“My Adventures with Mad Science”
What They Say:
When Jimmy gets kidnapped, it’s up to Lois and Clark to save him – but rescuing Jimmy will lead them into danger as they deal with mad scientists, military secrets, and relationship woes.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
There’s a deep bench of things to pull from the world of Superman and I’m continuing to enjoy the interesting ones brought in here and how they’re adapted. While most people figured that it was Grodd that grabbed Jimmy, it turns out that it’s actually Monsieur Mallah as he and the Brain are creations that were made in Cadmus some two decades prior as part of a Task Force X project. Mallah’s not the same as he is in the Doom Patrol series but there’s still some fun personality here and I absolutely love that the Brain is a small floating box with arms and the visible brain elements themselves. They’re pretty fun to watch here, especially in how their relationship is shown and that they were intent on creating good things the first time around before it all went to crap due to Task Force X.
With Jimmy being kidnapped the last time around, that’s put the Clark/Lois/Superman problem to the side for the moment and forces them to work together, albeit with him able to talk about flying all over and looking for Jimmy, which is an amusingly quick twist. What we discover is that with some old-fashioned boots on the ground work, they find a facility in the woods that are protected from Superman’s vision and contains some old Cadmus facilities that go back a long way. It’s something that’s fun to watch as there are plenty of things running around in the woods from the old Cadmus designs and that makes for a challenge for our two leads as they argue with each other over things and deceptions while also trying to not get killed. It’s a classic bit but it’s classic because it works, especially in this medium, and these two are fun to watch spar while still working together.
There are a lot of odd bits within the episode as a whole but I like that we get to see how Jimmy essentially befriends Mallah, and eventually, The Brain to some degree, and the pair are just excited to show the facility to Jimmy and all that they’ve done. That there’s a problem that comes up with the black hole generator is obviously a whole thing but that allows for the action component to play out and under duress for both Lois and Jimmy to express their frustration about how Clark has kept secrets. I mean, understandable secrets, but that’s where things are. It’s a lot of fun in a light and breezy kind of way and I absolutely love that Mallah makes a mild case to Clark that he should stay with him and The Brain as they’re all so alike in not being the norm out there and that they need to support each other. It’s not a full-on villain thing but not full friends either.
In Summary:
While I’m still not on board with such an early review of who Clark is to people like Lois and Jimmy, I totally understand why it’s done in the current design of shows and the orders that they get for episode counts. It depends on the kinds of stories you want to tell and this one wants to tell character stories with the complicated relationship the core trio is figuring out as young adults trying to establish themselves. It’s certainly fun and rolls into the issue that come up when you hide parts of yourself from others but it just suffers from so much so fast that it doesn’t quite get the weight it needs to fully work. I definitely enjoy the visual design of the show, the interpretation of familiar characters, and the way it manages its time overall.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Max
