POWERLESS shows the citizens of Charm City dealing with the constant dangers and inconveniencing of the super-powered battles around them. As Emily, the new Director of Research and Development, and lead of the series played by Vanessa Hudgens, gets on her train for the first day at work, we see Crimson Fox and Jack O’Lantern fighting across the city. As Emily watches in amazement, much as the audience of this and every other comic book television show would, the rest of the passengers disregard the fight and instead plan for the inevitable heavy delays they’re going to experience.
This shows POWERLESS’ goal. POWERLESS isn’t trying to create a spectacle or expertly choreographed fight scenes, but rather show you some of the hilarious circumstances in these comic book clichés. These citizens show what the world would be like with superpowers. Though there would still be wonder and amazement, such as in Emily’s eyes, there would also be constant architectural damage, massive death tolls during battles and severe delays when a rogue fireball blows up the train track ahead of you.
POWERLESS goes on in the episode to introduce Wayne Security, the primary setting for this new workplace comedy. Here we meet POWERLESS’ comedic backbone. Each of these characters, while having their own purpose in the office, also has their own place in the chemistry of the show. Teddy, played by Danni Pudi, seems to be a nerdy MacGyver, creating the best ideas from the most unsuspecting items in regular life. Ron, played by Ron Funches, though still downtrodden by the interruptions of super-powered battles, seems to be the one who will dream big and do even bigger. Wendy, played by Jennie Pierson, plays the cynic, the character that still doesn’t like Emily or the work that they’re trying to do, yet is still there will the ideas that will save the day. Jackie, played by Christina Kirk, seems to play a sort of maternal role, not only by keep the office together, but by pushing Emily and helping her regain the energy to control her team.
Van Wayne, played by Alan Tudyk, however, is the series’ "villain." The idiotic and entitled, yet gut-wrenchingly hilarious "villain."
However, this pilot episode is still very much a pilot episode. It serves as an example of what the series will stand for and what can be expected from the story, the jokes and the characters. This does cause some very awkward moments during the episode, where the script lacks any sort of purpose other than to introduce new elements of the series to the audience. Though these moments don’t take away too much from the particularly high moments, it does feel excruciatingly cheesy. When Emily practically looks directly in the camera and declares that she’s an optimist, it seems more forced than it ever does like proper character introduction.
What does become very apparent in this episode is that first and foremost, POWERLESS is a comedy. More than it is an actual super hero show, in fact. Though there are countless references, and I mean more than I or any comic book fan would fully be able to catch, the goal of this series is to make its audience laugh. The laughs are frequent, too. Though there are some dull moments where the scripts focuses more on illustrating what a pilot episode needs to illustrate, there are plenty of laugh out loud moments to make up for them.
Van Wayne stands out, with the arrogance of a Wayne, but the dimwittedness of exactly what you would imagine Bruce Wayne’s cousin to be. When Van says that he’s so untouchable that he could walk away from committing vehicular manslaughter, it’s hard not to laugh at this character’s existence in the sometimes overly serious DC universe. Just imagine Batman jumping into the Batmobile then having to take a call from his moronic cousin. It’s hard not to at least chuckle.
The jokes are rooted in the humor of their circumstances, whether Jackie’s disinterest in Emily’s overly excited telling of her story, or Van calling Charm City a “taint” of a city. POWERLESS is a NBC workplace comedy thrown into the DC comic book universe. When the team creates a device that can detect super villains through their distinct aroma, and Batman uses the exact same device to catch the Joker, it feels more like it exists in the comic books more than ever. This series has very real promise. Though it hits a few low points, it just has an unavoidable case of the pilot blues. Imagining that Bruce Wayne cares about who uses his HBO Go password seems slightly trivial, but it also shows that POWERLESS is here to crack jokes.
Written by William Staton, POWERLESS Beat Writer -- Click to read William's posts
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