Past Episodes Discussion

[thuganomics85]

Yeah, Strange really needs to come up with a better plan then "We just need to let the city/planet fall, so that you're grandson will go on to be the savior of Earth!"  Granted, Zod's idea to unleash Doomsday on Brainiac won't be much better.  I get using evil take out evil, but this is just too much evil!

I guess once Jayna commits, she fully commits!  Ann Ogbomo continues to be my favorite, followed by Wallis Day.

So, the same actor is playing both Brainiac and the Voice of Rao.  Makes sense, since he's now basically being controlled by Brainiac now.

[coppersin]

So I give up on this show and then they double down on Blake Ritson? Well played, Syfy. I'll take a peek next week and see if I like it any better.

[tennisgurl]

Oh poor Dev. I was hoping that he would make it out of Brainiacs creepy hive mind. 

Nyssa is still sketchy, but I like her a lot, and I felt for her when her own dad turned on her. She and Seg have decent chemistry too, and I like their dynamic, even if they arent really into each other like that. For now. 

Adam just wants a cool code name damn it! Really, maybe he shouldn't have led his talk with Seg with "your world is screwed but I need that to be ok with you" or at least he should have explained it better. Also, Adam saw Thor: Ragnarok lately. Good to know. 

[UNOSEZ]

Good episode.. Jayna and Nyssa are still my faces but others were good this week as well... Seg was competent and not too smarmy... Lyta wasn't too judgy... Tho sneering that her mother should've believed her was idiotic she gave her no reason to trust her seeing as seg was keeping her in the dark herself... But I like how she is with her son... Poor Dev indeed.. From friend zone to zombie with ur arm blown off left in the snow with barely any emotion from his intended... And Braniac with the power move of Revealing  himself to the rankless getting them onside with talk of equality and immortality 

[CooperTV]

Quote

 

A resistance movement begins to form to impede the Voice of Rao's increasing power and influence.

 

[shrewd.buddha]

Well, that Brainiac stuff escalated rather quickly. What will they have left to do if there is a second season? 

I like the actor playing Brainiac/Voice of Rao - - but he does have a tendency to over-enunciate and over-act -- probably good traits for mustache twirling villains, or stage actors. The actor should try to get some non-villain roles, tho. He is definitely typecast. 

Still not buying or sympathizing with the Adam Strange argument that everything must be sacrificed to save the Superman legacy exactly as he remembers it. Hey dude, you have ability to travel to the past and make changes - - just fix all the problems that Superman would have. Or create a new Superman. Or bring a whole bunch of good samaritan Kryptonians to Earth to help out with problems. 

[UNOSEZ]

3 minutes ago, shrewd.buddha said:

Still not buying or sympathizing with the Adam Strange argument that everything must be sacrificed to save the Superman legacy exactly as he remembers it. Hey dude, you have ability to travel to the past and make changes - - just fix all the problems that Superman would have. Or create a new Superman. Or bring a whole bunch of good samaritan Kryptonians to Earth to help out with problems. 

I know right... Like  if krypton is saved wouldn't you have a whole planet of ppl who could be powered by the sun to help with the problems of ur part of the universe... You don't think Seg would help ppl.. Let alone Lyta... Gosh could you imagine the zods coming to earth in the 1800s.. Super powered flying black ppl in the age of slavery.. I'd pay to see that.. But getting back on topic.. A safe krypton means more potential supermans though it also means more potential Zod 's.. So maybe he thinks one kryptonian who loves earth and knows little of his home world is better than a planet full of  real kryptonians

[Catfi9ht]

I kinda like what this show is trying to do, but the dialogue is so inane that I tune out half the time when they're talking. I'm seriously considering making a drinking game of this show and taking a drink every time someone lies to someone they "love" or every time someone talks about trust. I think I would have blacked out halfway through this episode had I actually played...

