Who Wants To Be A Superhero?
I came home tonight from the latest Utah Indie Game Developer's Meet (I'll post information on that in an upcoming post or two...), and my wife pulled me into the living room to show the video she'd taped earlier of the new "surreality show," Sci Fi's new, "Who Wants To be A Superhero."

Yes, I'd asked her to tape it. It had "train wreck" written all over it, but even train wrecks can be morbidly fascinating. I figured I'd watched the first episode, laugh at it, and then be done.

Surprisingly enough, it didn't suck. I mean, it was all about cheese, but it KNOWS that and doesn't take itself seriously. There's plenty of silliness and outrageous humor of people running around in costumes pretending to be superheroes. But Stan Lee has the presence to make it work. At one minute he's hamming it up, too, not exactly breaking character but still clearly showing he's in on the whole gag and understands how hillarious it all is. But then, suddenly, he gets serious and brings home the point that the contestants are being judged on basic human virtues, and that failure is something they really should be ashamed of. And he makes it stick.

It's an interesting twist to go from something outrageously comedic to a something serious and believable pretty quickly. It was bizarre but I enjoyed it. I guess I'm a sucker for all things superheroic - even the silly (hey, I liked the movie "Mystery Men" after all).

Anyway - if the future episodes are as enjoyable as the first one, I think I may have been sucked in. It might not be a train wreck after all.
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:54 PM (Permalink)