Powerless - New DC Universe based Sitcom

[Christopher]

What happened to the Flash? I missed what was said.

Trapped in the Phantom Zone by Sinestro, which is quite a hodgepodge.


I found this almost entirely unfunny. I almost mildly laughed at a couple of things, and I kind of liked the resolution with Emily enduring that ordeal to spare her team, but mostly this was dull. It wasn't even about superhero-related ideas; it was just a generic, lame workplace comedy with a few tacked-on references to comic-book stuff. I'm not inclined to keep watching at this point.

 

[Snaploud]

I'm out too. It just isn't very funny nor does it have enough superhero antics to hold my interest.

 

[Christopher]

It has to be a pretty dire show if even Alan Tudyk can't make the material funny.

It's also pretty unflattering to Bruce Wayne to attach his name to this kind of generically nasty corporate culture (particularly with the vaguely racist cartoon mascot on the Internet block). It's one thing to make fun of superhero foibles that there's a basis for critiquing, e.g. the property damage they cause or Batman misappropriating Wayne companies' funds and inventions, but this is just gratuitous. Okay, it's a big corporation and Bruce is too busy with his extracurricular activities to pay attention to everything his underlings are doing, but if that's what they're going for, it'd be better if they didn't plaster the Wayne name all over everything this company does.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I
I'm not quite sure what to make of the end though, it kind of made Batman look like an asshole.

.

It's also pretty unflattering to Bruce Wayne to attach his name to this kind of generically nasty corporate culture

Io9 had similar thoughts.

 

[Christopher]

Io9 had similar thoughts.

Not really similar, because that article is at least talking about Bruce Wayne's actions as Batman and how the premise implies he's profiting off the collateral damge of his actions as a superhero. I'm talking about something else, the way this episode just randomly attached the Wayne name to the kind of banal-corporate-evil stuff you'd get in any random office sitcom. It's a strange conceptual mismatch to take that stock formula of authority figures as villains and associate it with Bruce Wayne, of all people. One more thing that would've made more sense in the original premise, where the evil company wasn't owned by someone we think of as a hero.

 

[Christopher]

One more thing (though I'm probably putting more thought into this show than it deserves): How was that "Fantasy Superhero League" thing supposed to work? I'm not that familiar with fantasy sports, but my impression is that they're, well, fantasy -- based on assembling hypothetical teams of real players and staging hypothetical matchups, using their prior statistics to project (and argue over) the likely outcomes. But the superheroes here were apparently being ranked based on their actual performance or failure to save people. So it seems less like fantasy sports and more like just watching the news and straight-up gambling on the outcomes.

Also, why was the "website" essentially just a TV news channel with an anchor at a desk?

 

[Vendikarr]

They thought it would be a thing in a world with super heroes. And it probably would, but Fantasy Super Hero League really didn't make much sense. They must have models to look at a hero's activites and turn it into statistics. Villain victories count agains them. LIves saved, difficulty and villain defeats count for them in some manner. But I don't see them "competing". Just who has the best stats at the end of whatever a season is for them.

I didn't get why the Flash would be out for a year. If they know he's in the Phantom Zone, Supes gets the projector and brings him out. It's not any worse than when a villain beats the hero in round one of ther fight, then the hero lockes them up in the end.

Oh, and Crimson Fox must be the worst hero ever. Jack O'Langern is just running around causing property damage for weeks now and she can't catch him? Unless Wayne Security is a sponsor of hers and the more damage Jack O'Lantern causes the more she gets in kickbacks from WS from their devices.

 

[Christopher]

They thought it would be a thing in a world with super heroes. And it probably would, but Fantasy Super Hero League really didn't make much sense.

Yes, that's the point. I'm not saying I don't accept that there could be a Fantasy Superhero League in a superhero universe; obviously there could be. I just don't think that what we were shown actually fits that premise, because it wasn't fantasy, it was just reacting to actual events on the news. I don't think that's how a fantasy league is supposed to work.

I didn't get why the Flash would be out for a year. If they know he's in the Phantom Zone, Supes gets the projector and brings him out.

Each adaptation is its own universe with its own rules. Maybe this universe's Phantom Zone can't be so easily escaped from. Or maybe it was just some random word salad tossed together in a dumb script that barely had anything to do with superheroes.

 

[Vendikarr]

Each adaptation is its own universe with its own rules. Maybe this universe's Phantom Zone can't be so easily escaped from. Or maybe it was just some random word salad tossed together in a dumb script that barely had anything to do with superheroes.

More likely the latter. I don't see the writers putting a lot of thought into their DC references.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I found this almost entirely unfunny. I almost mildly laughed at a couple of things, and I kind of liked the resolution with Emily enduring that ordeal to spare her team, but mostly this was dull. It wasn't even about superhero-related ideas; it was just a generic, lame workplace comedy with a few tacked-on references to comic-book stuff. I'm not inclined to keep watching at this point.

Exactly my thoughts on the episode, though I'll give it one more week.