[thuganomics85]

Never would have thought that one of the more heartfelt relationships on a D.C. show would be from the Zods, of all people.  Jayne/Ann Ogbomo is just killing.  And now she meets her future grandson!  This should be fun!

Seg helping Nyssa was a nice moment.  Not sure I actually want a relationship to happen, but I do like that they've grown close despite the initial circumstances.  Still, I suspect Lyta will always be first in Seg's mind.  Speaking of relationships, I notice the casual way that they had Nyssa mention that one of her past lovers was a woman, and Seg seemed indifferent about it.  Good to know Krypton is at least more progressive on that front.

Ouch, poor Dev.  I wonder if he's dead, or if Brainiac going to be finding him a handy-dandy robotic arm or something.

Glad to see Holo Val make a return and Ian McElhinney was great as always.  Really don't trust Strange anymore though.

The Zods, Seg, Nyssa, and Kem forming an unholy alliance should certainly bring some entertainment! 

[Proteus]

Very good episode. I liked Seg going to save Nyssa & I love that Nyssa knows how to fight. Nice revelation that she's bi.

Im looking forward to the upcoming conflict between Seg & Adam.

I can't believe Nyssas father really tried to kill her.

I am really liking all the Zod family drama.

[AnimeMania]

What about Seg and Nyssa's baby, do they incubate the babies of traitors to term? How will Superman be born now?

[Chris24601]

10 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

What about Seg and Nyssa's baby, do they incubate the babies of traitors to term? How will Superman be born now?

My operating theory at the moment is that, due Seg's actions he'll restore the El family name while Nyssa's father allying with Brainiac will end up seeing the Vex line stripped just as House El once was. As such, the baby gets renamed because House El is now the valid one and so the child is actually Jor-El (and they'll presumably have a second son Zor-El, Supergirl's father).

I think Zod's father will turn out to be Dev because reproduction on Krypton isn't based on sex and he, technically, died in the war in Kandor that Zod mentioned and the Zods are traditionalists. There's no way its going to be Seg, nor will Lyta be the mother of Seg's children, because the notion that General Zod would be Superman's uncle (and Jor-El's brother) is just too far out of where I see the series willing to go. Lyta and Seg will remain close, which is why General Zod and Jor-El will be close friends, but they'll not end up together. 

For that matter, presuming they're running loosely with the "Man of Steel" version of Krypton then none of these characters will have any children the old-fashioned way because Kal-El/Clark will be the first natural birth on Krypton in generations.

The interesting thing in the setup for me if this correct though is that the bloodlines we're actually following; El, Vex and Zod are just about the only survivors of Krypton's destruction. This actually helps to negate one of the main potential flaws a prequel like this could have had; namely that the entire planet and everyone on it dies anyway so what does it matter? If Nyssa is the mother of Jor-El though then its her grandson and grandaugher (Kara Zor-El) who survive Krypton's death too... not just Seg's only two grandchildren and Lyta's son (plus presumably Ursa and Non).

I mean, in terms of probabilities, Seg's basically won the jackpot a couple times over with his fate... he is the last of his line and will have a total of two grandchildren and BOTH will survive a cataclysm that wipes out virtually every other member of their species, but not until after he and his wife and everyone he's ever known will have died of old age anyway.

[MarkHB]

12 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

For that matter, presuming they're running loosely with the "Man of Steel" version of Krypton then none of these characters will have any children the old-fashioned way because Kal-El/Clark will be the first natural birth on Krypton in generations.

I do have to give the creators props for coming up with a system that manages to explain both hereditary "houses" and births via the Matrix.  Maybe Goyer had the backstory in his head the whole time.

Nice contrast between Jayna choosing her daughter over honor (if you think about it, really the one thing Zods never do: crying for mercy), and Daron playing Count Baltar and being prepared to execute his daughter for craven personal advantage.

[NeenerNeener]

On 5/3/2018 at 9:46 AM, shrewd.buddha said:

like the actor playing Brainiac/Voice of Rao - - but he does have a tendency to over-enunciate and over-act -- probably good traits for mustache twirling villains, or stage actors. The actor should try to get some non-villain roles, tho. He is definitely typecast. 

