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Agents of SHIELD is so bizarre this season.  Not bad....just really bizarre.  The space angle and the "end of the world" angle is just a really weird place to go with this show, especially since this could easily be the last season.  Very Fringe, honestly.

And I've finally decided that bringing the MCU to the small screen was a bad idea.  They've done a good job making the universe their own, but I just don't buy that the universes are connected.  The AoS world seems just as different from the world of the Avengers as the Netflix world does.

And I wonder about the "time travel" angle they're going with - I almost would've preferred to send them out to deep space and have them be a part of the Cosmic MCU.  Especially since that's allegedly where things are going in Phase Four.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/40913 … e#/slide/1

This is a weird strategy.

I actually think Legends answered the whole "why kill off Stein when he could be happy?" question pretty well in the fall finale.  Yeah, death sucks and Stein didn't want to die, but he lived a full life and was ready to accept that it was his time to go.

Since Jax is leaving the show too, seemingly, it might've been better (read: more tragic) to have Jax be the one who dies (hopefully, more heroically), allowing Stein a bittersweet homecoming.  Maybe Stein leaves the Waverider, Jax tries to be a hero on his own, and he dies.  So Stein will always have to wonder whether or not he made the selfish move or not.

Either way, I feel a little better about the decision.  And I started wondering....is Legends actually handling character growth the best of the four series?

Yeah but my response would be to buy *none* of the sets hahah.

The shared universe is cool if you're up-to-date but it's gotta be a nightmare if you're not caught up.  And probably not worth the time.

On Trump, I'm still shocked that basically no one from the Democratic Party has come out to be the face of the anti-Trump movement.  Bernie is leading a charge, but the Party can't stand him and will not allow him to be the candidate (and he's too old, I think).

All the people who were supposed to be the frontrunners: Booker, Warren, Kaine, Kamala Harris, O'Malley, Murphy....silent, for the most part.  They come out here and there, but no one is stepping up and going out of their way to be the anti-Trump voice.

Even the Democrats on social media aren't really pleading for their own party leaders to do anything.  Whenever you see someone asking for Trump to be impeached, they're directing it at Republican leaders.  If anything, the most popular person in the Democratic Party is Robert Mueller.  Maybe he'll run, but the complete lack of a voice from the Democratic Party still makes me think what I've thought all along....they're all still taking their orders from Hillary Clinton, and she'll be the nominee in 2020 with little-to-no opposition again.

The Thawne stuff is crazy because it completely diminishes Eddie's sacrifice at the end of season one.  It was fun to have him as a villain in Legends because having a speedster villain against non-speedster characters is fun (because speedster/speedster fights are always more like a race with an occasional punch).

But seriously, Eddied *killed himself* to protect the team and destroy Thawne once and for all.  Now, through various vague explanations, he's back.  So they would've been better off doing anything else and keeping Eddie alive.

Listen, I get it that Flash Season 3 wasn't well received, but I don't think an Evil Barry would've been that outlandish.  Maybe Grant Gustin wasn't available to play two characters, but I think it *has* to be a result of Savitar backlash.  So they go with Thawne, which is fine, but they're doing a parallel Earth episode.....use Earth X Thawne.  Or say it's a Wells clone who got super speed.  Make it an evil Wally.  Or an Evil Jessie.  Evil Jay.  Convoluting Thawne's character (again, destroying Eddie's sacrifice) was just a bizarre choice.

And I get the reasons to kill Stein off.  It does allow for Stein's character to really leave an impact, and his funeral really puts weight on the whole thing.  But if they'd just dropped him off at home and promised to leave him alone, I think that would've worked.  Unlike, say, The Avengers, I don't think the situation demanded a sacrifice, but I do understand why they felt it was needed and killed off a character who was leaving anyway...as opposed to killing off, say, Wild Dog or Caitlin that would have an even bigger impact on the principal shows.

All that being said, though.....the way they did it was awful.  Random Nazi goon did it?  By shooting him as he wandered off?  Make evil Kara do it.  Make Fuhrer Ollie do it, rationalizing why Oliver felt the need to kill him instead of incapacitating him.  Or at least give the Legends a chance to get their revenge.  The guy that shot Stein is vaporized by the actions of Stein himself, right?  He died before Stein did.

I wouldn't have killed him, but the way they did it was very lame.  Even when it was happening, and Stein said they were going to split up I wondered why.  Yes, they needed two tasks done some ways apart, but it looked like Jax could've hotwired and flown across the room in the time it took Stein to get there.  At least drop the old man off where he can get to cover faster instead of making the old guy run across a room.

