“My Interview With Superman”
What They Say:
Lois wants to interview Superman for The Daily Planet, and Clark must figure out how to help her while protecting his identity! The criminal ring INTERGANG gets their hands on weapons, and a mysterious organization plots in the shadows …
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The opening two episodes provide a good look at what the creative team behind this show wants to do with the property and how they’re introducing Superman to the world. It’s easy to say that the world doesn’t need another Superman origin series but they can be done well if you do some good updates while respecting the source material. And this series certainly did a lot of that in the opening while making some good changes. The cold open to this episode does similar as it gives us the helicopter seen from the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve with him saving someone but not Lois. Yet she gets to show up and provides bragging rights to naming him before Clark can provide a name himself to the people he saves. And thus, Superman is born once again.
We do get some fun Daily Planet material early on here as well as Lois is frustrated over the way that Superman is avoiding doing an interview with her – which forces Clark into some awkward roleplay with her. But Lois also has competition as a pair of other writers are looking to get in on it as well with Cat Grant and Steve Lombard trying to be all paparazzi-like in finding it out. The investigative journalist, Ronnie Troupe, is the one assigned to it as Perry White wants seasoned journalists on this, and Lois, who got lucky, is just too young and green. So this puts her along with Clark and Jimmy on the same side in trying to beat the “scoop team” in getting the goods on Superman. It’s an amusing turn to work with even as Clark tries to do what he can to try and steer them to doing other work. We know that won’t work well but he is able to help redirect them a bit – though it’s all part of Lois’ big plan.
What the episode wants to focus on in terms of the ongoing story is the breakout that’s happened on Stryker’s Island as they’ve managed to get their hands on some good high-tech weapons. Intergang isn’t a bad angle to work early on in the show as it’s an easily workable larger range of villains and goals that they can deal with. And getting characters like Livewire and Silver Banshee involved is the right kind of powerful but low-stakes villains as opposed to starting out with Branianc or being constantly about Lex Luthor. It allows things to build well from here, especially since Clark is still untested at this point and has to really gain some experience and all that. It’s also the kind of thing that you can work well when it comes to the fledgling news team here as it’s a real threat but not a galactic threat, making it accessible while still being very dangerous.
Naturally, it all turns to the two groups coming into contact with each other, this time with Silver Banshee leading her group to rob a bank in order to build up funds for things – and to try the new weapon. The Intergang “kids” are amusing as they’re still not using codenames regularly but Superman is taking some easy hits here as well because he’s untested. So it’s chaotic enough and that leads to the Intergang kids to making a mistake that turns a simple robbery into a much bigger event thanks to destroying their weapon, which is now freezing the city. It’s a familiar bit and seeing Silver Banshee caught up in it in front of Superman as he sees Lois nearly in trouble is good as it gives him the juice he needs to try and tackle all of this. It’s not revolutionary or anything, but it’s just so well-executed within the space and running time we have that I do come away impressed – and enjoying the little teases they sneak in as well.
In Summary:
When the show quiets down a bit, such as it does at the end with Superman flying Lois around for a bit so they can have something of an interview, it’s beautiful. It’s able to ease into things while still having the youthful energy to it in the right way. That’s not to say that the rest of the episode is bad by any stretch. What we get is a lot of fairly standard early-start kind of material as Superman is establishing himself just as Lois and Jimmy – and Clark – are. And that accessibility is a huge plus. The Intergang side feels a touch rushed in some places and needs some of the slow-down material as well to help us connect with it a bit more, but we’re getting some good humanization of them so far that I’m hopeful that they’ll find more time as the show goes on and they trust the viewers more. I’m excited for where this show can go and hope that we get more character material as time goes on along with fun early days Superman material.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Max