Yep. And with Elliott Cowan as Daron-Vex we're 25% of the way to a Da Vinci's Demons reunion. Since this seems to be a mostly British cast we may see Riley, Chillin, Haddock and Vlahos eventually if this last more than one season.

Edited May 5, 2018 by NeenerNeener

[Chris24601]

15 hours ago, MarkHB said:

I do have to give the creators props for coming up with a system that manages to explain both hereditary "houses" and births via the Matrix.  Maybe Goyer had the backstory in his head the whole time.

Another random thought I had related to this is that Kandor only gets scooped up by Brainiac in some of the past continuities. In others (ex. the live action Supergirl series) the El’s lived in Kandor right up to Krypton’s destruction and in still others it was the Black Zero terrorists who destablized Krypton’s core and led to its destruction.

The other two causes in yet other continuities were deep core mining for resources and just plain old natural causes (in the Donner films it wasn’t even the planet that exploded, it was the star) for Krypton’s doom.

Where they may be going with this is that Superman’s lore actually consists of multiple timelines. The one Strange and General Zod are from is one where Kandor was taken, they’ll change that past event only to learn that Brainiac’s taking of Kandor being the cause of Krypton’s destruction was wrong and so the world still ends and Kal-El still gets rocketed to Earth, but this time with his cousin Kara in another ship that is knocked off course or crashes and isn’t found or whatever version they go with.

Heck, the fall of the Raoists in association with Brainiac could even end the matrix birthing system and we get something downright Silver Age by the time Kal-El is born.

There is a lot more leeway with how this story goes than you’d think.

[attica]

Goddammit, I don't honestly like this show.

But I will tune in every blessed week just to hear Blake Ritson  over-enunciate his dialogue to an inhuman degree. It's weirdly thrilling, and I can't give it up.

Plus Cowan and Salmon are hot AF.

Goddammit.

[CooperTV]

Quote

Seg must decide if he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in service of the greater good of Kandor.

Promos

[MarkHB]

Well, dropping him down a mile-long incubation funnel didn't work.  Shame about the little girl becoming a living bomb, though.

And Adam has already blown things up with Alanna.  He apparently really, really sucks.  (For the non-comics readers, Alanna and Sardack, the woman and man who were talking to Adam when he was in that Very Bright Corridor, are his wife and father-in-law from Rann.)

I do think the twist that they eventually got to, that rather than stopping Brainiac the key to Superman's existence is to let him take Kandor but get Seg out of the city, really turned things on their head.  And I do feel badly for Nyssa, seeing as she seemed to actually be willing to commit to Seg and he keeps throwing his love for Lyta in her face.

[tennisgurl]

...wow, that took a dark turn. Poor little girl. 

Adam has really screwed things up, and has been messing up even worse in the past. At least now, he seems to be actually trying to really help, and isnt just making it so that Superman will be born, and screw all these other people. 

I actually find the Nyssa/Seg/Lyta stuff pretty interesting. No one is really the bad guy (well, Nyssa is pretty morally dark, but she isnt the bad guy here) and its complicated with all the destiny stuff going on throughout. Seg cares about Nyssa, but he clearly still loves Lyta, who loves him back, but is freaking out about her future child who she clearly didnt have with Seg. Its a lot. 

Glad Dev seems to have made it, albeit worse for wear.

[justmehere]

17 hours ago, MarkHB said:

(For the non-comics readers, Alanna and Sardack, the woman and man who were talking to Adam when he was in that Very Bright Corridor, are his wife and father-in-law from Rann.)

Thanks for the explanation.

[thuganomics85]

That was some stone cold shit there, Brainiac!  Was truly not expecting a "turn a little girl into an actual bomb" situation to happen.  Good thing Strange stopped it from taking out Seg, but where did he get transported too?