I'm eager to watch Part 4 again (I kept it on my DVR) because I thought the action sequences were very fun.  There was some uncanny valley stuff with some of the CGI with Barry and Supergirl, but I thought, overall, the CGI was fantastic for TV.

I hope they're able to do another one of these next year.  I understand why they might not be able to....but I'd be okay dropping 2-3 episodes per show and getting a crossover.  A lot of the Arrowverse random episodes are just filler, and this event moved so many stories forward.  It's a great trade.

EDIT - It probably wouldn't have worked to have Evil Wally as Evil Flash since he doesn't really fit in with the Nazi hiring principles.  Whoops.

SPOILERS ON CRISIS ON EARTH X

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All in all, I thought it was really well done.  I thought the villains were great, there was plenty of ways for everyone to be a hero, and the open format of the whole thing was really great so each hour didn't feel beholden to any of the shows.  Lance and Winn showed up almost-exclusively on the Flash hour, Digg showed up exclusively on Legends hour, etc.

I thought the action was great, I thought they moved a lot of stories along, and I thought they made the whole thing feel epic and fun.  People were married, someone died (more on that in a sec), and characters grew.

But....this is a message board and positivity doesn't belong here.  Let's talk about the stuff that kept this thing from being legendary:

1. STEIN.  Are.  you.  kidding.  me.  We talked about this a couple months ago, but how in the Hell did they decide to kill Stein?  No happy ending for a character was easier to write than Stein, and they killed him off anyway.  I get that they wanted something to rally around, and I get that they had an easy guy to write off since Victor Garber was going to leave the show anyway.  But it was SO UNNECESSARY.  They had two dozen characters, any of which they could've killed off with just as much impact, and it wouldn't have been unnecessary.  Let the old man live with his family.  And the way they did it was so dumb.  Killed off by a random Nazi?  When he could've easily done both switches as Firestorm?  UGH.

2. I do not understand the Thawne stuff.  I thought that was wrapped up.  Why Thawne?  Why not just Evil Barry?  Are they *that* worried about doing anything to do with Season 3 of the Flash that they completely ignored an Evil Barry?  And why not just make him Earth X Thawne?  That didn't make any sense to me.

3. They've gotta acknowledge the Kryptonian elephant in the Earth-1 room.  They specifically said that there were 52 Karas - that means Kara exists on Earth One.  Where is she?  Where is Clark?  Why aren't any of them looking for each other?  The first Supergirl/Flash crossover said that there weren't Olivers/Barrys/etc on Supergirl's Earth.  What gives?

4. Oliver was the Fuhrer?  That was a bizarre choice.  Wouldn't they rather have Kara be the Fuhrer?  Or Clark?  Why is an American the Fuhrer of Germany?

5. So is Caitlin just Killer Frost now?  Or is Killer Frost just okay being a hero now?  And I thought they might be trying to set up Mick and Frost, but they just abandoned it.

It was fun.  I liked it.  But some of the choices were really bizarre.

TF, they definitely haven't established that girl, but the way you described her makes me think that you're right.

I saw the first half of the crossover, and I really liked it so far.  They're definitely doing a 4-hour movie instead of beholding to the individual shows.  There are storylines for all four shows going on so far, and I think they're hitting some cool notes.

It does have to be weird for people who only watch Supergirl, though.  It was basically only Kara and Alex for the entire hour of "Supergirl"

The problem, I think, with shared universes is the same problem that serialized TV series have.  Back in the day, you could watch shows at whatever pace you want whenever it was convenient for you.  To my point, my friend is binge-watching Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Knowing I'm a Trek fan, he would periodically text me and ask me questions or make references to certain episodes.  When I realized that I hadn't seen between 1/3 and 1/2 of the episodes he'd randomly discuss, I realized something: I hadn't seen 1/3 to 1/2 of TNG.

It's funny because I consider it a show that I've "completed", but since it was a show made in the 80s/90s, I "watched the entire show" but didn't watch every episode.  I've watched a patchwork quilt of episodes from all 7 episodes but not every single episode. 

That wouldn't fly today because shows are so dependent on serialization.  I could watch a season 4 episode of TNG and understand just about everything without seeing a single episode before that.  Try doing the same with LOST or even something cheap like Legends of Tomorrow.  I watched an episode of Arrow with my fiancee and didn't even bother trying to explain who any of the characters were - it would've taken too long.

