The Blog to Nowhere

I'm a little sad that this year's crossover was less integrated than last year's. Instead of the Super Friends Power Hour, they went back to having each part be a somewhat regular episode of each show with some very special guest stars. Though, my understanding is that the scheduling from "Crisis on Earth-X" nearly broke everyone, so I get that the producers would want to make things a little easier this time.

With that being said, "Elseworlds" was still pretty crazy and a whole lot of fun.

( Spoilers for The Flash 5x09, "Elseworlds, Part 1" )

( Spoilers for Arrow 7x09 "Elseworlds, Part 2" )

( Spoilers for Supergirl 4x09, "Elseworlds, Part 3" )

It only seems fair to discuss Legends of Tomorrow's winter finale as well.

( Spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow 4x08, "Legends of To-Meow-Meow" )

Well, that's it for the DC-CW for the year. I do believe that Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow won't be back until April. :-( But a lot to look forward to in 2019.

- Supergirl's season is still going. I'm going to miss out on the last few episodes while on my cruise, so I'll have to play catch up once I'm back.

( Spoilers for The Flash season four )

( Spoilers for Arrow season six )

- And Arrowverse crossover news for next season: Batwoman!!!!! The plot of the crossover involves everyone going to Gotham for some reason. I can't imagine a threat big enough that would warrant all of the Super Friends to get together, though. Like, what the heck is happening in Gotham that the resident bat vigilante can't handle it? This also raises some questions, like, is there a Batman? Bruce Wayne certainly exists, but is he dressing up like a bat at night? One would assume he is around, if there's a Batwoman, but maybe Kathy Kane became the bat themed vigilante first and Bruce was inspired by her. That'd be a fun twist. As this is Earth-1 Batwoman, they could have an Earth-1 Maggie Sawyer as well, which would be awkward for Alex, who was engaged to Earth-38's Maggie Sawyer. That assumes, of course, that Alex is doing the crossover again. Frankly, it'd be nice if J'onn got to tag along this time, and maybe Winn, too. Winn and Cisco need to meet; they can exchange super suit tailoring tips. It'd also be nice if the Legends were more involved. I want Constantine to meet everyone and just flirt up a storm.

Ooh, I had a thought. What if they visit Gotham not in the present but in the past? Ollie and Kara haven't experienced time travel yet and it'd be a good way to have the Legends more involved in the plot. It would also get around the whole "does Batman exist or not" quandary. I do believe in the comics that there were two Batwomen: one older, named Katherine, and one younger, who's Kathy. They could meet Katherine Kane, who could or could not be related to Kathy. It'd also be fun to visit the 1930s or 1940s, the setting of the Golden Age of comics.

I also had a thought on how the show could release Melissa Benoist for a handful of episodes for the crossover: use the actress from the flashback episode "Midvale". She was perfect as young Kara. Why not have a villain de-age Kara into a teenager? Sure, it's kind of cliched, but I feel like the Supergirl writers could make the scenario work. You could have so many jokes about how cute Kara was when she was a teenager. Or you could have Alex trying to pass off teen Kara as her cousin. Frankly, I just want to see the actress again. She was on iZombie for a bit and she was pretty funny there.

( Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season five and Avengers: Infinity War )

- In ongoing TV news, The Expanse has been saved! Amazon Prime has picked up the show for season four. I think this easily means the show will last long enough to cover all of the books. It also helps that the CEO of Amazon is a big fan of the books. I'm not sure what this means for Canada, though. Space airs The Expanse in Canada, but can they still do that if Amazon Prime has all of the distribution rights? The Expanse is filmed in Toronto, so there's enough Canadian content to justify airing it on Space, so maybe Bell Media can wrangle a deal with Amazon. It's amazing how, in this day and age, cancelled shows have a chance to find a second life. Had this been five or ten years ago, this would have been the end of The Expanse.

Looks like most shows are on their winter break now, so I thought I would get a few thoughts down.