Another former Game of Thrones actor appears!  The lady leading the Black Sun is played by the actress who played Septa Unella on that show.

Wallis Day was great during Nyssa's "farewell" to Daron.

Dev's alive!  Still missing an arm, but hopefully Krypton's already at the point that they can create new ones or robotic ones!

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 5/3/2018 at 8:46 AM, shrewd.buddha said:

Well, that Brainiac stuff escalated rather quickly. What will they have left to do if there is a second season? 

They could follow the remaining Els/Zods/Ems/Vexes to whichever of the remaining 8 Kryptonian cities there are.  I think we have had references made to Kryptonopolis and Argo City. There's also been a reference to Daxam, so there could be a Krypton vs. Daxam storyline.

I think I would like the series more if they focused more on the house maneuvering, the class/religious/other internal conflicts and less on the "Brainiac is coming/We have to save Superman!" stuff. 

[shrewd.buddha]

I'm not exactly sure of the logistics, but I'm fairly certain Seg has not had a change of clothes, a minute of downtime, perhaps not even a bathroom break - - for the last five episodes (!) 
The guy has been literally on the run every since the Sagitari invaded one of the Sectors to drive out the Rankless. 
And for some reason all that 'action' makes the show feel less serious to me.  Weird. 

[White Sheep]

What you think of Nyssa new hair dye job so she hide more easy?  

[sugarbaker design]

Thanks to the posters who let us know who the woman in the final scene is.

But here's a note to the producers and writers:  if viewers who have a scant knowledge of DC canon (like me!) don't kmow who her identity, that final scene will be meaningless no matter the amount of dramatic music.

[mxc90]

Belated Happy Mother's Day from the Zods!

[CooperTV]

Quote

Seg races to save his city from being overtaken as the bottling of Kandor begins.

 

[HunterHunted]

So Zod is Superman's uncle? Why can't they just be enemies without this show tossing off the star-crossed lovers thing and now a secret child. It's like too much already. It's like Forrest Gump. How is it that every important event on Krypton is connected to an El, a Zod, or both?

[AnimeMania]

How could Lyta shoot her mother, doesn't that thing have a stun setting?

So, is the guy that picked up Jayna her dead brother?

I was really interested in what was going on with Adam Strange and he doesn't even appear in the episode.

So, when do you want to switch to your clone body, after you get old and you want to feel young again or every 10 or so years so that you are always in peak physical condition. I wonder who in the city actually have clone bodies commissioned and how do you enter that body.

[Chris24601]

4 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

So Zod is Superman's uncle? Why can't they just be enemies without this show tossing off the star-crossed lovers thing and now a secret child. It's like too much already. It's like Forrest Gump. How is it that every important event on Krypton is connected to an El, a Zod, or both?

I'm not sure he will still be his uncle when its all over (by contrast I think its better than even odds that Nyssa is Superman's grandmother after last night).

Specifically, we see Lyta go behind Seg's back and shoot her own mother for the General while Nyssa stood by Seg and saved his life. My hunch is that, as a result, Seg isn't going to be interested in any sort of relationship with Lyta. This will cause Zod to dissolve like Superman's cape because he'll never have been born and the General Zod we're familiar with was actually the son of Lyta and someone else entirely.

[MarkHB]

6 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

So, when do you want to switch to your clone body, after you get old and you want to feel young again or every 10 or so years so that you are always in peak physical condition. I wonder who in the city actually have clone bodies commissioned and how do you enter that body.

This surprised me.  The "elite have a storehouse of clones for spare parts" thing actually came from John Byrne's "World of Krypton" in the comics; I only know that because it was included in the free reprint of the first issue that DC did as a prelude to this series.

[Chicago Redshirt]

Random question: has this show or anything else established what General Zod's first name is? I don't remember him being called anything other than Zod, when presumably he has a hyphenated first name of some sort.

[coppersin]

51 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Random question: has this show or anything else established what General Zod's first name is? I don't remember him being called anything other than Zod, when presumably he has a hyphenated first name of some sort.

