Tuesday TVTouchbase: Stargirl

This week, the Tuesday TV Touchbase turns it's attention towards Stargirl, the DC Comics super hero show that called the CW home. 

And like other DC Comics super hero shows such as Batwoman & Naomi no longer call the CW home. 

The cancelation of Stargirl was hardly a surprise given the recent changes to the CW under Nextstar, it's new majority owner.  The new risk adverse owners of the CW have little interest in shows like the DC super hero shows, sometimes collectively revered to as the "Arrowverse".  

While in production on season 3, writer and series creator Geoff Johns saw the writing on the wall over at the CW and prepared for the show's end. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  

The 3rd season began with the murder of Steven Sharpe, AKA the Gambler, erstwhile member of the Injustice Society. 

By season's end, we find out Sharpe's death is linked to a vast criminal conspiracy involving...

Jordan Mahkent AKA the Icicle who isn't as dead as we thought at the end of season 1.  Apparently having your ice body shattered into little bits then melted and washed away into a sewer isn't completely fatal.

The Dragon King whose season1 death at the hands of his daughter Cindy was not quite permanent. It seems Dragon King's brain is alive and well inside the giant white albino gorilla body of the Ultra-Humanite.  

And wherefore art thou, brain of the Ultra-Humanite? Well, it's alive and well inside the skull of ...

OK, this twist really hurt! 

Geoff Johns is evil! 

OK, let's get through this. 

The brain of the Ultra-Humanite has set up home inside the skull of....

Sylvester Pemberton, Starman of the original Justice Society of America. 

That's right, good guy Sylvester Pemberton is one of the bad guys. 

How bad is he? He dump's Sylvester's erstwhile sidekick Pat Dugan into a open grave and buries him alive. 

Yeah, it's a scary and skin crawling moment. 

Don't worry, it doesn't stick. 

My theories on how Pat would get out of that death trap involved sudden appearances by the Shade or Solomon Grundy or Jakeem's Thunderbolt. 

Nope! Pat Dugan's Batman's his ass out of that grave. Who knew sweet, sincere, over all nice guy Pat was such a bad ass?

Oh, by the way, where is Sylvester Pemberton's brain? Stuck in a jar in an abandoned lab screaming in horror.

Damn! Geoff Johns is evil.   

OK, the show is called Stargirl so let's talk about Courtney Whitmore a bit. Who spend roughly half of the 13 episodes of season 3 never appearing in costume as "Stargirl".  But Courtney's true gifts do not come from the cosmic staff that give her Stargirl powers. It's from her belief in others that there is some good and hope for redemption.  

Despite his father being the Icicle, she believes that Cameron Mahkent is a good person. 

Despite her legacy of being the Dragon King's daughter, Courtney has faith that Cindy Martin can find a path of redemption. 

Courtney's fervent belief in the best of other people is what drives her and truly make her a hero. Unfortunately the one person she has doubts about is herself, if she is worthy of the mantle of Stargirl and to control the cosmic staff.  So she loses the staff to Sylvester Pemberton. 

But when the corrupted Starman reveals his true colors, she summons the cosmic staff out of his contemptable murderous hands and hot damn! She's Stargirl once more and kicks ass! 

Anticipating the future with the CW, Geoff Johns pens a wonderful coda set 10 years in the future where Richard Swift, the Shade, conducts a tour group through the Justice Society Museum and regales them with a list of their adventures and the some details of their destinies over the intervening 10 years. Now known as Starwoman, Courtney still leads the Justice Society with a membership much expanded from the group she started as a student in Blue Valley High. Among the team's successes the Shade recounts is rescuing Pemberton's brain from a jar so thank goodness for that. 

But the adventures of the JSA are far from over. A sudden appearance by the Flash, Jay Garrick, alerts the Shade of a new challenge and that the Justice Society is needed once more.

The adventure continues...

Of the DC shows on the CW, Stargirl was the most consistent in tone and quality and while it is a gosh darn shame it had to end at 3 seasons, that collection of 3 seasons feels somehow complete.  Stargirl gets to end on a good note.  

And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week, I have some holiday themed TV to cover.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.