
performance is top notch and deserving of the Lois Lane name. In fact, she has
morphed into one of my favorite versions of Lois that has been shown on screen
or in the comics.
One of the other things the show has done so well is to make the drama aspect
of the show grounded in reality. With Clark and Lois having children, the show
focuses on how everyone in the family reacts to situations from the boys Jon
(Jordan Elsass) and Jordan (Alexander Garfin) finding out their dad is Superman
to having to deal with moving to Smallville from Metropolis and with Jordan
developing powers. And for good measure, the show adds in the normal
everyday bullshit of being a teenager and dealing with all those same headaches
we had at their age.
The writers have really thought about the characters and the situations they are
placed in. For example in the pilot episode, there is a scene where overhead
metal tubing inside the barn falls on top of Jon and Jordan during Martha’s
funeral. Clark sees and hears of this with his powers and instinctively goes
running in to save them but with so many people in the vicinity, he is forced to
run at normal human speed instead of his super speed, and to me it becomes
one of the most understated moments in the show. The writers have also
abandoned the typical “villain of the week” formula in favor of a long running
storyline with a through line that makes sense. Lastly, the performance of the title
characters which the show hinges on are top notch. Tyler and Bitsie have quickly
become my favorite Clark/Superman and Lois since Reeve and Kidder.
The show also addresses Superman’s responsibilities working alongside the
military and the tension between Lois’ father, General Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh)
plus we are introduced to an alternate Earth’s Alexander Luthor (Wole Parks) who
is unknown to our Superman at this time.
Superman and Lois is not without its problems as it can be a bit predictable at
times. Some of the characters are a bit grating and hard to stomach if not, at the
very least, stereotypical. I have a bit of an issue with Alexander Garfin’s
performance of Jordan who comes off as whiny and doesn’t really fit the
character very well.
In addition, Kyle Cushing (Erik Valdez) who is married to Lana Lang
(Emmanuelle Chriqui) comes off as a one-note character with his sole purpose
to be the small town defender/bully with a beer seemingly always in his hand.
These issues still do not take away from my overall enjoyment of the show
though because this has finally done something that no other Superman story
has been able to do for me and that is make me feel empathy towards
Superman. Plus there is hope that Alexander grows into the role eventually and
the writing for Kyle’s character becomes more complex. Easy fixes to be fair.
My reason for writing this review is because we live in a day where if a show
doesn’t get immediate ratings, we end up with mind-numbing shows like 20
seasons of Keeping Up With the Kardashians or worse (can it get worse than
this, though?). Superman and Lois deserves to be renewed and to become a
long running episodic television show because it does what it should…makes
you care for these characters (SPOILERS: if you don’t cry when Martha Kent dies
in the first episode you may truly be heartless and deserve all those Kardashian
shows). Superman and Lois is engaging and the CGI has seemingly been
bestowed an HBOMax type budget worthy of a top notch network tv show. Is
the CGI always perfect? No, but it is nowhere near as bad as recent episodes of
Supergirl, which is on the same CW network, and is limping home in its final
season.
You, the viewer, MUST watch Superman and Lois if your TV watchlist includes
shows such as The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, The Boys,
Umbrella Academy and The Mandalorian as it delivers the same level of respect
and love for the characters. Plus, best of all, it makes Superman so much more
relevant and relatable than you could ever imagine.
Tags: pop culture leftovers, Superman & Lois CW 2021, Television Review, TV Review, vintage geeks
Categorised in: Television Reviews
This post was written by Leftover Brian
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