A few different wikis list his name as Dru-Zod. I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned on a show/movie, though, so it must be from the comics?

[MarkHB]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Random question: has this show or anything else established what General Zod's first name is? I don't remember him being called anything other than Zod, when presumably he has a hyphenated first name of some sort.

 

30 minutes ago, coppersin said:

A few different wikis list his name as Dru-Zod. I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned on a show/movie, though, so it must be from the comics?

He said it last night (probably "Dru", I didn't check the CC), when he challenged Jayna to the duel.

[thuganomics85]

Hey, they're going all "Altered Carbon" on the join with the whole elite Kryptoians having clones that they can transfer their minds too, after they die!

So, General Zod is the son of Lyta and Seg?  I wonder if he will be of a natural birth.  Then again, Seg and Lyta are clearly not at a good place, at the moment.  And then there is the Nyssa factor, who at this point, I would think she would have to commit the worst offense ever to push him away, because I just can't see why Seg would not want to be with her, now.

Vidar/Jayna's brother is still alive?  Also, did Zod just claim that the real Val himself is still around?!

I'm guessing Daron will somehow survive the crash.

Doesn't matter who wins between Brainiac vs. Doomsday: everyone else loses!

[tanita]

So , is Nyssa Jax-Ur's daughter with Vex, or is she here mint condition clone ? She looks like aspitting image of her, she could grow up to look just like Jax-Ur, and I don't remember if they shared a scene on the show.

[tennisgurl]

Oh, all of this future kid stuff is super confusing! I really dont know how this is all going to end up going down. Zod may or may not be Superman's uncle? Well, the Superman mythology has had weirder stuff than that over the years. 

Seg and Lyta are in a bad place even with Nyssa, with Lyta going darker, while Seg is still trying to just everyone to get along for five freaking minutes. But with Nyssa, theres the addition that they're not only growing close, they're already technically engaged with a future kid on the way. So theres that complication. 

[AngelKitty]

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

all of this future kid stuff is super confusing!

Indeed. It seems to me they really didn't need to bring people from the future if Brainiac was coming anyway. There is plenty of drama already.

6 hours ago, tanita said:

is Nyssa Jax-Ur's daughter with Vex

Oh, lordy, don't confuse me even more.

[meira.hand]

8 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Vidar/Jayna's brother is still alive?  Also, did Zod just claim that the real Val himself is still around?!

I don't think its a coincident that we are suddenly seeing or being told that two people from the ruling classes that were supposed to be dead are alive, a few minutes after seeing the sea of clones.

[Gummo]

That was a complete muddle. 

This was the first episode I spent saying over & over again, give me a break! and, what the heck is going on? 

Back in the old days, Krypton was supposed to be a beautiful place full of wonders. Here it's a closed-off claustrophobic shithole. Wow, what an improvement. Back in the Silver Age, Krypton was depicted as a paradise, all sunny and green; like all DC comics in the 1960s, it was simplistic and needed updating, but going full dystopia is just as boring and lazy.

And how did Daron Vex escape anyway? And is turning Brainiac into a poor imitation of the Borg a new thing?

[Chris24601]

Daron snagged a device/key off the guard when he was fake begging for mercy (ie. he knew the guard wouldn’t show him mercy, he just used the simpering begging to distract the guard from what he was really doing).

The Collector of Worlds aspect dates back to Brainiac’s earliest appearances (as does the Bottle City of Kandor which Superman recovered from Brainiac). The gist of Brainiac’s classic motives and MO were that ‘he’ (it was an android from the planet Collu originally) wanted to horde all knowledge in the universe and so shrunk and bottled a representative example of each world it visited and then destroyed that world so that no one else could have that knowledge it just collected.

Brainiac even flew around in a skull-shaped spaceship back in the day.

