DC TV Weekly #37

Legends and Black Lightning are the only DC shows airing right now so rather than doing two very small posts, let's just wait another week and group two episodes from both shows together for this instalment.

Legends of Tomorrow 'Daddy Darhkest' Review
Man, this show does not get enough credit for how frigging gay it is. Two bisexuals and a gay man travel through time to fight a demon possessing a little girl, meanwhile a gay(?) woman is crushing on the bi woman who just slept with the bi man and at the end of it all the gay man decides to go to his own dimension so he can marry his boyfriend. It's wacky sci-fi adventures filled with queer people, it's practically everything I ever wanted. I remember back when Constantine the series was first airing they said they weren't going to acknowledge his sexuality, less than a minute on Legends he approaches Leonard with "What's your name gorgeous?" also give him a smoke, because why the hell not? They knew Matt Ryan's John Constantine was a near perfect representation of the character, might as well fill in those last few slots. You might notice I'm mostly talking about the LGBT side of the episode, well that's simply because the rest of the episode does nothing for me. Damien Darhk is still an overused villain, and while I think the setting on an asylum allowed for a distinct tone to be set up for the episode, overall I just do not care about Darhk, his daughter or even Mallus. This show knows what it's main selling point is, Gays-In-Space! It revels in it, it's what makes it unique against any other superhero/sci-fi show, might as well indulge every so often, lord knows I'm appreciating it. 7/10. Oh, also Constantine is going to be a main character for season four, squeeeeeee!

Legends of Tomorrow 'Here I Go Again' Review
Yeah this feels like an episode that had to be done eventually, a time travel show that loves its pop culture references. I'm especially happy that the episode centres around Zari because honestly the woman needed an episode like this. So far this season she hasn't really gelled with the rest of the crew and has felt like an outsider without that much development. Her only notable action so far was sending Helen of Troy to Themiscyra, and the show acknowledges that it was an act of defiance, she's a rebellious character, but if she wants to be an important character she needs to learn to work as a team. Having her spend god knows how long repeating the same day, sometimes trying to save them, sometimes doing whatever she wants and most importantly learning more and more about her crewmates, top it all off with her willing to sacrifice herself to try and save them, I'd say it's a damn good episode for developing her. Now all we need is to see her define her relationships with at least one of the other characters so we can get a unique rapour going and I'd say she's complete in becoming one of the crew. 7/10.

Black Lightning 'And Then the Devil Brought the Plague: The Book of Green Light' Review
DC Television has many flaws, one of the main struggles is that they have very few great villains across their shows, Deathstroke, Reverse-Flash, Prometheus, The Legion of Doom, and even then one of them has turned anti-hero (Though still great) and RF and the LoD are starting to seem gimmicky. However, this episode for me solidifies Tobias as another one of the great DC TV Villains, and considering he's not a man who intimidates our hero physically-hell, if I remember correctly they haven't even had a scene together-but everything about the way he's written just makes him so interesting to watch. His relationship with his sister and how the two stick together no matter what after being abused by their father, now spending the episode getting closure on him by leaving him for death. Or his connection to Gambi, I don't think DC TV has done this yet where the villain and mentor have a secret connection, all of it is so far the most compelling part of the series. Everything else in the episode is...fine. Black Lightning is having issues with his powers, yeah-yeah, we've seen this story done to death by now, and Anissa is uncovering a conspiracy behind her grandfather's death, okay, sweet, plot progression but it most definitely got over shadowed by Tobias in terms of what engaged me while watching it. Nevertheless, most DC TV this year has just been average, so having any element stick out is a win in my books, Tobias alone gets this episode an 8/10.