Tag Archives: The CW

The CW’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” Midterm Report

December 13, 2019 By in Comics/Lit, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Crisis Poster!

Shows will live! Shows will die! And The CW’s Arrowverse will never be the same!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the landmark 1985-1986 maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths left such a massive impression on me as a young teen who’d been collecting comics since age 6, it changed the DC Universe forever as promised and factored into the naming of this very website 7½ years ago. It wasn’t easy for older fans to watch fifty years of comics canon and continuity get shredded and/or remixed, but youngsters with less of an emotional investment had front-row seats for The End of, and the subsequent rebirth of, the DC Universe as we knew it. Between Crisis, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, 1986 was a grandly historic time for DC on multiple fronts. And I was there for it.

Fast-forward 34 years later: I’m a different, older, creakier guy, but I’m still at the comic shop every Wednesday, and still partaking in superhero fare, albeit decreasingly in moderation. DC is still here, still banking on superheroes and trying much harder than I am to stay young-looking. They’ve spent the past eight years unleashing hundreds of their characters onto The CW across six TV series and counting. Here in 2019 going on 2020, it’s their turn for a Crisis.

(Let me throw a courtesy spoiler warning up front: this entry isn’t a full recap, but remarks are up ahead about plot points, surprises, and possibilities in the fourth and fifth chapters that’ll conclude the major crossover event on January 14th. If you’re planning to catch up on your own between now and then, the exits are clearly marked on your browser.)

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The Adventures of Alex & Maggie and Their Flighty Sidekick Supergirl

March 10, 2017 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Supergirl!

“Hey, everybody, come look! Alex and Maggie did a cute thing again! Awwww, I love their show!”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I thought so highly of that new CBS series Supergirl that we met four of its stars at two different events last year — Mehcad Brooks and Peter Facinelli at Metropolis’ Superman Celebration; and before that, Chyler Leigh and the Melissa Benoist at Chicago’s C2E2. Fun folks from a fun show.

At launch, Supergirl was a bright, optimistic series about one of the most frequently mishandled members of the Superman family, of which Anne has been a lifelong fan. As an adult she’s been to the Superman Celebration five times with me; as a girl she read all the Superman-related books she could find at our local library and watched Superman: The Movie on videodisc so many times that she memorized it. Literally. All of it. Could recite the entire movie line-for-line from beginning to end. She never could say the same for Supergirl’s movie, which was…well, I haven’t watched it in thirty years, so I can’t fairly say how it ranks compared to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, but it’s down there. She hasn’t kept up with any of DC Comics’ other TV shows since Smallville, but she was intrigued at the idea and generally happy with season one. Same went for me, despite the intermittent bits of cheesiness I was fine with shrugged off.

Then the series moved to The CW.

(Housekeeping note up front: this entry dives into developments from the March 6th episode. Consider this your courtesy spoiler warning.)

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Local CW Affiliate Recommends Three MCC Faves for “Superhero Week”

October 6, 2016 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The Flash season 3!

Well, four if you count The Flash, but they’re hardly an objective source on that.

It’s that time again! At long last my regular super-hero shows are seeing their season premieres on The CW this week and next — The Flash this past Tuesday, which I live-tweeted per personal standard procedure…

…followed by the relocated Supergirl this coming Monday, then Legends of Tomorrow the following Thursday. I don’t watch Arrow yet except for crossovers, but I can tell how Ollie and his aggravating pals are doing whenever other Twitter users start griping and throwing their phones at their TVs.

In the spirit of the proceedings, our local CW affiliate here in Indianapolis, WISH-TV channel 8, declared “Superhero Week” and has been featuring stories connected to the wonderful world of comics, possibly for the sake of hyping their own shows. Normally I’d toss them a Like in the appropriate social-media point of contact and leave it at that, but two of their segments spotlighted high achievers in the field of comics excellence that we previously covered here on Midlife Crisis Crossover. A third segment had a more personal connection to us.

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Top 10 Changes When “Supergirl” Moves to The CW

May 12, 2016 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Supergirl!

One of our souvenirs from C2E2 last March. Follow the link for our even better Supergirl photo!

My wife and I were pleased to learn this evening one of our favorite shows now on the air, DC’s Supergirl, has been renewed for season 2 after a few rounds of negotiated compromises. Up front we’ve been told the show will be relocating from Los Angeles to Vancouver for cheaper filming, if they can find a few square feet not in use by the 300 other shows and movies already shooting there. Biggest change of all (for now): Supergirl will be moving from CBS to The CW, which is bad news for fans in numerous cities without their own CW affiliate. Here’s hoping your internet access is higher-quality than your local broadcasting industry is.

What else does this mean for the show? What other corners will be cut? What wrongheaded executive demands will ruin everything and turn us all against it? I shudder to contemplate what the future holds for our beloved stars and the only CBS show I’ve followed within the last four years.

Right this way for the countdown!

MCC 2014 Pilot Binge #21- 22: “Jane the Virgin” vs. “Mike Tyson Mysteries”

November 2, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Gina Rodriguez!

I haven’t forgotten about this very special project, but I had a certain viewing/posting order in mind that would’ve put some thematic coupling to these entries. That plan was derailed when two of the pilots on the master list were not available for viewing On Demand, my primary source of after-airing catch-up. I’m in the process of making special arrangements to see those two without resorting to pirating or (ugh) buying them on iTunes. That leaves me with two pilots I’ve watched in the past month that share absolutely nothing in common except that I haven’t covered them yet. Maybe this works if we all agree to pretend Jane the Virgin and Mike Tyson are mismatched buddy-cops who have to get along for the sake of their jobs, and that there are high stakes and…I don’t even know how to finish this sentence in any remotely entertaining manner. The two series are like comparing apples and Edsels. I give.

Onward, then:

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MCC Request Line #5: “Gossip Girl”

December 17, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Robert John Burke, Gossip Girl, The CW

An All-Star Salute to Big Bad Bart Bass

Welcome back to the Midlife Crisis Crossover Request Line, in which recommendations from MCC fans send me reading, viewing, or reviewing objects of varying qualities of attempted art, either because they think highly of them or because they want to see me squirm. Today’s suggestion came from the Tugboat Captain’s Wife over at Enchanted Seashells, a longtime fan who could probably already guess where this is headed.

Today’s subject: The long-running CW series Gossip Girl, whose two-hour series finale is scheduled to air Monday, December 17th. Rather than endure a potentially lethal double dosage, I’ll be watching last Monday’s penultimate episode called “The Revengers”. I presume this episode will not contain a single reference to the obscure 1980s Neal Adams/Continuity Studios comic book of the same name.

What I knew beforehand: Rich, promiscuous, young adults in upscale Manhattan are plagued by the menace of an anonymous blogger who writes annoying things. The stars of the show are Blake Lively (Green Lantern, The Town) and some actor name Chace, which may or may not be pronounced “Chachi”. That’s literally all I know off the top of my head.

Why I hadn’t tried it before: I go to great lengths to avoid the subgenre of young-adult softcore soap opera. But a reader suggestion is a reader suggestion.

The above intro was written before pressing “play”. And then this happened.

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