[6.2/10] Eh, I like a good noir homage, but Superman isn’t really a great character for it. He’s the Big Blue Boyscout, not a morally conflicted gumshoe, so the whole routine rings a little false. Tim Daly can’t quite deliver the pained, smoky voiceover with the tenor it requires, so the episode’s main conceit plays as pretty flat.
It was also super obvious that it was Bowman the whole time. Maybe I’ve just seen too many noir homages or heard Robert Ebert’s law of conservation of characters too many times, but when the culprit is predictable, the mystery rarely has much juice to it.
I did like the basic conflict of Clark “dying” while Supes feels trapped without his civilian life to fall back on. Him telling his parents that he’d go crazy if he had to be Superman all the time is an interesting beat for the character. But it’s not really clear why he couldn’t just “wash up” as Clark someplace else at some other time when the fisherman wasn’t in view. It seems like a pretty meager problem compared to plenty of other times when Clark mysteriously fell, seemingly to his doom, only to pop up just fine later.
There is some boldness here in Superman barging into an execution and stopping it. (Though it’s a little odd that Metropolis does executions by gassing -- was that still a thing in 1997?) It’s kind of dark to show both a foiled execution of an innocent man, and gestures strongly toward a successful execution of a guilty one in the end. (I also appreciate the poetry of Bowman realizing that Clark is Superman just before he died).
The problem is that too much the meat of this episode is just kind of generic. I like the idea of paying a little more attention to Cal-El as Clark rather than Superman, to give that part of his identity the win for once. The problem is that Clark’s not the world’s greatest detective, so his investigative routine comes off pretty mild despite the noir trappings, and all the random bombs and assaults feel cheap. (Even in a police helicopter, Bowman should be zero match for Supes).
Overall, this one has some interesting concepts and a decent gimmick, but doesn't know what to do with them.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-04-01T01:41:12Z
[6.2/10] Eh, I like a good noir homage, but Superman isn’t really a great character for it. He’s the Big Blue Boyscout, not a morally conflicted gumshoe, so the whole routine rings a little false. Tim Daly can’t quite deliver the pained, smoky voiceover with the tenor it requires, so the episode’s main conceit plays as pretty flat.
It was also super obvious that it was Bowman the whole time. Maybe I’ve just seen too many noir homages or heard Robert Ebert’s law of conservation of characters too many times, but when the culprit is predictable, the mystery rarely has much juice to it.
I did like the basic conflict of Clark “dying” while Supes feels trapped without his civilian life to fall back on. Him telling his parents that he’d go crazy if he had to be Superman all the time is an interesting beat for the character. But it’s not really clear why he couldn’t just “wash up” as Clark someplace else at some other time when the fisherman wasn’t in view. It seems like a pretty meager problem compared to plenty of other times when Clark mysteriously fell, seemingly to his doom, only to pop up just fine later.
There is some boldness here in Superman barging into an execution and stopping it. (Though it’s a little odd that Metropolis does executions by gassing -- was that still a thing in 1997?) It’s kind of dark to show both a foiled execution of an innocent man, and gestures strongly toward a successful execution of a guilty one in the end. (I also appreciate the poetry of Bowman realizing that Clark is Superman just before he died).
The problem is that too much the meat of this episode is just kind of generic. I like the idea of paying a little more attention to Cal-El as Clark rather than Superman, to give that part of his identity the win for once. The problem is that Clark’s not the world’s greatest detective, so his investigative routine comes off pretty mild despite the noir trappings, and all the random bombs and assaults feel cheap. (Even in a police helicopter, Bowman should be zero match for Supes).
Overall, this one has some interesting concepts and a decent gimmick, but doesn't know what to do with them.