TV REVIEW: Powerless (NBC, 2017)
I decided to do a review on NBC’s Powerless, a comedy show from DC Comics (!!) that I wanted to watch during its initial run. I don’t know if it was designed to be the counter to ABC’s Marvels “Agents of SHIELD”, but I ended up spending more time on AOS. Odd thing: the CW is where most DC TV shows end up (see The Flash, Arrow, DC’s “Legends of Tomorrow”, Black Lightning, etc.), but it was on NBC. The outlier in that group was Supergirl on CBS (which eventually moved to The CW in light of its flagging ratings). Sadly, Powerless was cancelled before it made 5 episodes on broadcast. I recently caught up with it on Tubi and binged all 12 episodes (9 broadcast, 3 unreleased) in a single day.
The premise: Wayne Enterprises has an insurance division in the fictional Charm City called Wayne Security, and they build consumer-level protection policies and devices to help people survive the daily dangers of a superhero-filled world. Enter the latest hire Emily Locke (Vanessa Hudgens), a very upbeat and chipper young lady lined up to head Wayne Security’s R&D department. Can she power-up the members of her innovation team (Danny Pudi, Ron Funches, Jennie Pierson, Christina Kirk) with inspiration while dealing with her useless boss (a criminally underrated Alan Tudyk)? Will a superhero or super-villain show up to change the day?
The show: It was funny enough, but in 2017 the world was jonesing hard for superheroes. The problem with shows like Powerless and AOS is they constantly alluded to other well-known superheroes in their respective universes — not their films. To compare: AOS was started in the wake of 2012’s The Avengers, then touched on the films Thor: the Dark World (2013) and Captain America: the Winter Soldier (2015) — all without actually showing the superheroes people wanted to see. No Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow), but viewers did get a few Nick Fury cameos and bunch of B-, C-, and D-list superheroes and super-villains. Viewers lost interest VERY fast, but only a few die-hards watched the show and kept AOS going into its 6th and final season.
In Powerless’ case, it was a comedy — something the average comic book fan is not trying to watch with superheroes in it. NBC misjudged their purported audience’s mindset by making something that could not compete with the CW’s shows. On top of that, Powerless made a point to name-drop DC superheroes without showing them. Only three superheroes and two villains show up on screen in full: Crimson Fox, Olympian, Green Fury (aka Fire), Jack O’Lantern, and Starro the Conqueror. Not Batman or Robin, the Riddler, Joker, Green Lantern, or Superman. The show even references Superman’s ability to reverse time from the first movie.
Super-heroic failures aside, the show IS funny, but it’s hidden behind the boring office-com format. I’ll say what kept me there was Vanessa Hudgens and Alan Tudyk. Her line delivery was amazing and she’s a pleasure to watch. I did appreciate how the show described her character Emily as “White-ish” (Miss Hudgens is both multi-racial and multi-ethnic). At some point I was hoping to learn that Emily Locke was actually a time traveler from the utopian 30th Century (a reference to her father’s flower shop), the setting for the Legion of Super-Heroes/Legionnaires. Alan Tudyk played Vanderveer “Van” Wayne, cousin to Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) and boss at Wayne Security. He’s an inept rich buffoon that has done nothing but fail upwards, and Mr. Tudyk has a lot of fun playing the part. His Julliard education in the theater really shines when he finds a downside to a time-reversal induced consequence-free day (which for his character, is every day).
The verdict: Superhero comedies don’t do well, as indicated with My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006) and Hancock (2008). DC finally got it together with the David Sandberg film Shazam! (2018) for the hero Captain Marvel/Shazam, but too late. I truly wish the showrunners had given Powerless’ viewers a hook and not waited so long for the show to garner a fanbase on its own merits. The AOS fan base only stayed to see IF they had any superheroes from the MCU; since DC didn’t have that and was not trying to develop one at that time, there was no chance of it happening.
