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Spoilers "Superman & Lois" Season 2

A decent episode, though I'm not a fan of the whole Bizarro-Earth business, and having it explicitly be cubic was something I could've done without. It's just too nonsensical. No material could maintain that shape under the pull of gravity, and if it did, then gravity would still pull in toward the center and the faces would feel sloped except at their centers. Also, the air and water would settle toward the centers of the faces and the points would just be vast barren mountains sticking out into airless space.

Different universe, different laws of physics.
 
It could be that the degradation is what happens when people from Bizarro's Universe comes to ours for too long, and vice-versa.
But Bizarro looked like that before he left, and we saw him halfway there when he begged Tal-Ro to stay away from Ally, and he was already started to have that twitch when Lois and Jordan left.

I'm chalking it up (so to speak) to him becoming hooked on Kryptonite. Given the head-twitch, it's possible the scarring was from scratching (withdrawal symptoms as he became more dependent on it?) or even deliberate self-harm, since his use of Kryptonite seemed to be causing some neurological effects. I doubt it'll ever be followed-up on, but it's possible long-term use of X-Kryptonite would cause the same issues, possibly in Jonathan or even the humans who've taken it, and almost certainly for Jordan or Clark.
 
Different universe, different laws of physics.

Except no other world in the Arrow-multiverse, or the entire live-action DC multiverse (same thing, per Crisis), is so different in such arbitrary ways. It just doesn't fit the established cosmology of the franchise.

Not to mention that it's contradictory to have fundamentally different physical laws yet still have the exact same individuals and places. They're trying to have it both ways -- on the one hand, a "Mirror Universe" where all the same people and things exist but just have slight tweaks to their histories so things turned out differently, but on the other hand, a radically different universe where such large-scale things are fundamentally different. It just doesn't hold together conceptually.

I mean, even in the Silver Age comics, with all their absurdly fanciful ideas, Bizarro World was an artificial creation. Even they wouldn't go so far as to say it naturally happened that way. It was the way it was because it was artificial, because Bizarros were created through a defective duplication process. So saying it's just a naturally occurring alternate is even more ridiculous than a Silver Age DC comic, and that is saying a hell of a lot.
 
but the producers have just gone for so much angsty melodrama this season and I didn't care to see more of the same, especially from someone wearing Superman's costume.

Did you forget that this show is produced by "The CW". Their bread & butter is angsty melodrama.

Except no other world in the Arrow-multiverse, or the entire live-action DC multiverse (same thing, per Crisis), is so different in such arbitrary ways. It just doesn't fit the established cosmology of the franchise.

Not to mention that it's contradictory to have fundamentally different physical laws yet still have the exact same individuals and places. They're trying to have it both ways -- on the one hand, a "Mirror Universe" where all the same people and things exist but just have slight tweaks to their histories so things turned out differently, but on the other hand, a radically different universe where such large-scale things are fundamentally different. It just doesn't hold together conceptually.

I mean, even in the Silver Age comics, with all their absurdly fanciful ideas, Bizarro World was an artificial creation. Even they wouldn't go so far as to say it naturally happened that way. It was the way it was because it was artificial, because Bizarros were created through a defective duplication process. So saying it's just a naturally occurring alternate is even more ridiculous than a Silver Age DC comic, and that is saying a hell of a lot.
That's the beauty of multiple universes / dimensions in comic book settings, they get to violate laws of physics, because it's a comic book universe.

Ergo the Rounded Cube Earth & Rounded Cube Billiards.
 
I didn't find Jordan Elsass quite up to the task of bizarro Jonathan which is a shame. It was alright but not quite my cuppa tea.
 
Did you forget that this show is produced by "The CW". Their bread & butter is angsty melodrama.

Incorrect. The Flash is generally more upbeat and optimistic than this, as was Supergirl. And Legends of Tomorrow is wacky comedy. There's plenty of room in the Arrowverse for upbeat shows, but this season of S&L feels as grim as Arrow or Batwoman or Black Lightning tended to be, which is just off-brand for Superman.

And it's not just the Arrowverse. Kung Fu, which is on after The Flash, is generally a pretty upbeat show, and the storylines involving the protagonist's family are generally more charming and heartfelt than angsty or dark.
 
Incorrect. The Flash is generally more upbeat and optimistic than this, as was Supergirl. And Legends of Tomorrow is wacky comedy. There's plenty of room in the Arrowverse for upbeat shows, but this season of S&L feels as grim as Arrow or Batwoman or Black Lightning tended to be, which is just off-brand for Superman.

And it's not just the Arrowverse. Kung Fu, which is on after The Flash, is generally a pretty upbeat show, and the storylines involving the protagonist's family are generally more charming and heartfelt than angsty or dark.
Do you remember Smallville and how much Angst / Melodrama it had?
 
