DC TV Weekly #12

Supergirl 'The Martian Chronicles' Review
Honestly I'm surprised I haven't seen more pastiches of The Thing when it comes to the Martians in DC, transforming alien whose only weakness is fire? Yeah that's kind of fitting. But apart from that, there isn't much to discuss in terms of how it's like The Thing. It's not a satire, it's not a tribute, it's just "Hey, this scenario is kind of like The Thing so let's make it look like that and base an entire episode around it". Still, my little geeky heart does appreciate things like this, also including just seeing Martian Manhunter and Miss Martian kicking ass, again, just one of those moments you never thought you'd see in live action, yet here it is. Speaking of those two, they seem to be taking their relationship down a different path than usual. In prior interpretations of M'Gann and J'onn, there was a wide age gap and were often portrayed as more of a father/daughter pairing, hell, in Young Justice he was her adoptive uncle. Yet here they're setting it up like a romance, which at first I thought was weird considering the age gap, but then I googled it and turns out-holy crap Sharon Leal is in here 40s!?-Damn she looks good for her age! But still, this is kind of like Batgirl and Batman in The Killing Joke, technically there's nothing wrong with it, it's just creepy to think of them in that way. Overall this was a fine episode, lot of good character development, fun action, no James (Which is always a plus), though man were they pushing it for how much silly alien jargon was here, it felt like dialogue from a Sci-Fi B-Movie. Oh, and on a final note-DEO agents are like red shirts in Star Trek? Grossly incompetent in every scenario. 6/10.

The Flash 'Untouchable' Review
Something about this episode feels very season one-ish. It could be because it's a villain of the week, it could be because it focuses on The Flashes learning new powers, or it could be because it was good. Yeah, hi good episodes of Flash, it's been a while, you should visit more often. So what made this ep work? Well, a few things. First thing would be the story, it wasn't too melodramatic or convoluted, it was just a simple stop a bad guy, and along the way both Flash and Kid Flash learn new powers and both develop phyiscally and emotionally. Second would be Jesse L Martin, who has always been the best actor in the Arrowverse and I love it when he gets a chance to show that. The scene of him finding out Iris is destined to die was brilliantly done and the scene felt genuine, no forced drama like this show has been a trainwreck (Puns!) of recently. Though I would argue Kid Flash's guilt of not being fast enough to save Iris was forced, it didn't tie into the new power he was learning and there was nothing he could have done differently. Caitlin and Julian certainly had some really good scenes together, the focus on their similarities of being manipulated by an evil persona is a strong way to connect them. But for the love of god, stop giving Caitlin new romances, this has not ended well in the past, and you promised this season was focusing on her struggles as Killer Frost! To sum it up, a fun story, great acting, very little moments of annoyance, but possibly with they're really pushing how much mumbo jumbo science they can get away with. 8/10.

Legends of Tomorrow 'Turncoat' Review
A Christmas episode in February, sure, why not? Hell, fits the theme of the episode, misfitting pair-ups that surprisingly work, Mick with George Washington, Jax with a position of leadership, Ray with a Rat. Mick's being a fun side-adventure where he actually influences the first president of the United States, whom I understand some people think he was overly patriotic but...c'mon, in a show as campy as Legends, of course they're going to make Washington super awesome and make us British look super evil. It was just nice to see Mick have an important role not relating to his mental illness or depression. Also his opening was awesome. Jax also getting some major character development in a new role for him, the acting-acting (Acting2?) captain of the crew, he was pushed further than we've seen before, especially when going up against an evil Rip Hunter, their former Captain, he had to be intelligent, brave, morally upstanding, all things Jax is rarely pushed to see where his breaking point is. Also, Arthur Darvill doing a really good job as an evil and intimidating bad guy, he was legitimately scary in this episode. And Ray and the Rat...was just really funny. Oh, but there was one misfitting pairing that didn't work, and that was Nate & Amaya. Their romance was beyond forced, also how can they just casually have sex when their captain is dying and their teammate has been captured? Are they morons? See this episode is a great example of fun dumb and regular dumb. The team celebrating Christmas on a time machine: Fun dumb. A couple with no chemistry having sex and ignoring their responsibilities: Regular dumb. Thankfully, this episode was more fun dumb than regular dumb. 7/10.

Arrow 'Bratva' Review

Sure is a lot of travelling these past few episodes, did the producers find a couple extra grand in their back pockets? To make matters stranger, when the team arrived at the airport and Diggle was talking to that woman, my first reaction was "Who's that?"...I had completely forgotten they introduced a new Black Canary...that's not a good sign. But someone the show for once didn't completely forget about is Ragman, yay, he finally has something to do! Absorb a nuclear bomb and lose his powers so they've written him out of the show...What the fuck!? Clearly the writers have caught on to the fact that Ragman was so much more powerful than everyone else, and if he was actually given anything to do, he'd save the day in like 5 minutes. But you don't have to write him out of the show! Nor do you have to make him get rid of his powers! Put him on the Legends team, he'll actually have something to do there. Or put him on a Young Justice series which is really needed (You have enough heroes for it, don't lie). Or, hell, if you had to get rid of his powers, he can still be on the team can't he!? He had to go through all that physical training just like the others, he didn't even get a proper goodbye, this is such lazy writing! But to talk about something good, I was a fan of the emotional dilemmas in this episode. Yeah, been a long time since that's happened. Oliver being worried that his team is becoming as dark as him, Felicity making back-end deals, Diggle torturing a man for information, they're going down a dark path, and Oliver has always felt that that's his burden to bear, he takes on the darkness so no one else has to. Yeah that's more ripping off Batman, I'm just glad it's a working rip-off. Overall the focus of this episode was strong, but the supporting characters really got the shaft. 7/10.

-Danny