The Promising ‘Krypton’ Goes Back In Time On This Week’s Geeky TV

SyFy

DC Comics has a taste for prequel series. There’s Gotham, of course, working on its fourth season, and Metropolis, a sister series that will see Lois Lane and Lex Luthor playing Mulder and Scully amid the mysteries of Superman’s bright shiny city. So Krypton, premiering Wednesday March 21st at 10 pm ET on Syfy, has the odd job of both making a prequel compelling and standing out from the other prequels, and it pulls it off admirably, in part because the show doesn’t shy away from being all about Superman, even if he never shows up directly.

The series revolves around Superman’s grandpa, Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe), depicted here as a bit of a punk, getting into bar fights, making life miserable for his parents, and generally acting like a typical guy in his early twenties who doesn’t think he has a future. He does, of course, and the zippy pilot crams everything from palace intrigue to comics pulp to some surprising DC cameos into a brisk 42 minutes. And the rest of the show keeps the pace as Seg finds himself in the middle of a dozen intrigues at once, and a couple of love triangles to boot.

One of the nice touches here is that Cuffe doesn’t play Seg as some noble hero, even if Seg has his grandson’s propensity to stand up for the downtrodden. He’s a kid, and he’s been thrown headfirst into a bunch of situations at once, most of which he doesn’t fully understand and several of which he doesn’t entirely believe. The result is a fun, pulp SF series that ties strongly to the comics, but which doesn’t require you to have read every Superman book to understand it.

This Week’s Geeky TV

Legends of Tomorrow, Monday, March 19th, 8 pm ET, The CW: How do you top saving Elvis? Seriously.

iZombie, Monday, March 19th, 9 pm ET, The CW: Liv’s romantic side has stuck with her, which is a bit hard to deal with amid the zombie apocalypse.

The Flash, Tuesday, March 20th, 8 pm ET, The CW: Barry chases a jewel thief who can cancel gravity. Which really shows a lack of creativity on said thief’s part, because who wouldn’t pay like $20 for five minutes of weightlessness?

Black Lightning, Tuesday March 20th 9 pm ET, The CW: Jefferson Pierce now has two superpowered teenage daughters, because his life wasn’t weird enough.

The X-Files, Wednesday, March 21st, 8 pm ET, Fox, Season Finale: Mulder and Scully wrap up their eleventh, and possibly final, season.

Riverdale, Wednesday March 21st, 9 pm ET, The CW: Veronica runs for student council since she’s got nothing else happening in her life.

Gotham, Thursday, March 22nd, 8 pm ET, Fox: Gordon is basically doomed to have all his ex-girlfriends become gangsters, isn’t he?

Agents Of SHIELD, Friday, March 23rd, 9 pm ET, ABC: Really, if Peak TV doesn’t regularly have time-travellers fighting supervillains, is there any point to it?

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