Spoilers Krypton season 1

[The Realist]

Wow, so we're totally not talking about this show any more?

I thought last night's episode might have been the best yet. The General Zod reveal has leveled up the show's stakes and conflicts. Seg siding with Zod, at least for now, is the sensible choice on both his part and the writers'. And it was interesting to hear Zod's perspective on his enmity with Superman.

We really saw Jayna's ruthless side in this episode, between killing her junior officer and being willing to bomb a hall full of civilians to take out the Voice.

Speaking of, the idea of pairing Brainiac with the little girl and his reactions to her "surprising" nature were smart and intriguing.

 

[Kor]

Um...Klingon? (Hey this IS a Star Trek BBS)

Vulcans too.

Kor

 

[Enterprise is Great]

i'm not that big of a Doomsday fan but I did get the chills when they showed him.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

There isn't anybody compelling enough to care about. The only interesting good guy, Superman, exists solely by proxy. It's a bad sign when you're asked to care about the main character only because he's related to the hero, and the hero is off-screen 100% of the time. That mask just happens to have been hiding an assimilated ex-somebody: wow, couldn't see that coming*....

* - yes I could, actually

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kal-El three other grand parents.

 

[Christopher]

i'm not that big of a Doomsday fan but I did get the chills when they showed him.

I dunno, I thought it was kind of weird that they gave us this one big, ominous glimpse of him and then just moved on. Kinda like, "On second thought, let's not go to Doomsday. 'Tis a silly place."

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's just some boney dude in a coffin.

I have no idea why Seg turned down this weapon.

Zod knows Doomsday kills Superman.

He can probably figure out how to direct the monster or put a leash on it, without sparing Clark a close and painful shave with death.

Zod and Adam both know that yellow Sunlight is all Kandor needs to fight Brainiac to a standstill.

100s of thousands of Supermen spoiling for a fight.

 

[Marc]

Finally got around to watching Wednesday ep and I think they might have screwed up the timescale. Seg is Kal-el's grandfather, General Zod is Lyta's son and this is set 200 before the planet's destruction - so how long do Kyrptonians live?

A smallish planetary population (stated to be in the millions) and a harsh environment don't see to be conducive a long life span.

 

[DigificWriter]

It's never been concretely established how long the average Kryptonian lifespan is, but the generational gap is correct regarding Zod and Superman because Zod has almost always been a contemporary of Jor-El's.

 

[Christopher]

A smallish planetary population (stated to be in the millions) and a harsh environment don't see to be conducive a long life span.

But we've seen that Kryptonians are genetically engineered. They don't reproduce through sex and pregnancy, but through blending their genes in some kind of high-tech incubator. So things like their life expectancy would not be determined by natural factors alone.

Besides, before the whole "yellow sun" business was introduced in the Silver Age, Kryptonians were originally portrayed as a whole species of superhumans, evolved to the peak of genetic perfection and all having the same powers as Superman. So establishing them as having one or two "super" qualities compared to humans, even under a red sun, could be seen as a nod to that early portrayal. And it makes sense, in general, that a species capable of having its abilities amplified to Superman levels by yellow sunlight would have at least some innately "super" potential even without it.

(I find myself wondering if Adam is ever going to try to talk Val-El into creating some kind of artificial yellow sunlight infuser to give Seg superpowers. And I wonder why Zod hasn't already tried something similar to give himself an advantage.)

 

[The Realist]

The Oracle revealed back in the pilot that Seg and Nyssa's child would live 173 "cycles," which is obviously sci-fi speak for "years." Granted a Kryptonian year would not be equivalent to our own, but still, the line was clearly intended for viewers to understand that Kryptonians are very long-lived.

 

[Christopher]

By the way, I've been thinking about dropping some channels from my cable service to save money, and I'm looking into online alternatives to channels like Syfy, Freeform, FX, etc. The Syfy website includes my cable system as one of its allowed providers, but I still can't get the videos to play on either Chrome or Firefox for some reason. Where else are the shows available? If they're on Hulu, say, then I could probably re-subscribe to that more cheaply than what I pay for those channels on cable.

