Hello and welcome to the Tuesday TV Touchbase where I touch base each Tuesday to post about what I'm watching on TV.
Today we're gonna touch base on a couple of TV shows based on DC Comics.
Let's start with Doom Patrol. The series premiered in 2019 as part of the DC Universe streaming service before moving on to HBO Max. 4 years later, I finally finished season 1.
The members of the Doom Patrol have powers and abilities beyond those of normal humans although their biggest super power is being fucked up.
- Rita Farr has shape shifting powers but she struggles with how to control those powers, most dissolving into a formless goo whenever she is stressed.
- Larry Trainor has a body ravaged by radiation which is also home to an energy being and the two do not necessarily get along.
- Cliff Steele is a brain in a robot body. He's not happy about that and yells "What the fuck?" a lot.
- Jane has 64 different personalities, each with their own super power and none of which give a single god damn about being in charge or actually helpful when needed.
- Vic Stone is half man and half computer driven battle tech and he's never quite sure which half is doing the driving.
The only unifying purpose this team of misfit heroes has is to find their missing leader, Dr. Niles Caulder, aka the Chief. The Chief has been abducted by Mr. Nobody.
Mr. Nobody can alter reality and is aware he's in a TV show.
Danny the Street (the sentient gender queer street that protects people who need help) reveals the Chief is being held in "the White Space" (the limbo that exists between the panels of a comic book).
Flex Mentallo (the Man of Muscle Mystery) is able to transport the Doom Patrol to the White Space on his 2nd attempt. (His first attempt accidentally triggers mind blowing orgasms in everyone on Danny the Street.)
The Doom Patrol confront and defeat Mr. Nobody and save the Chief. Yay!
Except no. Mr. Nobody has trapped the team in a time loop where they only think they defeated him and the Chief is forced to watch as the team is killed over and over by a giant robot and the only thing he can do break the cycle is to tell the truth.
The Chief didn't just save them from the accidents that gave them their powers. He planned for those "accidents" to give him subjects for his experiments.
The team is pissed off about that. But they are needed one more time after Mr. Nobody kidnaps Danny the Street and has joined forces with Admiral Whiskers (a homicidal rat) and Ezekiel (a genocidal cockroach).
Long story made short: the Doom Patrol saves the day, Earth is not consumed by a homicidal rat and a genocidal cockroach but the team is not quite the same.
They are very small. Like Plankton from Spongebob.
That sets up season 2.
In the present, Doom Patrol is in the middle of their 4th season which will also be their last.
Meanwhile and elsewhere...
Superman & Lois kicked off season 3 a couple of weeks back and after thinking for a moment that Lois might be pregnant, the pendulum swung the other way and the hammer drops: Lois has stage 3 breast cancer.
Whoa!
Elizabeth Tulloch who plays Lois has spoken in interviews about how she and the producers are taking this storyline seriously and being respectful of those who have or had cancer. Which is good but Lois Lane is a fictional character and in the title of the show. And she lives in a world that has Superman in it and various expressions of super science. Everyone involved will have to handle this carefully on how they extricate Lois from this trauma.
The extrication of Jordan Elsass from the role as Jonathan Kent and recasting the role with Michael Bishop has been fairly seamless. They don't look exactly alike but the differences are not particularly jarring (Jon got a haircut between seasons?) and their mannerisms are fairly consistent. I hope Jordan is doing well with his personal issues that led to him to leave the show.
We're introduced to Metropolis crime boss Bruno Mannheim as portrayed by Chad L. Coleman ("Klyden" on The Orville). Mannheim is behind some shady experimental program giving people super powers and Lois and Clark are looking to take him down.
Yes, Lois and Clark are still living on the old Kent family farm in Smallville and working for Chrissy Beppo at the Smallville Gazette so why are they investigating a super crime boss in Metropolis and....
It seems new Smallville mayor Lana Lang has discovered the recently murdered former mayor was in deep with Bruno Mannheim and why a small town mayor in Kansas was a pawn in the plans of an East Coast super crook is....
The position of Smallville and Metropolis is a bone of contention with this show and worth it's own separate post.
Other than wondering where the hell Smallville and Metropolis are in relation to each other, Superman & Lois is off to a very strong and dramatic start.
OK, that is that for this week's Touchbase.
Tomorrow is more Superman but this time it's about the comic books. (They still make those.)
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.
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