The Return
Sep. 18th, 2004 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenygal ...oh, *ouch*. Well, they tried to do something more, and I just don't think it came off. This is an episode that was badly hurt by not being an hour long. In particular, the strategy of "let's blow up half the planet!" needed much, MUCH more development and argument than it got here. Even if there was any actual evidence that Amazo was threatening the Earth--as opposed to just Lex--that's something you want to be real sure is your only option. And as presented here, I didn't buy it at all (especially coming from J'onn, of all people). The business with Oa could have been handled better, too; not only is it terribly contrived, but is Amazo incapable of just going around the damn planet? Is that really more complicated for him than sending it into another dimension? I'm having a lot of trouble believing that. (Also, I didn't actually believe they'd destroy a large chunk of the GL setup in an episode that wasn't about the GLs, but that's me.) Oh, and then there's Fate, who comes out of nowhere, accomplishes nothing, and then announces that his purpose in life is to help out lost androids. (All right, all right, I can see that someone should be watching Amazo, it just made me go, "No, he does have a job, and that's not it.") Again, his role in this story really needed more development.
*sigh*
Other comments:
--Yes, Lex is cool. Lex is always cool. And his ambiguity in this episode is fascinating; there's just no telling if he means anything he says, up to and including his big speech to Amazo. However, I'm seriously confused: after he's talked Amazo down, why on earth does he then provoke him? Amazo could still kill him in a heartbeat, and Lex hasn't given him any overriding reason not to--this is stupid. And Lex isn't stupid. (Also, I don't think for a minute that Lex expects to be forgotten in a few generations, but see above about his not meaning what he says.)
--The barbershop completely cracked me up, though. The last place you'd expect to find him, indeed.
--Oh, and I was enormously pleased to see a resolution--well, sort of a deliberate non-resolution, but resolution for the moment--to his Kryptonite cancer. That was one thing that bugged me from "A Better World," and this is an excellent way to deal with it. (Arguably it puts a crimp in his potential political career, as "I could drop dead in the next thirty minutes" tends to make voters nervous, but then he's already got a lengthy criminal record to overcome; what's one more handicap?)
--Hi, Kyle! Bye, Kyle! I'm always happy to see him, but he was nothing particularly distinctive, either (and it makes me wince that he was the one to introduce the half-the-planet plan).
--Obviously this is an intentional dangler, but why does John want to go to Oa? Is it to do with Hawkgirl?
--Nobody in the entire League, even after it becomes clear how badly they're overmatched, says "Why are we putting ourselves on the line for Luthor? Let Amazo have him if he wants him that bad." I'm not saying that they'd do it, but I'd expect a lot of grumbling and at least a couple of serious proposals (Ollie leaps to mind, somehow).
--Why is Superman the only Leaguer wearing a spacesuit?
--Very much liked Atom--competent, intelligent, and knows it, too. (Although the paper blueprints made me roll my eyes. Yeah, you could get all the specs for Amazo on one sheet of paper.) Plus he thinks on his feet and he's genuinely sweet to Lex when Lex is trying very hard not to show he's panicked. (I await the appearance of Atom/Luthor slash, which is not something I was expecting to ever say before tonight...)
--So we got to see Wally. Sort of. Look, seriously, is there an actor problem? And if there is, much as I hate to say it, it might be good to recast the role, because I miss him.
--On an emotional level, the last ten seconds of the show made up for every other problem I'd had with it. SHAYERA! We saw Shayera! Eeeeeeeeeeee! *hugs show desperately*
*sigh*
Other comments:
--Yes, Lex is cool. Lex is always cool. And his ambiguity in this episode is fascinating; there's just no telling if he means anything he says, up to and including his big speech to Amazo. However, I'm seriously confused: after he's talked Amazo down, why on earth does he then provoke him? Amazo could still kill him in a heartbeat, and Lex hasn't given him any overriding reason not to--this is stupid. And Lex isn't stupid. (Also, I don't think for a minute that Lex expects to be forgotten in a few generations, but see above about his not meaning what he says.)
--The barbershop completely cracked me up, though. The last place you'd expect to find him, indeed.
--Oh, and I was enormously pleased to see a resolution--well, sort of a deliberate non-resolution, but resolution for the moment--to his Kryptonite cancer. That was one thing that bugged me from "A Better World," and this is an excellent way to deal with it. (Arguably it puts a crimp in his potential political career, as "I could drop dead in the next thirty minutes" tends to make voters nervous, but then he's already got a lengthy criminal record to overcome; what's one more handicap?)