( Spoilers for Supergirl season three )

( Spoilers for The Flash season four )

( Spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow season three )

( Spoilers for Arrow season six )

( Spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery season one )

( Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season five )

And there were a couple of shows that finished their season, too:

( Vague spoilers for Inhumans )

( Vague spoilers for The Orville season one )

I'm currently trying to catch up with Runaways, but it's been kind of slow so far so I haven't felt the need to binge it. Also, it airs on Showcase here in Canada so airs weekly rather than being available all at once like on Hulu. I may have more thoughts later. In the spring, iZombie is back and there's also Black Lightning. I don't know if I'll check it out. If it's good, maybe I'll watch it later.

Whew, that was a long post. Clearly I watch too much TV. :-D

Well, the TV season is pretty much over. Sure, there are some summer series, but they aren't as plentiful.

( Spoilers for Supergirl season two )

( Spoilers for The Flash season three )

( Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season four )

( Spoilers for Arrow season five )

( Spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow season two )

Whew, that was a lot of TV to talk about. Lots to look forward to next season, too. Marvel is finally expanding its network TV presence with Inhumans, Gifted, Runaways, and Cloak and Dagger and the CW-DC verse is adding Black Lightning as well. I'm not sure if I'll check out everything, but it's nice that there are so many options.

I was feeling a bit under the weather Tuesday, but "Duet" helped to cheer me up immensely. The Flash has been a bit dire this season, so this musical crossover was a well needed shot of levity. Because everything is better when Barry and Kara get to hang out. They are, after all, Super Friends. :-)

( Spoilers for The Flash 3x17, "Duet" )

Should they do another musical after this one? I don't know if it should be an annual thing, but I won't say no to more crossovers. :-)

- We had all day training today, but we spent the last two hours doing team building. Instead of doing something boring in the office, my manager arranged to do escape rooms with the group. I had never done an escape room so it sounded kind of fun. Yeah, reading about an escape room and actually doing one are two very different things. Out of the three groups, only one managed to escape. My team and another just gave up even after we were given extra time. You really need to be a lateral thinker to make your way through these things but even with hints, there were things I never would have thought of. Plus we were constantly unlocking pad locks, which got so repetitive. With that said, I think I would like to do another escape room, but maybe something a little easier to ease me in. I'm good with trivia, but I don't have the patience for puzzles. I usually turn to Google when I have to do one in any of the Assassin's Creed games.

- A new Doctor Who season ten trailer dropped today and there was one thing I noticed:

( Mild Doctor Who season ten spoiler )

Just a month to go now!

- The musical crossover with The Flash and Supergirl is next week! I re-watched "Worlds Finest" the other day and I can only hope that this crossover just builds from that. Kara and Barry are just so cute together. I know Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist sung a lot on Glee, but I never watched Glee, so I Googled some videos of them and wow, they're really good. At least, they sound good to me; I'm not exactly a great judge. The producers even commissioned some original songs, so that should be fun. What I really want to see is Barry and Kara doing a duet in their superhero costumes, but going off the pictures that were released, I don't think we'll get that. Alas.

Well, as long as we get a .gif that tops Kara's ice cream moment from "Worlds Finest", I'll be happy.



(though nothing brings me more happiness than seeing Kara proclaim her love for stolen ice cream gifted to her by her new speedster BFF)

So the CW finally had its mega crossover. Will they do one every year? Probably. I mean, how can you not, right? I just hope the next one is a proper four show crossover. Supergirl kicked things off in a way, but at the same time, not really. Her episode was more of a teaser.

And that's my main gripe. Each part felt like it was an episode of whatever show was airing on each night rather than being one continuous episode of the CW Superfriends. For one week, they could have dropped some of the B plot stuff. On the other hand, I can see why they had to include some of the ongoing stuff from each show. It probably helped with scheduling and it enabled the writers to fill out the full 45 minutes. Plus, Arrow had it's 100th episode thrown in there, too, so they had to work around that.

With that said, what we got was still awesome. I think the sheer delight of seeing all of the heroes together outweighs some of the weaker plot points.

I'm going to break down the episodes by show; it's just easier that way.

