Chris Sims reviews Alphas

[james_davis_nicoll]

I'm linking to it less for the review and more for the slapfight that develops in the comments, although the observation about origins is one I hadn't made. It's not strictly true, because the episode is the origin of Koordination King, as he joins the ranks of Social Parasite Woman, Angry Black Man, The Annoying Nerd and Hostage Girl to fight crime.

Interesting that they've split the passive powers between one man and one woman and made one of the three heavy hitters female (I was going to compare her to Saturn Girl but SG was a receptive telepath, wasn't she? The classic Legion leaned towards giving the girls non-combat or at least non-damaging powers, like precog, gravity reduction and shadow-casting).

Less boring than No Ordinary Family without actually being interesting.

Spoiler for a show foreignlanders may not have seen:


Vincent Nigel-Murray died for this?

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Drawbacks: the strong guy has Dynamo's problem that the human body can't do the super-strong thing for too long. The coordinated guy has trouble getting into the right frame of mind. The woman with enhanced normal senses seems to shut the senses she is not enhancing off or at least mutes them. The guy with the ability to sense EMR normally outside the regular visible spectrum seems to be a high-functioning autistic.

What's the drawback the woman with mind-control stuggles with?

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

It took me five sittings to get through it, and then only because nothing else was on, and I was too tired to read or program.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Less boring than No Ordinary Family without actually being interesting.

Although for some reason what it reminded me of wasn't NOF but Human Target. Not sure why (aside from "I could be watching paint dry (http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1489) instead of this" angle).

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

Nah, Saturn Girl could take people over with her powers--sometimes lots of people. I don't think it was something she used much in the classic Legion, tho'.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

I chuckled mightily at the guy in comments who said "I am constantly bothered that writers today are so enamoured with their own witticisms that they've already written the review in their heads before the first ten minutes of the program/move have finished." Because, as much as I love Mordaunt Hall, film reviewer 80-odd years ago, he did the same thing. I seem to recall a critic of Poe's who did the same in the 1870s. It's not a "writers today" situation at all, but the desire to scream some variant of "GET OFFA MY LAWN" on the internet is apparently too great for some to resist.