--Hi, Kyle! Bye, Kyle! I'm always happy to see him, but he was nothing particularly distinctive, either (and it makes me wince that he was the one to introduce the half-the-planet plan).
--Obviously this is an intentional dangler, but why does John want to go to Oa? Is it to do with Hawkgirl?
--Nobody in the entire League, even after it becomes clear how badly they're overmatched, says "Why are we putting ourselves on the line for Luthor? Let Amazo have him if he wants him that bad." I'm not saying that they'd do it, but I'd expect a lot of grumbling and at least a couple of serious proposals (Ollie leaps to mind, somehow).
--Why is Superman the only Leaguer wearing a spacesuit?
--Very much liked Atom--competent, intelligent, and knows it, too. (Although the paper blueprints made me roll my eyes. Yeah, you could get all the specs for Amazo on one sheet of paper.) Plus he thinks on his feet and he's genuinely sweet to Lex when Lex is trying very hard not to show he's panicked. (I await the appearance of Atom/Luthor slash, which is not something I was expecting to ever say before tonight...)
--So we got to see Wally. Sort of. Look, seriously, is there an actor problem? And if there is, much as I hate to say it, it might be good to recast the role, because I miss him.
--On an emotional level, the last ten seconds of the show made up for every other problem I'd had with it. SHAYERA! We saw Shayera! Eeeeeeeeeeee! *hugs show desperately*
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 05:56 am (UTC)Lotta nice cameos, though. I shrieked "Kyle!" at the beginning and Avi laughed at me.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 07:28 pm (UTC)For a silly episode, I'm willing to set logic aside. This was not that episode.
And it was so frustrating, because there were good ideas in here, but there just wasn't time to properly deal with them or integrate them into each other. At an hour, or even an hour and a half, this could have been classic. At thirty minutes, we're forced to deal in Massive Stupidity.
(So, you want Amazo dead. Well, yank Lex off Earth--I imagine that half-a-dozen GLs will make short work of his defenses--Amazo will follow him, and then you can blast him in the middle of outer space and minus the massive casualties. Lex may well wind up dead, but if you're already willing to sacrifice billions I don't see the issue. And that's ten seconds of thinking. I'm asked to believe none of the large number of people involved here could even conceive of a better plan than destroying half the planet? Riiiight.)
Lotta nice cameos, though. I shrieked "Kyle!" at the beginning and Avi laughed at me.
This is true, and I was happier to see Kyle than it sounded like. It's just that by the end of the episode I'd had to sit through his apparently dying and his proposing mass destruction and his near-total failure to be anything more than a generic GL cutout, so my enthusiasm had dimmed.
Audibles from the episode
Date: 2004-09-19 08:50 pm (UTC)followed shortly by....
"They did NOT just kill Kyle," she muttered darkly. "Because then it would be just like canon."
.... You got it all. This goes under the Hawk and Dove episode in the Failed Moralizing column. It was a whole lot of heroes not thinking clearly and, while I appreciated the cameos, it was ultimately very unsatisfying.
Re: Audibles from the episode
Date: 2004-09-19 10:49 pm (UTC)Similar noises were being heard at my house. I was sure Oa had survived, but half-a-dozen GLs...well, they sacrificed them easily enough last season. The subtext of killing Kyle and leaving John as the only Earth GL, right now...well, I can't blame them for trying to raise the tension level, but they hit an unusually sore nerve there.
This goes under the Hawk and Dove episode in the Failed Moralizing column.
You know, that's something I forgot to mention above. Compelling as Clancy Brown's voice is, there was just far too much of an afterschool special tone to his lecture to Amazo. I mean, I grant that Lex was probably looking more for something that would sound good than something that was particularly complex, but I wish it had sounded less saccharine. (That may have been the intent of his little afterword, but that...really didn't play well.) Again, with more time maybe this would have worked better. And maybe not, of course, I don't want to give the impression that I think every hourlong episode was flawlessly perfect and utterly without problems of any kind. :)
was ultimately very unsatisfying.
Yeah--the gap between what they were trying to set up and what they actually achieved is so wide that it sabotages the whole episode. I'm pretty much stuck going "Kyle!" and "Shayera!", watching various cameo heroes get swatted, and admiring the bits with Lex. (Well, okay, half a point for the forced patience in John's voice when he asks if Amazo could put Oa back, please.)
And this was the last episode before we hit reruns. Not going out on a high note.