Wednesday, November 29, 2017

On The Air: Crisis on Earth-X (2017)

The ratings sweeps for this month are wrapping up, and the CW held their biggest draw right to the end.

The network bumped freshman military drama Valor for one week, moving Arrow from its usual Thursday berth so that they could have the four-part DCTVU miniseries, Crisis on Earth-X, run across just 2 nights of programming. Seems the suits thought that a 3-night, 4-part crossover last season wasn't feasible enough. For what it's worth, a rerun of Penn & Teller: Fool Us, which usually airs during the summer, will fill in for Arrow tomorrow night.

Anyway, the miniseries starts with Supergirl. The titular heroine (Melissa Benoist) is prodded by adoptive sister Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh) to accept the invitation to the Earth-1 wedding of Barry Allen, aka The Flash (Grant Gustin) and his lady love, Iris West (Candice Patton), with Alex as Kara's guest in place of ex-beau Mon-El (Chris Wood), who had just returned to Earth-38, the setting of Supergirl, but his relationship with Kara has become compromised. I'll have to explain that one another time.

After last year's crossover, Kara was given a remote transport device that opens a "breach", or, dimensional warp, to Earth-1, so she & Alex step into the breach to visit some old friends. Meanwhile, on Earth-1, Star City Mayor Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) and his on-again, off-again lady fair, Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) arrive in Central City for the nuptials. Members of the Legends of Tomorrow reach home from 12th century England after wrapping up a case there, and this creates an awkward moment when Mick Rory, otherwise known as Heat Wave (Dominic Purcell) is reacquainted with Captain Singh of the CCPD.

But, just as Barry & Iris are about to say "I do", the minister is vaporized, and a group of modern-day Nazis, led by evil dopplegangers of Green Arrow and Supergirl, storm the church, leading to a pitched battle. These Nazis come from Earth-X, an alternate world where the Nazis won World War II and altered the course of history there. Comics fans know that Earth-X gave birth, also, to the super team known as the Freedom Fighters, who will star in a CW Seed animated series, which, apparently, is or will soon be available online. This miniseries, then, is a prequel to the cartoon. Go figure.

Rather than spoil things for anyone that hasn't seen any of the 4 parts over the last two nights (it'll be On Demand by the end of the week), scope the trailer.



On the plus side, the network began airing teasers for the next entry from producer Greg Berlanti, Black Lightning, which bows January 16, replacing Legends, which apparently will be shifted to another night for the 2nd time in as many years.

On the whole, Crisis on Earth-X was largely entertaining, though your actual mileage may vary.

Rating: A-.

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