Titans: Season 4

I hate this show more than any other show I currently watch. And no lie, a lot of it WAS bad. The bowling alley stuff was cartoonishly awful, and the scene of the man and the woman at home being killed shows this is a show without any sort of conscience or moral center.

That being said, the main thing I noticed about this Lex Luthor is that he is not as bad as Jon Cryer was. Cryer was the absolute pits in the role, and considering this show has the absolute worst Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in ANY continuity, I expected Titus Welliver to be far worse than Cryer. He's not. And I like that he's dead. That means the show won't wind up failing the idea and changing my mind.

But he knows about Bruce and Dick and Clark too? What exactly is stopping him from telling the world? Never got a satisfactory answer to that, although his explanations to Connor as to why he created him struck me as eerily plausible.

I'm reserving judgment because this is the worst show I watch, and any time I give it the SLIGHTEST benefit of the doubt, it spits in my face for it. But I daresay that was actually interesting. 3 stars.

Episodes like this are why this is one of the very worst shows on television. If House Of The Dragon is worse, it's not by much.

There is no restraint or decorum. Or even a sense of fair play. It's just nonstop horribleness designed to push the audience's buttons. It is one of the most immoral TV shows I have ever seen.

I mean Starfire breaking into that guy's lab and beating him up and torturing him is bad enough. But when he starts to die horribly, she doesn't even TRY to help. These monsters aren't heroes. It's sick the producers are trying to claim this group of sociopaths belong to that specific genre. It's disgusting.

By the way, the show does a couple of "surprise" reveals of gory dead bodies. But are they REALLY a surprise? Are we supposed to believe those rotting corpses didn't give off a foul smell announcing their presence? If the show were simply immoral trash that would be one thing. Torchwood was that and part of me respected it for it. This is just stupid and badly written by people who are unintelligent, and don't know the first thing about either reality, how people behave, or how to write a basic, decent story.

I am appalled. Per usual. 0.

The fact that every single random civilian on this show is always brutally murdered is why this show is utterly immortal. I believe each death you show in fiction makes a statement. And the statement Titans constantly tells me is it's written by a bunch of sociopaths. If this were a horror movie that would be one thing. But it's not.

And the characters are SO stupid. Not just Kori for messing with the box, but why did the prison guards set up a meeting between Dick and Jinx outside? Dick telling them not to let her feet touch the ground is something they should already know. And she's supposedly been in solitary since she was locked up? How dumb are the writers? Solitary is actually torture that drives people insane. Her having her wits about her says the writers are outright stupid and know nothing about anything.

I'm tired of bashing this show. I wish it was canceled. *.

I liked this week. And I feel like since I talk so much crap about the show I really should be doing an in-depth review for an episode I liked.

But my liking is provisional, and the things I responded to (like Jinx gleefully and gruesomely killing Zombie Deathstroke) were not elements I expect to be repeated. But I feel like I owe fans of this show a longer review for an episode I liked after bashing it so long and so harshly. But my feeling was basically I liked it because it didn't screw anything up. I'm a pretty easy to please viewer when it comes down to it. So I'm sorry I can't do this huge complimentary deconstruction. Just know I found few faults with it.

Which isn't nothing. This positive review is on the record. ***1/2.

Last week I gave the show a positive review because it was a rare week that didn't piss me off. This is another week, and two in a row is both unusual and encouraging, but I'm shying away from giving it a positive grade. I'm happy I'm not infuriated, but the truth is my standards need to be a little higher than "That didn't piss me off." Outside of the fun Gar as the virus stuff I found the episode a little boring. Again, I prefer that to the atrocious mess the series routinely is, but really, I do watch a LOT of shows that don't offend me with higher quality than this. I'll consider it a partial victory I'm not steaming this week. But it's not a full one, and I don't think demanding an episode that isn't just decent, but well, GOOD, should be an impossible ask.

You might consider this a bit unfair on my end considering the crap I let slide on other shows. The thing is when other shows I watch deliver an episode like this, I tend to consider it a weak episode. This was only a good week for Titans if I grade it on the curve. And I'm not as willing to do that anymore, at least not week in and week out. Some standards DO need to exist.

But all in all, I AM glad I am not pissed off. Partial credit. **1/2.

I am not very comfortable liking and praising this show and feel more comfortable disliking it and criticizing it.

I felt very comfortable this week.

Aside from the ridiculous Connor stuff, I think the most ridiculous part of the episode is Mother Mayhem somehow convincing Sebastian the world needed to be destroyed because he had to give up his room and share his Game Boy with a sick girl, and because he had to take a remedial computer class. Apparently, yes, this show IS that dumb.

Hating this show is more in my wheelhouse. I'm glad I could bash it this week. *1/2.

I was bored with this. It didn't help that I saw the latest amazing episode of Star Trek Picard before this either. It was bad, but that probably made it seem worse than it was in comparison.

