THE 2015 POPFILTER TV CHALLENGE: MARCH MADNESS
THE 2015 POPFILTER TV CHALLENGE:
MARCH MADNESS
Round 1
POWERS
vs
THE ROYALS
Hoo boy. In a tournament that has so far seen decent shows like Battle Creek and The Returned already shown the door because of the high quality of shows in March thus far, we now have to deal with this. Based on how the bracket works, either Powers or The Royals will move on to Round 2. Hoo boy.
On the most recent episode of the internet’s hippest new podcast, The Super Hero Hour Hour, Mike and I spent a long time digging for the merits of Powers. The show actually does have a lot on its mind – far too much, really – and it’s unfortunately buried under a complete lack of knowledge of how to be a show. The pilot is all over the place, and there’s no better example of this than its lead character Christian Walker. Walker is a detective in the Powers Division of the city police force, which means he works on cases that have to do with super powered heroes and villains. It seems like he’d be perfect for the role, seeing as he used to be one of the superheroes in a world that isn’t sure if they should treat these “powers†as heroes, celebrities, or destroyers of the city. It’s a pretty great premise, and one that is perfect for the era we live in: a look at the people underneath all of the people we pay millions of dollars every summer to watch. Walker is written (and performed by Sharlto Copley) in such a way where it seems like his current power is severe schizophrenia, switching from McNulty to Wolverine to Ari Gold to Clark Kent and back, sometimes within the same scene. There may be so much on the minds of television writers in regard to skewering/deconstructing the superhero genre that they imploded the show. Powers is yet another show that shot its entire season all at once, so it can’t learn from the internet/audience/critical reaction as it moves on, but there’s still hope that once it gets all of its exposition out of the way, it will settle down a little. As it stands now, though, this is a confused, confusing, pretty horrible pilot.
But then there’s The Royals. It’s as if Bravo realized that it can’t make a show called The Real Housewives of Buckingham Palace, so they shit out the next best thing. And that pitch may sound interesting to you, even if just a trashy, only-when-I-call-in-sick kind of watchable way. But whatever juice that premise may have had, the showrunners drain it as soon as possible, worried that American audiences won’t be able to make the leap to watching anything remotely resembling British culture. It’s fun for all of about six minutes, before you realize that the fun isn’t just had at the royal family’s expense (which is fine), but it’s at the expense of you the viewer. It’s a little insulting, but it’s mostly just boring, the one thing a show called The Royal, starring Elizabeth Hurley as the queen of England, and airing on E!, can’t ever afford to be.
I can’t choose a winner based on which show I think will be better some day. All I can go on is the first hour of Powers versus the first hour of The Royals. But even based on that, somehow Powers moves on because it’s at least trying something, as opposed to actively trying to do less than nothing. It’s not based on which show will be better someday, but it probably worked out that way.
– Ryan Haley