Nowadays, shows *are* like long movies, and we're inclined to "turn them off" and never return if we don't like something.  I hated watching the first season and a half of House of Cards - I found it infuriating to watch two people I despised continually come out on top, eliminating characters I found redeeming, and I couldn't take it anymore.  I stopped watching in the middle of season two, and I haven't returned.  Season 4 could be great, and I literally wouldn't care.  I'm not putting in any more time, and I don't want to be completely lost without having seen the rest of season 2 or season 3.

And I think these cinematic universes have that same effect.  You don't necessarily have to see every DCEU movie to enjoy subsequent films, but it helps.  And if you don't like one or two of them, you might not be willing to watch later ones.  It might end up like a coworker of mine (big comic book fan) who disliked Man of Steel and BvS so much that he skipped Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman (even though I told him he'd like it).  Even though he admitted being intrigued by the tonal change in direction and the trailers, he said he wasn't planning on seeing Justice League.

He'd hit the eject button.

I think this happens with Marvel movies too.  I had trouble convincing a friend of mine to see Civil War because he hadn't seen anything since the Avengers....he was suddenly about a dozen movies behind.  When you suddenly have a movie that's building on movie after movie after movie, people are less likely to jump in midstream.  And they're more likely to judge your new movie by the standards set by the old movie.

Movies become TV become movies.

Yeah, it's a dense show, and the main character's bug eyes bother me.  But I think it's just so well done.

In other news, did anyone else watch the Supergirl flashback episode?  I thought they did an incredible job casting young Kara and Alex, especially since it was "recent" enough that they could've easily just used the same actresses and "de-aged" them a bit with makeup.

It bothered me at first, but by the end, I thought they were basically nailing the characters.

From what I've read (and I'm trying to stay away from reviews), the characters are great (including a new take on Superman and a great start for Flash/Aquaman/Cyborg) and their interaction really works.....but that the plot and villain are pretty weak.

It really makes me wonder why they went with Steppenwolf.  I know they don't want to start with Darkseid but there's tons of DC villains that would be a stepping stone to Darkseid.  Why someone so obscure?

From the looks of things, the 4-way crossover is going to be a lot of fun.  I still think it's weird that they finish it with an episode of Legends of Tomorrow, but there's also a chance that it'll actually be a 4-hour movie and not individual episodes of any of the shows.

Does anyone watch Mr. Robot?  It's one of my favorite shows on TV right now - really engrossing stuff.  Wednesday's episode was presented as one long take, and it was spectacular.  I don't think anyone shoots TV exactly like Sam Esmail does.

There's something sorta awesome about planting seeds like that and checking back in X amount of time to see if anything grew.  It sounds a little bit like what the Season 1 writers in LOST were doing, but Torme seems to have thought a lot about the different roads that the FBI story could've gone down.  He didn't just create a hatch in the ground with no idea what's inside or where it leads....he could've gone any number of directions.

Again, if this were a modern show, I'd almost suspect that the FBI story would've been something that popped up once a year in some sort of Coda.  Whether it be future scenes in "Better Call Saul" or "Evil Morty" on Rick and Morty...it'd be something that wasn't the main focus but something that's consistently in the background waiting to pay off.

What's odd is that, if any of that had happened, it would've been a much bigger game-changer than anything Torme had done previously.  I'd always suspected that, because Sci-Fi Channel picked the show up, they went with the more-Sci-Fi-looking Kromaggs as the main villain of the "new" show.  But what if Sliders had been picked up by a different network - something like USA?  Would the FBI have been the thread that the new writers chose to pull?  Would it have been more "Aliens" to Sliders' "Alien" - with the Sliders going from world to world with a team of special agents / special forces?

Could be interesting on some parallel earth.

Well I'm quoting SHH because the WSJ article was paywalled and I don't enough to pay

http://www.superherohype.com/news/40738 … ion-poster

Sounds like Suicide Squad 2, Cyborg, and any Man of Steel followup are on the backburner.  What's weird is that the SHH article doesn't mention Shazam or the Black Adam movie, which we know are both moving forward.

Interesting episode this week, which was a weird combination of After Earth and 10 Cloverfield Lane?

(It's better than it sounds).

The Orville has been renewed for Season 2.

It's possible.  An optimist would say that they're trying to find whatever talent they can to make whatever properties they can.  If Lobo works and the Flash doesn't, make Lobo.  If we get Nightwing but no The Batman, that's fine.  Make the best movies they can with the best talent they can.

A pessimist could look at it and wonder if DC is just throwing ideas at the wall and hoping that people get behind them.  That instead of being proactive, they're being reactionary.  "You loved Batman in the trailers? MORE BATMAN!"  "You loved the humor in the Suicide Squad trailer.  MORE HUMOR!"  "You liked Wonder Woman?  MAKE HER THE STAR OF JUSTICE LEAGUE"  Stuff like that.