And it was far from my favorite Superman adaptation. I'm entitled to have my own tastes and preferences. This is not a debate about objective fact; I'm expressing what I like and dislike.
I'm actually with you on the excessive melodrama, but just don't be surprised given this is the same network that helped create Smallville & Supernatural.

Angst & Melodrama is the bread & butter of "The CW" & "The WB".

This is the same network that created "Dawson's Creek" & "One Tree Hill".
 
I'm actually with you on the excessive melodrama, but just don't be surprised given this is the same network that helped create Smallville & Supernatural.

Angst & Melodrama is the bread & butter of "The CW" & "The WB".

I've already debunked that lazy blanket generalization. Restating it doesn't make it less wrong.


That doesn't mean much. The multiverse is potentially infinite.

I find that an invalid handwave, because if there's an infinite set of things, the probability of encountering any given one of them is the reciprocal of infinity, which is effectively zero. The number of alternate realities any given set of characters can encounter in their lifetimes is finite, so resorts to infinity are inapplicable.

Besides, we're talking about a fictional creation, not a real thing. What I have an issue with is the choice of the creators of this work of fiction to try to have it both ways by making it a conventional, serious there-but-for-the-grace alternate history in most respects but throwing in these nonsensical, random impossibilities at the same time. It just doesn't work for me conceptually. I find it a poor and gratuitous storytelling choice, a tonal disconnect between the solemn and the ridiculous.
 
Looking at behind the scenes pics, it looks like they just mirrored the footage vs decorating sets in a bunch of reverse-worded props and costumes.
 
So this is a little fun while we wait for the show's return on Tuesday:
Thank you! That was so cute and sweet! It looks like they all get along well.

I really enjoyed this, and loved the easter eggs like the square Earth and the cat named Krypto. Like @Nerys Myk I thought the Goth aesthetic was fun. Hubby and I both commented that Tyler and Bitsy did terrific jobs playing nastier versions of their characters.

Here's a question: how does everyone "know" that the Allys merging + the 2 pendants will be World Ending Bad? Except for Alt-Lara, who thinks humans can't handle it. What do they all know that our people don't? Or is everyone just guessing? I tend to think the latter - we don't seem to have any factual information on this.

That explains his general deterioration, that and his depression at losing his family. But the facial scars were too regular, too straight, as if someone had tortured him, or as if he'd done it to himself. They didn't just happen.
I thought the scars might have been from the 4377 weapons when Ally and Alt-Jon took over the DoD.

But Bizarro looked like that before he left, and we saw him halfway there when he begged Tal-Ro to stay away from Ally, and he was already started to have that twitch when Lois and Jordan left.

I'm chalking it up (so to speak) to him becoming hooked on Kryptonite. Given the head-twitch, it's possible the scarring was from scratching (withdrawal symptoms as he became more dependent on it?) or even deliberate self-harm, since his use of Kryptonite seemed to be causing some neurological effects. I doubt it'll ever be followed-up on, but it's possible long-term use of X-Kryptonite would cause the same issues, possibly in Jonathan or even the humans who've taken it, and almost certainly for Jordan or Clark.
This makes sense and I'd love to see if followed up on too.

So saying it's just a naturally occurring alternate is even more ridiculous than a Silver Age DC comic, and that is saying a hell of a lot.
Nothing in the episodes have said Bizarro Earth is naturally occurring - nothing has said it ain't, but nothing has said it is. Mostly, I thought it was a cute shout-out to the old comics. ;)
 
Nothing in the episodes have said Bizarro Earth is naturally occurring - nothing has said it ain't, but nothing has said it is.

But that's just the point. It isn't justified within the story. It's pointless to talk about what you can imagine to fill in the holes in the story, because the holes in the story are the point of the complaint. The writers of the Silver Age comics considered Bizarro World to be absurd enough to require justifying to the audience, even though that audience regularly consumed the general absurdity of the comics in that era. Yet the writers of this serious, emotionally grounded family drama didn't think the absurdities needed justifying. I find that incongruous.


As far as artificiality goes, I suppose you could say that the entire post-Crisis Multiverse is an artificial creation, reflecting the will of Oliver Queen/the Spectre and the Paragons. So perhaps Bizarro Universe was created by some subconscious glitch in the universe-rebooting process.
 
So both Batwoman and DC's Legends of Tomorrow have been canceled (and The Flash is probably nearing its end as well). I bailed on both shows a couple of seasons ago, but I'm sorry for those who were still fans. The silver lining, however, is that it makes it easier for Superman & Lois to continue doing its own thing, with less expectation or pressure that it will acknowledge the Arrowverse or cross over with it. It's been to the show's immense benefit to stay away from all that stuff so far, and this will just simplify that going forward.
 
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