The creepier techno-organic aspects (including the updated ship) and the use of probes to scout worlds in advance date to the 2008 Geoff Johns penned Brainiac arc (the explanation for all the different forms Brainiac had taken over the decades was that Superman had only been facing probes up to now).

Johns is currently in charge of all cross-media DC productions (i.e. television, animation and films) so it makes a fair degree of sense that the show would use the version Johns created.

Krypton as a dystopia and they reproduced using birthing matrices dates to the 1986 Man of Steel mini-series that was the canon origin for the comics up through about 2003 (when TPTB started their never ending cycle of soft reboots and crises and Krypton got reimagined every couple of years since).

Long story short... the elements the show is using are all at least a decade old, if not decades old.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Chris24601

[Gummo]

Chris24601, thanks for the background. This old-timer gave up on DC after the first big reboot way back when they gave Superman to Jim Byrne to reimagine.

[shrewd.buddha]

On 5/17/2018 at 3:03 AM, HunterHunted said:

It's like Forrest Gump. How is it that every important event on Krypton is connected to an El, a Zod, or both?

Unfortunately a lot of shows fall into this  lazy, musical-chairs style of writing : introduce around eight main characters and have everything revolve around them. 
It is interesting that the actors playing Brainiac and Daron Vex also had very similar roles on Da Vinci's Demons. 

[MarkHB]

On 5/17/2018 at 3:03 AM, HunterHunted said:

How is it that every important event on Krypton is connected to an El, a Zod, or both?

Remember, we've only seen Kandor. I get the impression that, since the exurbs became frozen wastelands, the cities are all largely independent city states, And,  even in large cities it's not unusual for a handful of families to stay near the top of the heap for generations.

[legaleagle53]

14 hours ago, MarkHB said:

Remember, we've only seen Kandor. I get the impression that, since the exurbs became frozen wastelands, the cities are all largely independent city states, And,  even in large cities it's not unusual for a handful of families to stay near the top of the heap for generations.

True.  Look at the Habsburg Dynasty that was seated in Vienna.  It owned and controlled 3/4 of Europe either directly or indirectly for over 700 years.

[RandomWatcher]

Krypton is getting a second season

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/superman-prequel-krypton-renewed-season-2-at-syfy-1113941

[madhacker]

all I gotta say about the last5 minutes: aw crap!!  Does this mean that Superman is evil now? But since Doomsday is awake it doesn't matter since everybody on Krypton is going to die.

I'm really glad the shows coming back next year, I'd love it if they could find a way to have a network crossover with Supergirl. Just hear me out, Cisco's little breach device malfunctions while Kara's in mid-transit between Earths and she ends up in the past in her great grandfather's Fortress.  Seg is her grandfather also right?

[RandomWatcher]

I did not expect that to happen

[legaleagle53]

24 minutes ago, madhacker said:

all I gotta say about the last5 minutes: aw crap!!  Does this mean that Superman is evil now? But since Doomsday is awake it doesn't matter since everybody on Krypton is going to die.

I'm really glad the shows coming back next year, I'd love it if they could find a way to have a network crossover with Supergirl. Just hear me out, Cisco's little breach device malfunctions while Kara's in mid-transit between Earths and she ends up in the past in her great grandfather's Fortress.  Seg is her grandfather also right?

Since her father and Kal's father are brothers, yes.  Seg is the grandfather to both Kal and Kara.

[HunterHunted]

35 minutes ago, madhacker said:

all I gotta say about the last5 minutes: aw crap!!  Does this mean that Superman is evil now? But since Doomsday is awake it doesn't matter since everybody on Krypton is going to die.

I'm really glad the shows coming back next year, I'd love it if they could find a way to have a network crossover with Supergirl. Just hear me out, Cisco's little breach device malfunctions while Kara's in mid-transit between Earths and she ends up in the past in her great grandfather's Fortress.  Seg is her grandfather also right?

Hi Seg! Bye Seg! In the Phantom Zone? That is not what I would have predicted and now Zod is an unchallenged dictator. Ok.