I didn't enjoy this much. I'm so tired of Doomsday. The character was a stupid, shallow idea to begin with in the '90s. A mindless brute is not a worthy adversary for Superman, who's defined by far more than just his physical strength. Besides, they already did a "Death of Superman" mini-arc last season, so what's the point of doing Doomsday now? (Although I am amused that the "fakeout" of early season 2, when we thought Bizarro was Doomsday, turned out to be foreshadowing instead. I wonder, did they plan it that way all along, or did they just decide after the fact that it would be cute?)
And why the heck didn't Jordan and the Steel duo come to Superman's rescue? They just stood there when they could've helped. It would've been nice if Lex's plan had failed because he hadn't anticipated Superboy coming to the rescue.
The worst part by far, though, was Superman making the ruthless decision to kill Doomsday by impaling him on that spire, and not seeming bothered by it afterward. That's not a line he should cross. (And how did that even work? Surely Doomsday's flesh was as impenetrable as Superman's. He should've crushed the spire, not been pierced by it.)
Then there's the characters' ridiculously good aim when wildly punching each other. Doomsday backhands Superman in the farm, and out of the entire 360 degrees around them, he goes in exactly the direction that lands him on Main Street. They battle in midair, and coincidentally land right in Metropolis instead of anywhere in the vast swaths of sparsely populated land that make up most of Kansas. Then they go fight in space, and out of all the infinite directions they could go, they end up on the Moon. Okay, granted, that time it looked like Superman might have aimed him that way intentionally -- although aiming directly for something is not the way to reach it in orbital mechanics, because it's a moving target.
Also, the Moon apparently has air in this universe, since you can hear Doomsday's roars and Superman's cape was flapping. Maybe there are some nearby astronauts that they can ask for directions to planet Houston.
This episode did nothing to make Lex Luthor a more interesting or dimensional character, continuing to have him just be a brutal, vengeful thug. And I'm deeply sick of TV depicting long scenes of torture.
The rest didn't do much for me either. It was mostly just tying off loose ends of the character arcs and felt like going through the motions. And TV has got to stop doing stories about unplanned pregnancies as if it were some kind of romantic thing. It's grossly irresponsible for men not to be careful about contraception, since a pregnancy can ruin a woman's life if she doesn't want it or isn't financially or emotionally ready for it. So it just makes male protagonists look bad when that happens (and yes, I'm glaring at you, Star Trek Picard season 3). By the same token, I'm also not a fan of surprise public marriage proposals, which feel like emotional blackmail to trap the woman into saying yes rather than disappoint the spectators. Okay, Chrissy didn't hesitate to say yes, but that was the writers' choice to make her react that way. Realistically, it could've gone the other way.
Even aside from all that, is it wise for Kyle to rush into marriage again? It didn't turn out that great the first time. Both marriage and parenting are things that both participants should discuss and consider with care rather than just leaping into them. Though I guess we don't know if we'll even see these characters again, at least not much.
It just really frustrates me that this season gave us the series's best, most complex villain, then cut off his arc early so they could do this extended prologue to season 4, when they didn't even know if they'd get a season 4. Honestly, given the politics of the people who own Warner Bros. now, I can't help wondering if there was a racial element to that decision -- or to the decision to remove every nonwhite actor from the regular cast next season.
And why the heck didn't Jordan and the Steel duo come to Superman's rescue? They just stood there when they could've helped. It would've been nice if Lex's plan had failed because he hadn't anticipated Superboy coming to the rescue.
The worst part by far, though, was Superman making the ruthless decision to kill Doomsday by impaling him on that spire, and not seeming bothered by it afterward. That's not a line he should cross. (And how did that even work? Surely Doomsday's flesh was as impenetrable as Superman's. He should've crushed the spire, not been pierced by it.)
Then there's the characters' ridiculously good aim when wildly punching each other. Doomsday backhands Superman in the farm, and out of the entire 360 degrees around them, he goes in exactly the direction that lands him on Main Street. They battle in midair, and coincidentally land right in Metropolis instead of anywhere in the vast swaths of sparsely populated land that make up most of Kansas. Then they go fight in space, and out of all the infinite directions they could go, they end up on the Moon. Okay, granted, that time it looked like Superman might have aimed him that way intentionally -- although aiming directly for something is not the way to reach it in orbital mechanics, because it's a moving target.
Also, the Moon apparently has air in this universe, since you can hear Doomsday's roars and Superman's cape was flapping. Maybe there are some nearby astronauts that they can ask for directions to planet Houston.
This episode did nothing to make Lex Luthor a more interesting or dimensional character, continuing to have him just be a brutal, vengeful thug. And I'm deeply sick of TV depicting long scenes of torture.
The rest didn't do much for me either. It was mostly just tying off loose ends of the character arcs and felt like going through the motions. And TV has got to stop doing stories about unplanned pregnancies as if it were some kind of romantic thing. It's grossly irresponsible for men not to be careful about contraception, since a pregnancy can ruin a woman's life if she doesn't want it or isn't financially or emotionally ready for it. So it just makes male protagonists look bad when that happens (and yes, I'm glaring at you, Star Trek Picard season 3). By the same token, I'm also not a fan of surprise public marriage proposals, which feel like emotional blackmail to trap the woman into saying yes rather than disappoint the spectators. Okay, Chrissy didn't hesitate to say yes, but that was the writers' choice to make her react that way. Realistically, it could've gone the other way.
Even aside from all that, is it wise for Kyle to rush into marriage again? It didn't turn out that great the first time. Both marriage and parenting are things that both participants should discuss and consider with care rather than just leaping into them. Though I guess we don't know if we'll even see these characters again, at least not much.
It just really frustrates me that this season gave us the series's best, most complex villain, then cut off his arc early so they could do this extended prologue to season 4, when they didn't even know if they'd get a season 4. Honestly, given the politics of the people who own Warner Bros. now, I can't help wondering if there was a racial element to that decision -- or to the decision to remove every nonwhite actor from the regular cast next season.
