POWERLESS

Set in a DC Universe that includes Batman, Crimson Fox, Lex Luthor and Starro the Conqueror, Powerless made its NBC television debut last Thursday at 8:30 pm. The sitcom stars Vanessa Hudgens as Emily Locke and Alan Tudyk as Van Wayne. She’s the newly-hired director of research and development at Wayne Security in Charm City. He’s the CEO of the failing company. The firm designs products to make people safe in a world where super-heroes and super-villains cause collateral damage on a daily basis. I watched the pilot the night it first aired.

There are things I like about this pilot episode. There are things I don’t like about this pilot episode. There’s no way I could hate a series that features a cameo appearance by Starro the Conqueror from the first Justice League of America story...or that uses some classic comic-book covers in its opening credits. That said, I do have concerns.

SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD

First and foremost, with the exception of the wonderful Tudyk, I’m not seeing any serious comedic chops in this cast. That’s okay for Hudgens. She’s the determined and hopeful young executive with the sincere desire to help people and make the company a success. But the delivery of the jokes by other cast members was weak. They all need to enhance that part of their performances.

I did like Christina Kirk as Jackie, Wayne’s executive assistant. She’s got moxie and, according to Wikipedia, her character is a fan of super-heroes. The “fan” aspect and the pushing back against the insufferable Van could serve her character well.

Tip to the writers: “Dumb” is not the same thing as “funny.” Some of the protection devices are blatantly absurd. A protective suit that only works once. Kryptonite glass which, being made of what I assume is a rare substance on Earth, would be astronomically expensive to produce in the necessary quantities. Engineering goofs can be humorous in this show, but the dumber you make the devices, the less creditable you make their inventors. Smart people can be funny. Witness the creative and popular success of CBS’s The Big Bang Theory.

Case in point for smart inventions: the EpiPen-like device that can inject its user with an antidote to the Joker’s venom. The device itself is a brilliant idea. The notion that, unable to come up with a next big thing, the best the company can do the following year is to simply release the device in a different color, made me laugh.

There’s another smart invention with a great payoff, but I’ll get to that in a bit. It’s worth the wait.

There are several nice “super-hero world” touches in this premiere episode. The resigned look on a man’s face when his car is crushed by a transit train that went off the rails during a battle between the Crimson Fox and a villain. Her staff buying Emily a bus pass on account of buses are safer than trains in this super-hero world of theirs. That background shot of Starro near the top of a skyscraper makes me smile every time I think of it. That juxtaposition of the fantastic and the mundane is key to this series.

There are some “inside” jokes that will make me watch this episode a second time because I missed them. The one I didn’t miss was an unseen Adam West voicing a commercial. One I missed is that a newscaster was apparently named “Marv Wolfman.” Is there no end to my pal Marv’s talents?

Digression. I want Emily to adopt a super-cat. If we can’t have a “Streaky” on Supergirl, maybe we can have one here?

Now that smart invention with the great payoff...

Inventor Wendy (Jennie Pierson) is mean to Emily from the get-go. She makes a device that warns her whenever Emily comes near to her. After a comment by another character that it would be nice if there was some way citizens could be warned of the approach of a super-villain like the currently-marauding Jack-O-Lantern, Emily comes up with the idea of adapting Wendy’s device for that very purpose.

They come up with a wrist device that can detect Jack-O-Lantern's unique scent pattern. It works. The unseen and unheard Bruce Wayne says the device will be put into Beta testing. The firm is saved. But, wait, there’s more.

Later, Emily and her team see a news report about how Batman used a new “scentreceptor” to track the Joker. Emily is surprised Batman came up with the same idea they did, and hopes that someday they'll work for him. A delightful moment.

Digression. I hope we see more such moments when something Emily’s team comes up with is reported to have been used by Batman or some other hero. It makes perfect sense that Bruce Wayne would want to keep Wayne Security operating for no other reason than the firm’s occasionally coming up something of use to him in his war against crime. It’s one answer to the eternal question of where Batman gets his wonderful toys.

SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER

Summing up...

Powerless has a great premise. The series is in a position to make use of DC’s super-heroes without actually showing them. This will please comics fans, even those comics fans who don’t actually read comic books. Hey, it’s the world we live in.

Hudgens and Tudyk are the stand-out performers in this cast. Emily doesn’t need to be funny. She needs to be earnest and to react to the funny. Van needs to keep being the whiny asshat consumed with his “first world problems” and not really giving a darn about the firm or other people. His deadpan delivery of funny lines will work for this show.

Kirk has great potential. The writers need to give her every chance to become the third lead of the show. Since her character seems to have a thing for super-heroes, maybe the inventors can come up with a dating app for “civilians” and “supers” to connect.

The rest of the cast needs to bring their game up. The writers need to work with them on this.

Most importantly, the scripts have to be smart-funny and not dumb-funny. If they go for cheap super-hero laughs, they will mock the popular genre at the expense of the show. Embrace the genre. Treat it seriously and let the laughs grow out of that.

I’ll keep watching Powerless. Who knows...maybe the writers will name an obnoxious television pundit after me.

I’ll be back on Wednesday with more stuff. 

© 2017 Tony Isabella