Yeah, you could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he stripped off his gloves and cape to toss them in the trash…I was wondering if his pants would be next.
See, I kinda disagree. Of the other eliminations, with the glaring exception of Iron Enforcer which was pretty clearly a set-up to create the villain, there’s been something to them. Monkey Woman failed a challenge worse than anyone else (revealed her secret ID without being asked) and lied in her audition, Creature broke the law and had acted contrary to her message, Ty’Veculus (whose powers revolve around truthfulness) lied and also failed a challenge and so on. They never said that eliminations were going to be based on objective standards anyway, so of course there’s going to be arbitrariness.
Only if he was prepared…
Heh! I wondered the same thing. I was thinking “Oh yeah, cutie, turn in your costume. Go on, turn it all in…”
This ep was worth it just to hear Stan Lee tell the Major guy that he wasn’t taking being a “superhero” seriously enough :):):):)
Amazing that either one could keep a straight face for *that * part of the script.
Does anyone else think the winner might get to pick a sidekick from the previously booted superheroes? I’m not sure if Fat Momma would pick Feedback or Tyveculus. I have no idea who Feedback would pick.
I agree that the eliminations were all plausible, none of them seemed totally wrong. What I mean is that although sometimes there was a single clear loser, most times there were two or three heroes who have a pretty much equal chance of being eliminated.
Well, the whole deal is that it’s an elimination contest: whoever loses worst, goes. I think all the calls (aside from the obviously rigged Iron Enforcer) have been very logical and clear-cut.
In this episode, Major Victory came in “middle” in the kid contest: he entertained, he neither explained himself nor gave a prep talk. Fat Momma clearly won that, regardless of how the kids voted: what does Superman do if he’s brought in front of a class of kids? he doesn’t say, “Hey, I was born on Krypton and have x-ray vision” and he doesn’t tell jokes about his hair, he tells them to stay away from drugs and crime. And Feedback lost for being lame and boring.
For the treasure hunt, Major Victory had the fastest time, but Feedback won by being polite (even though he lost the time) – that’s acting like a superhero – and Fat Momma lost.
So, we had Feedback winning one, losing one. Fat Momma winning one, losing one. And Major Victory middle of both. The criteria for elimination therefore wasn’t who won the contests. Just as earlier, there was no clear elimination in the walk-the-plank contest, they had a backup test.
My wife and I both really liked Major V: Feedback seems dull in comparison. But we do agree with Stan’s decision: from the very start, Major V has been playing comedy. C’mon, he took off his cape for old ladies to walk on? was there even a puddle there? The entertaining the kids just focused what he’s always done. He does his cute little dance steps, he says to the convict that he has “magic hands” … it was an unfortunate call, but a good one.
Agreed that Feedback and Fat Momma’s powers are lame, but that doesn’t mean Stan Lee can’t make a great comic book out of them. That would just add to the story: the hero with the right heart, but not much power, trying their best. Sounds very Stan Lee to me!
The melodrama phone call from the daughter, and Fat Momma wanting to protect Feedback, that was so over the top. What a great show!
I’m getting very worried by the number of posters here who seem to sincerely believe that this has been a genuine contest, with some actual objective criteria used for selecting the “winner”. Did Stan Lee ever write a comic book not knowing how he wanted it to end, people?
Well now, I think there’s some level of objectivity to at least some of the eliminations. Fer instance, TyV’s elimination. Lee had an objective answer that he was looking for (“pick me!”) and the two who didn’t give that answer were called out. Monkey Woman’s elimination. He was looking for an objective act (preserve secret ID) and she failed. Cell Phone Girl and Lemuria failed the objective challenge, and so on.
He could have “eliminated” Matt or Nell too, at any time, with just as much justification, if it were “objective”. It’s just a normal improv performance, where the performers make up their own lines but still follow the predefined plot outline.
They’re actors, people! Most of them had IMDB profiles already! Come on already. You don’t have to pretend it’s real to enjoy it.
New thread discussing Season 2, because I didn’t want to hijack this one.
Stan Lee never thought of the Silver Surfer. 
What do you mean? They way I heard the story is that while Jack was drawing FF #48 he drew a small figure flying around Galactus’s shoulder. Stan asked who that was and The King said he felt he should have a sidekick or herald or something, and Stan took that and ran with it, thus creating the Silver Surfer.
I don’t think anyone’s said that the entire elimination process is objective. I certainly didn’t, just that a number of them were based in objective criteria.
Are you suggesting that these people know when they’re going to be eliminated? Absolutely not. Like I said in the Season 2 thread: OF COURSE the producers have a plan, or at least a rough outline of who gets eliminated when and who wins (who the hell would expect them not to? To what advantage would they not try to map this out ahead of time?) but the participants surely don’t know this plan, even if they know of it.
First of all, if you’ve seen the exit interviews, those things are candid. These guys would all be Oscar-level actors if they were reading that stuff from a script (and trust me, they’re not.)
Secondly, if the show were fully scripted and the participants knew it, that would close the SAG/Reality-Show loophole and negate the whole purpose of having a reality show (read: the producers would have to pay them. Pay them a lot.)
And don’t be ridiculous: OF COURSE a lot of these people are actors. Where did the audtions take place? LA. Where do film and tv actors live? LA. What kind of show is this? “Reality”. What do struggling actors audition for these days? Reality shows.
Jesus, some people need to get a grip. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just that the entertainment industry chose for once not to insult our intelligence by stating the obvious and everybody is trying to chew them to shreds for it.
My point was simply that Norrin Radd (Woo, he’s radd!) is an example of a story element that blindsided Stan Da Man.
Not necessarily, but *Lee * does. They all want more air time to boost their struggling acting careers and will do their best to avoid giving Lee a pretext to end that, of course, but that makes them act just the same as if they weren’t in on the gag.
Um, I’ve seen quite a few Oscar-winning performances, and, well, the ones we’ve seen aired are junior high school drama club level, sorry. On what basis should you be trusted on that point, might one humbly inquire?
When have the producers ever claimed it was a “reality” show?
If they even get scale, that’s still a lot better than any of them are doing as sometime day players. The air time alone is priceless - there are thousands of deluded waiters in LA who’d kill for that opportunity.
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And don’t be ridiculous: OF COURSE a lot of these people are actors.
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Amazing how the casting departments of all those *other * “reality” shows manage to avoid that trap, though, ain’t it?
Damn straight. Witness the following, said about a show where some lamers put on Halloween costumes and pretend to have comic book superpowers:
What point are you trying to make here?
I’m not sure we’re on the same page here. The exit interviews have not been aired. They are on scifi.com. Go watch them before responding to comments about them.
You meant apart from all the promos that say “Who Wants to be a Superhero: The all new reality show from SciFi”? How 'bout the official website that says, "The SCI FI Channel, Nash Entertainment . . . , and legendary comic-book creator Stan Lee . . . are the producers of this six-episode, one-hour weekly competition reality series that will challenge a lucky few to create their very own superhero and reward the winner with the best reality competition prize yet: immortality!
You don’t understand what I said. They’re not getting scale, because scale is a SAG requirement. This is not a SAG job because they’re not actors, they’re contestants - hence The Reality Show Loophole. They’re not actors because that saves the producers from having to pay them scale!
Again, what I said went over your head, but to each his own. Don’t watch if you hate America so bad.