 

[Marc]

The Oracle revealed back in the pilot that Seg and Nyssa's child would live 173 "cycles," which is obviously sci-fi speak for "years." Granted a Kryptonian year would not be equivalent to our own, but still, the line was clearly intended for viewers to understand that Kryptonians are very long-lived.

Ah I'd forgotten about that.

 

[Tuvix5675]

Wow, so we're totally not talking about this show any more?

I thought last night's episode might have been the best yet. The General Zod reveal has leveled up the show's stakes and conflicts. Seg siding with Zod, at least for now, is the sensible choice on both his part and the writers'. And it was interesting to hear Zod's perspective on his enmity with Superman.

We really saw Jayna's ruthless side in this episode, between killing her junior officer and being willing to bomb a hall full of civilians to take out the Voice.

Speaking of, the idea of pairing Brainiac with the little girl and his reactions to her "surprising" nature were smart and intriguing.

Yeah, I like how this show is turning everything on its head, making Zod into a kind of would-be hero. It makes the show a lot less predictable.

 

[crookeddy]

Yeah, I like how this show is turning everything on its head, making Zod into a kind of would-be hero. It makes the show a lot less predictable.

And pointless. If it's not following the Superman mythology, what is the point of being in the Superman universe?

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I like how this show is turning everything on its head, making Zod into a kind of would-be hero. It makes the show a lot less predictable.

Yes. I have to give the show credit -- they've really found new questions to explore about the Superman mythos. We all know that Krypton "needs" to die in order that the universe's greatest hero can live -- but what does that look like to the people of Krypton? It really complicates things in a fascinating way. Wouldn't Superman be the first to sacrifice his own existence to save his world, if he could?

And to think -- for months, people were saying this show couldn't work because we already knew the story of Krypton's fate. Now we see that knowing that future is the very thing that makes the show's situation so complex and challenging. It's not so easy to take Krypton's fate for granted now that we've gotten to know the Kryptonians.

 

[Tuvix5675]

And pointless. If it's not following the Superman mythology, what is the point of being in the Superman universe?

Which Superman mythos? The Superman mythos was played with and reinvented or reinterpreted numerous times in the comics, movies and TV shows.

 

[Christopher]

Which Superman mythos? The Superman mythos was played with and reinvented or reinterpreted numerous times in the comics, movies and TV shows.

Exactly the point. Mythos doesn't mean a single unified continuity. It means the entire body of ideas and stories that are told and retold and remixed over the ages, the larger conceptual tradition that all the different interpretations contribute to. A mythos should be reinvented and reinterpreted; that's what keeps it alive and vital and relevant to new eras and new audiences. And what I'm saying is that Krypton has found a reinvention that adds something new and intriguing to that evolving whole, rather than just doing another variation on the same old beats. It totally redefines the role of Krypton in that mythos and inverts our conventional view of it by making us wonder if maybe Superman's existence shouldn't be protected after all. And that is impressive.

 

[crookeddy]

Exactly the point. Mythos doesn't mean a single unified continuity. It means the entire body of ideas and stories that are told and retold and remixed over the ages, the larger conceptual tradition that all the different interpretations contribute to. A mythos should be reinvented and reinterpreted; that's what keeps it alive and vital and relevant to new eras and new audiences. And what I'm saying is that Krypton has found a reinvention that adds something new and intriguing to that evolving whole, rather than just doing another variation on the same old beats. It totally redefines the role of Krypton in that mythos and inverts our conventional view of it by making us wonder if maybe Superman's existence shouldn't be protected after all. And that is impressive.

Adam Strange has said that Superman has saved the universe on multiple occasions. Sacrifice Krypton to save the universe.

 

[The Realist]

The characters on this show get pretty hard-core sometimes. I knew Daron was a weaselly little shit, but I was still a bit surprised at his willingness to straight-up murder his own daughter.

Speaking of Nyssa, she got a lot of good material this week, and some new dimension. Some episodes her role seems to consist mainly of "Nyssa looks on silently and enigmatically," so it was nice she got more in the mix this time.

Not sure that Seg's plan -- "Let's all shoot at Brainiac and piss him off!" -- was so awesome that everyone in his motley crew would just sign on without question.

One thing I don't like about this show is how setbound it seems. Characters are always scurrying around the same cramped corridors, alleys, and catacombs. I wish there were a way to open it up and vary it more visually.