One more thing (though I'm probably putting more thought into this show than it deserves): How was that "Fantasy Superhero League" thing supposed to work? I'm not that familiar with fantasy sports, but my impression is that they're, well, fantasy -- based on assembling hypothetical teams of real players and staging hypothetical matchups, using their prior statistics to project (and argue over) the likely outcomes. But the superheroes here were apparently being ranked based on their actual performance or failure to save people. So it seems less like fantasy sports and more like just watching the news and straight-up gambling on the outcomes.

With fantasy baseball (and I imagine fantasy football as well), you assemble a team from real players. And you earn points through the season as the players on your fantasy team do real things in games. And you have to set line-ups and such, so even if you have a player who did really good work that week, if you don't have him in your line-up then you don't get his points.

And, yes, fantasy sports are essentially "straight-up gambling on the outcomes." That's why the "Daily Fantasy" companies like Draft Kings are being sued by various states for being little more than internet gambling.

 

[Vendikarr]

With fantasy baseball (and I imagine fantasy football as well), you assemble a team from real players. And you earn points through the season as the players on your fantasy team do real things in games. And you have to set line-ups and such, so even if you have a player who did really good work that week, if you don't have him in your line-up then you don't get his points.

And, yes, fantasy sports are essentially "straight-up gambling on the outcomes." That's why the "Daily Fantasy" companies like Draft Kings are being sued by various states for being little more than internet gambling.

So to parallel fantasy baseball, i would guess people draft various heros, and then create a 'super team' and put some of there heroes on the team as active members. Then the stats thing might make sense as long as you slotted the right heroes.

Heck we could play something like that here using characters from all the super hero and SFF shows.

 

[Christopher]

With fantasy baseball (and I imagine fantasy football as well), you assemble a team from real players. And you earn points through the season as the players on your fantasy team do real things in games. And you have to set line-ups and such, so even if you have a player who did really good work that week, if you don't have him in your line-up then you don't get his points.

So... it's kind of like a simulated game between simulated teams comprising real players, and the players' real-world performance is input as the basis for whether they win a given point in the simulated game? Like, if the fantasy version of Joe Shlabotnik is going to try to steal a base in the fantasy game, his success or failure at doing so is determined by whether the real Joe Shlabotnik earns his team a run in the real ball game that week?

Or is it more abstract than that, just arbitrarily assigning "points" based on performance and whoever gets the most points comes out ahead? Which sounds like it would be much more boring and have much less to do with the idea of a fantasy league.

 

[Vendikarr]

I guess the competition is in your 'team' doing better than everyone elses team in your league. I can see sports enthusiasts getting really competitive and into it.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

So... it's kind of like a simulated game between simulated teams comprising real players, and the players' real-world performance is input as the basis for whether they win a given point in the simulated game? Like, if the fantasy version of Joe Shlabotnik is going to try to steal a base in the fantasy game, his success or failure at doing so is determined by whether the real Joe Shlabotnik earns his team a run in the real ball game that week?

Or is it more abstract than that, just arbitrarily assigning "points" based on performance and whoever gets the most points comes out ahead? Which sounds like it would be much more boring and have much less to do with the idea of a fantasy league.

In the fantasy baseball leagues I've been in, teams are ranked by aggregate points for your players' performance, not a (fantasy) win-loss record based on how they score runs during the week.

 

[Christopher]

In the fantasy baseball leagues I've been in, teams are ranked by aggregate points for your players' performance, not a (fantasy) win-loss record based on how they score runs during the week.

Okay, then where does the "fantasy" part come in? Why is it even called that if it's just some actuarial listing of statistics and scores? What is it that the participants are fantasizing about? Or did it begin as something more imaginative and evolve into this point-based ranking?

 

[Snaploud]

Okay, then where does the "fantasy" part come in? Why is it even called that if it's just some actuarial listing of statistics and scores? What is it that the participants are fantasizing about? Or did it begin as something more imaginative and evolve into this point-based ranking?

I believe the fantasy is that you get to put together your own team (without concern for individual player loyalties, trading rules, contractual difficulties, etc.). The players on your team don't usually play on the same side, and you're competing to see if your choices would do better than your friends' choices over the course of the season.

 

[Christopher]

I believe the fantasy is that you get to put together your own team (without concern for individual player loyalties, trading rules, contractual difficulties, etc.). The players on your team don't usually play on the same side, and you're competing to see if your choices would do better than your friends' choices over the course of the season.

Oh. That's a pretty sedate kind of "fantasy." The name suggested something more interesting.

 

[JD]

I guess the competition is in your 'team' doing better than everyone elses team in your league. I can see sports enthusiasts getting really competitive and into it.

Yeah, the competition is just being able to pick players who do better than your buddies.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The original Jack started as a good guy; but after the Global Guardians were disbanded due to lack of funding, he became a henchman of the villain Queen Bee.

Wasn't there an element of mind control involved? IIRC, almost half of the Guardians lineup was brainwashed by the Queen Bee at some point.

 

[Captain Crow]

This show is awful.

It's like it's made by people who have little to no concept of how comedy works yet think they're really good at making comedies.