Tuesday TV Touchbase (01/21/2020): Crisis On Infinite Earths, Batwoman and Supergirl

Hi there! It's another addition of the Tuesday TV Touchbase, a regular feature where the question gets asked, "What the hell is Dave-El watching on TV?" and then I answer it!

Andrea and I finally got to see the finale of Crisis On Infinite Earths on Friday. We've both been working late and that was the first time since it aired on Tuesday.

I tried to avoid spoilers as best as I could but wired as I am into sci-fi super hero pop culture stuff, it was very difficult and a couple of things got spoiled. Sometimes you don't need to read anything, just an accompanying photo or a poorly redacted headline will give me the info I need to figure something out. 

The 4th hour opens with the secret origin of the Monitor. Mar-Novu, the Monitor, is determined to time travel back to the dawn of time. It is an act of curiosity and arrogance that opens a portal to the anti-matter universe and the creation of Mar-Novu's opposite number. 

The next act picks up in Vanishing Point. It is the only place in existence after the anti-matter wave took out the last remaining Earth. The Paragons, our heroes (and Lex Luthor) have been biding their time in the months since they got zapped into Vanishing Point. It's more than long enough for Ryan Choi to accurately assess Lex Luthor as "a douche bag".  

Our heroes (and Lex Luthor) are trapped.  There is no "there" outside of Vanishing Point for them to get to.  

OK, there is some kind of a  "there" out there somewhere. It's Purgatory where Jim Corrigan and Oliver Queen are having a chat as Ollie begins to uncover his mission and power as the Spectre.  

Then Ollie appears on at Vanishing Point, acting all Spectre with a weird echoing sepulchral voice telling our heroes (and Lex Luthor) how they are going to get out of there and what they have to do.  

The Flash uses the Speed Force to get the Paragons out of Vanishing Point and to their respective destinations in the past to stop Mar-Novu from doing his thing. 

But an attack by the Anti-Monitor sends a bunch of them off course. We get some interesting vignettes as various characters interact with some crucial moments in Oliver Queen's timeline as Green Arrow.  

Any similarities with Avengers: Endgame are, I'm sure, purely unintentional.  

There is one encounter that the Flash has with someone NOT from the Arrowverse. The Flash has a face to face meet up with... The Flash. It's the Barry Allen from the DCEU. Ezra Miller who played Barry in the Justice League movie shows up.  It is an adorkably cute moment. 

Eventually all of our heroes (and Lex Luthor) wind up at the dawn of time where the Spectre (Oliver Queen) is confronting Anti-Monitor with the fate of everything at stake. Lots of glowy CGI as the Spectre and Anti-Monitor grunt and growl at each other. It's kind of cool. 

Our heroes (and Lex Luthor) decide to help Spectre using their collective Paragonosity (?) which involves our heroes (and Lex Luthor) standing in a line and...

staring at the Spectre?

OK, it's kind of lame.  

OK, this moment needed more "oomph".  They needed to be in a circle or a triangle, even? Maybe surrounded by some glowy energy field or something? Maybe some quick cuts to the individual Paragons muttering prayers or curses or something?  

Nope. Just standing in a line, looking at the Spectre. 

Well, however it goes down, it goes. Oliver Queen dies (again) just as a big glowing portal opens in the sky and everything goes to white.  

Hour five. Everything is fine. 

The sky is blue, the sun is shining, it's a another beautiful day in National City. OK, there's a super villainess attacking but nothing Supergirl can't handle. Especially with a little help from the Flash. After Kara and Barry have defeated the Weather Witch, Marv Wolfman (yes, THAT Marv Wolfman!) approaches them for an autograph, geeking out on how cool it is when these two heroes team up. 

OK, so what has happened is the various Earths of the Arrowverse have been folded into one Earth.  Everything is as it always was except Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Batwoman, etc etc are living (and have always lived) on one Earth. 

Other weird things include Lex Luthor, Nobel Peace Prize winner (Really?!?!) and a giant blue furball Beebo ("BEEBO WANTS CUDDLES!!!") used as a distraction from a bank robbery committed by Sargon the Sorcerer! (Sargon? Talk about a deep dive into the DC archives!) 

Oh, and the Anti-Monitor is not done yet. One more attack by the Anti-Monitor and his shadow demons pushes our collective heroes to their limits and it looks like Supergirl might have to make an ultimate sacrifice move to take out the Anti-Monitor but a last second Hail Mary from the Flash, Ryan Choi and the Atom saves the day.  

In the penultimate scene of the final episode, we see that while some Earths have been merged, the multiverse still exists with DC Universe streaming series Titans, Doom Patrol and the forthcoming Stargirl are on their separate Earths. So is Swamp Thing which was sadly cancelled after only 1 season. 

We also get a sneak peak at Oa and the Green Lantern Corp; the image is footage from the Green Lantern movie but appears to be a nod towards the upcoming GLC series on HBO Max as well as the DCEU. 

And Brandon Routh's Superman lives on as well on his own Earth.  

Things end with a final salute to Oliver Queen and the Flash unveiling a new HQ for the heroes to meet when they are needed. As the theme song from "Super Friends" plays, we see the exterior of this HQ looks like the Hall of Justice from the Super Friends TV show.   

Crisis on Infinite Earths sticks the landing for the most part. I like that episode 5 was given time to breath, to explore some of the parameters of this different but not quite different Brave New Earth.  

Sunday's night's Batwoman and Supergirl give is a look at this Brave New Earth and how it impacts these two series.

Batwoman takes advantage of this new shared universe when Batwoman agrees to a sit down interview with Kara Danvers at CatCo to set the record straight that Batwoman isn't. 

Seems Gotham City top cop Slam Bradley (created by Jerry Seigel and Joe Schuster, the same guys who created Superman) is being shipped on social media with Batwoman. Out and proud of it Kate Kane is not happy with that. 

Alice is back with her usual crazy shenanigans but there's an unexpected twist at the episode's end where the rebooted universe gives Kate an unexpected surprise: her sister Beth, back home, alive and healthy and not a crazed murdering psycho. 

What the....? 

Over on Supergirl, Kara is still trying to cope with a reality where Lex Luthor is a Nobel Peace Prize winning good guy? 

There's also a major status quo for Brainiac 5 that does not bode well for the future. Near the end of last season while being tortured by the Sons of Liberty, Briany temporarily rebooted to a cold, unfeeling version of himself. I suspected that this might be planting a seed for the next season's big bad. And with this episode, we seem to be on that course. 

And Lex may have rebooted the universe to think of him as a good guy but he didn't actually reboot himself to be that good guy.  Lex is tracking down Leviathan (that's still a thing) for his own nefarious purposes and now he has Brainiac 5 helping him.

Supergirl has some serious challenges to face in the rest of the season to come. 

Next week: the Legion of Super Heroes and the long awaited return of Jeremy Jordan as Win Schott! 
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Among the topics for next week's Tuesday TV Touchbase, I will discuss The Mandolorian.