It's probably somewhere in the middle.  I just don't want DC to oversaturate the market.

Well, even if we disagree about misses, I think putting out all 20 or whatever rumored movies is a bad idea.  Consistently doing movies is fine...flooding the market is a bad idea IMHO.

These are fine, and I'm looking forward to all of them (although I'd heard Cyborg has been shelved)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Extend … e#Upcoming

These can come after or should be incorporated in some other manner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Extend … se#Undated

The Flash movie is a bit of a mess and has been.  I don't think it needs to be scrapped, but I do think it needs to be done correctly.  I'm curious to see how Barry comes off as a character in Justice League.  Is he the comic relief that Wally was in the Justice League animated series?  Is he just goofy or kinda dumb?  It's really hard to tell based on the trailers, where he's been the comic relief and socially awkward.

Right now, the focus needs to be on Justice League, then Aquaman (which is setting up to be really cool), the Batman, Green Lantern Corps, and a Wonder Woman sequel.  Suicide Squad 2, Shazam, and the Flash should be the next tier.  I think a Joker/Harley movie, a Deadshot movie, a Nightwing or Batgirl movie, a Man of Steel sequel and some of the other spinoffs need to put on hold until they've had a couple more wins.

What's funny is that, if Legends had one the anthology route*, then I think a Wally/Jesse/Harry show on Earth 2 or Earth Whatever could be insanely cool.  Harry putting together his team (like he said in the show) could've been cool.  Wally and Jesse learning to be heroes could've been cool.  And the whole parallel Earth stuff is ripe, of course, for cool cameos from just about anyone who's been in the Arrowverse.  13 episodes of that could be cool and set up Wally any way they wanted.

I don't see any value he'd add on Legends now and could possibly make the entire team obsolete a lot of the time (see Firestorm).

* I know it seems like it recently, but I actually don't want every show to be an anthology show

I think that would've been pretty cool.

I feel like Fuller has a great fondness for Star Trek and perhaps TOS, but he's shown the ability to take something he loves and make it his own.  The Discovery writers seem very interested in doing something decidedly not-Trek, and they simply used some of Fuller's notes to make the show they want to make.

It's what's made Discovery the fantastic show that it is and the headache it is to analyze within the boundaries of Trek itself.

Well, and all the extra stuff.  I went online after you mentioned the Fuller stuff and did my own research, and I agree with what you're saying regarding the new producers.  I think Fuller left them a skeleton that they used (timeline, Sarek, etc) and he filled in the gaps.

Now questions I have...

1. I read some rumors from Fuller's time that Burnham might've been Number One from the Cage.  I wonder if that was ever considered.

2. I couldn't find his art for the uniforms on his Twitter.  Were they deleted?

I think Wally got to be a little more interesting after he became Kid Flash.  He seemed to grow up a bit and become more heroic. 

But his entire arc about being jealous about not having powers and doing anything to become a superhero was very offputting, and it started his character on the wrong foot.

Discovery continues to be a really interesting and gripping show.  Michael Burnham and Gabriel Lorca are two of the more compelling characters in Star Trek history, and I'm genuinely intrigued on where certain plotlines are going to go.

However, some of the creative decisions are just distracting to me.  I don't know a ton about Sarek, but making Sarek (a character that has been a vital part of Trek since its inception) so "emotionally" connected to someone we've never heard of until now seems...disrespectful to me.  Maybe it isn't, but it's definitely odd to me.

I know we've beaten the whole "era they chose" thing to death, but it's just distracting when I try and think about the show in any sort of context.  They wanted to do the TOS era, but they also don't seem attached to *anything* related to the era.  They changed the uniforms, they changed the Klingons, and they changed just about everything about the technology.

In fact, if they simply changed the "Klingons" to "Quinnians", Sarek to any other high-ranking Klingon, Harry Mudd to any other con artist, and any other dialogue to reference the 25th century instead of the 23rd, the show works just fine. 

The whole thing is just bizarre to me.  The recent movies were prequels because they seemed to have a reverence for the TOS era and wanted to replicate everything about the aesthetic that they could.  Discovery seems to want to do entirely their own thing and just have an attachment to certain characters (Sarek, Harry Mudd, etc) that they wanted to include.

Again, I love the show.  All the side stuff is just distracting me, and it's only distracting me when the show is over and I have time to digest.

And now an appearance from Harry Mudd.

Did the Arrowverse get rid of the intro voiceovers?  I know for sure that there wasn't one in Supergirl, but I don't remember hearing them in Flash or Legends either.  Can anyone confirm?