I don't think much of Dick for getting taken down by three Podunk sheriff / deputies. While we are keeping score as to why Dick sucks so much.

Ugh. 1 1/2 stars.

This show is pretty much impossible to like. Any time it does something remotely resembling decency, it soon goes 10 times harder in the other direction of nihilism and despair. Still the worst DC TV show to ever exist, and probably the worst DC project in general too. And the messed up thing is that compared to the rest of the series, the episode is merely mediocre. Fans of this show would probably find it tolerable, which just blows my freaking mind. 1 star.

The show needed that. For that matter I needed that.

My reviews were late this week. Because of this show. There is no sugarcoating that fact. I enjoyed the amazing series finale of Star Trek: Picard, and decided I wasn't going to allow this show to make me furious and ruin that good feeling I had yesterday. And when I woke up, and ostensibly could safely watch this, I still put it off. I just did NOT want to watch it. I had no idea it would be a good episode, much less dealing with the Multiverse, but I just couldn't bring myself to suffer through this again.

I don't expect this or next week to turn the show around, or change my dark opinion about it. But this will probably help me power through to the end.

I was in a similar moment of crisis with Riverdale in the third season. I was constantly unhappy with that show, and just hated feeling enraged week after week. I stopped watching that show, which is unusual for me once I've put in a commitment. The problem is it was less easy to do for Titans. Not just because of its ties to the DC Multiverse (which it proved its bonafides here) but because it's the final batch of episodes from the final season. Quitting now would mean I wasted all that time for nothing. Even if the series finale were to suck (and I expect it will) I would feel better about how terrible this show makes me feel if I got there.

I had similar problems with the last seasons of both House M.D. and The Office. Both of those so-so shows utterly imploded in their farewell seasons and I didn't feel I had the luxury to quit them, no matter how bad they were after the years I invested in them before the shows destroyed themselves. I feel that way about Titans. This Multiverse crossover helps though. Big time.

I'm glad Geoff Johns wrote it. A different writer than him, when visiting Stargirl's Universe, would have her dropping f-bombs because of the format change just to provide contrast for the Universes. Utterly unnecessary, and the fact that that DOESN'T happen makes the cameo and transition into that Universe feel very seamless and unobtrusive. A LOT of Multiverse stuff also occurred in the timestream. Them trying to include cartoons into the Multiverse at large is something I'm not really crazy about, but in fairness, I believe the comics already said every DC story, no matter the medium, was a part of the DC Multiverse, so maybe I'm wrong.

The tag with Cyborg and waffles was pretty great too.

This is the first live-action appearance of fan favorite DC hero B'wana Beast. He's a fan-favorite because he's very easy to make fun of. I'm disappointed he isn't CALLED B'wana Beast here to be honest. I don't know if it was rights issue or not. I hope they didn't decline to call him that simply because the name is silly. The entire character is silly, and the show trying to treat him seriously is doing it pretty unsuccessfully.

I've heard of The Green in the DC Universe, but not The Red. Although, when it comes to actual concepts and plotlines from DC Comics, I actually know very little.

I'm glad that was good. That will help me to get along until the series finale. I don't think I'll ever like this show. But this episode occurring when it did means I'll probably be able to endure it to the finale. And that was sorely needed for me. I didn't see how I could have done it otherwise. ****.

To be fair I didn't actually see last week's great episode as any sort of turning point, and I assumed the show would be back to sucking soon enough. But I'm disappointed it's the very next episode.

It's not all bad. Goofing around with the Doom Patrol is fun, but I'm dismayed how we got zero wrap-up for them, or even confirmation which Universe they were from. I liked the moment where Kori says she doesn't hate Sebastian, she just loves what he's trying to destroy.

I liked Connor acting like Connor again (the trick with the apple was neat) and although the guy who plays Sebastian is a good actor, the things they are asking him to do are kind of cringe. He could definitely pull off awesome if they gave him awesome. But they aren't giving him awesome.

Sorry to say I'm not invested in Tim and Bernard at this point in time. And Dick and Rachel's stuff sucked.

I think the most annoying part of the episode for me was at the beginning with the Mother just berating Sebastian for his weakness and how much he sucks. Um, Babe? Maybe don't say that while he's still more powerful than YOU and can roast you at the drop of a hat. This is why I hate bad guys in genre. They are so dumb the heroes succeeding barely feels like an actual victory.

Eh. Not liking this. **.

Boring and dreary. On-brand for this show.

Why the HELL is Barb actually secretly working with Jason? I DID like Jason saying Tim would be a better Robin than him.

When Dick starts talking about the darkness that consumes you I tune out. It's not just the worst of this show. It's the worst of all superhero stuff.

Crappy week. *.

It's very hard for me to believe or understand how a legit show ever thought that would be an acceptable series finale. It was worse than Game Of Thrones.

The last 15 minutes or so of wrap-up wasn't actually terrible, but it went on too long.

Whatever. It was a bad episode of the worst DC show of all time. I expected nothing less. *.