( Spoilers for Supergirl 2x08, "Medusa" )

( Spoilers for The Flash 3x08, "Invasion!" )

( Spoilers for Arrow 5x08, "Invasion!" )

( Spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow 2x07, "Invasion!" )

I think, overall, the crossover was a delight to watch. Did it make sense a lot of the time? No, but it's a comic book show, so it's a given that some stuff won't make sense. I don't know how they're going to top this one next season. What's bigger than an alien invasion? Maybe they'll tackle the infamous "Crisis on Infinite Earths"? It'd be a nice way to merge Earth-38 with Earth-1.

- I have access to Netflix for the short term, allowing me to watch Luke Cage without resorting to "alternative means". I have to say, Netflix is a dangerous thing. So many shows you could watch. No wonder people like to binge watch; everything is all right there. To my great delight, all of the Star Trek shows are there, so I can potentially watch all of TOS season three without having to get the DVDs out from the library. I also saw that they have many of the old Power Ranger shows, VR Troopers, and Beetleborgs, all which made up a large part of my youth. It's very tempting to see if they are as cheesy as I remember.

In the mean time, I'm slowly making my way through Luke Cage. I'm not loving it as much as Jessica Jones, but it could be the pacing of the season. The arc feels very much like a slow burner. I do appreciate that they worked in Luke's classic superhero costume from the comics. That costume is pure 1970s, so kudos to the writers for finding a somewhat organic way of working it in.

- I started reading a really cute web comic called Shattered Starlight. The story follows a young woman who used to be something akin to a Sailor Scout from Sailor Moon, only it's ten years after her heyday. Now she has to deal with day to day things, like work and rent, and resist the urge to use her magical powers (one of which is an astral hockey stick!). It's set in Montreal, which is cool, and that was part of the reason that I started to read it. It's a work in progress, with the artist posting a page every week, so you'll easily work your way through the archive of pages, but I think it's well worth the wait to see what's coming next.

- The Flash and Arrow are back this week, followed by Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow next week. The CW released an awesome promo for all four shows:


This makes me very excited for the giant crossover they have planned for later in the season. I know the tone won't be exactly the same, but it's still great to see Kara finally interacting with the rest of the superheroes.

- Totally not a surprise, but the CW is planning a massive crossover for all of the Berlanti-verse shows. A four night event of super heroics. Cue the ice cream gif:


( Wild speculation about the mega crossover )

If this crossover happens around episode 8, then that coincides with Arrow's 100th episode and this would be a fine way to celebrate.

- As for Legends of Tomorrow, which had its season finale this week...

( Spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow 1x16, "Legendary" )

The CW just needs another DC superhero show on Friday and then DC would have total domination over the schedule. Something for next next season maybe?

First off, TV show renewals and cancellations:

- Well frak. ABC has cancelled Agent Carter. :-P Damn you! Please move the show to Netflix. I need more Peggy in my life.

- Incidently, ABC also cancelled Castle, which is a good thing since the show was going to suck without Beckett around. I wonder how they'll end the show. I read they filmed an extra scene just in case they didn't get a pick-up. Hopefully no one dies.

- Thankfully, Supergirl got renewed for another season. And it's moving to the CW! Crossovers galore! I think the show is also moving to Vancouver to take advantage of the low Canadian dollar. Makes sense. The Flash can do weekly wonders with a CW budget in Canada, so Supergirl can now follow suit. Now they just need to figure out how to incorporate Kara's world with Earth-1.

Moving on to general TV show thoughts:

- So Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did have a reference to Captain America: Civil War.

( Spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3x20, "Emancipation" )

- Kevin Smith's episode of The Flash wasn't bad. I don't think I've ever seen any of his movies, so I don't know what his directorial style is like, but I didn't feel like the tone was out of place. There was a tad more humour, but given the situation, you can't help but joke.

( Spoilers for The Flash 2x21, "The Runaway Dinosaur" )

- Oh, there was something from last week's Arrow that bugged me.

( Mild spoilers for Arrow 4x20, "Genesis" )

- The description on my PVR for the latest episode of Legends of Tomorrow started off with the words: "Rip and Rory..." I'm sorry. I instantly pictured Rip and, well, Rory from Doctor Who. If you must, please refer to Heat Wave as Mick and not Rory. But this also gives me a germ of an idea for a Doctor Who/Legends of Tomorrow fanfic.