The Graysons

The Graysons

Oct 01

This is getting yakked up all over the damn place, but it’s Wednesday and I’m tired and it feels good to just riff on something dumb and easy, so let’s have at it.

From Variety:

Holy prequel, Boy Wonder, the CW is prepping a series based on Batman sidekick Robin’s pre-Caped Crusader days.
“Smallville” exec producers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson, as well as “Supernatural” exec producer McG, are behind “The Graysons,” which has landed a put pilot commitment at the netlet.

Just as “Smallville” focused on Clark Kent in the years before he became Superman, “The Graysons” will follow the world of Dick “DJ” Grayson before he takes on the iconic Robin identity and aligns himself with Batman.

I do love Variety-speak. “Netlet.” So cute!

This show is naturally an awful idea. We don’t even have to discuss it to know that it is. Nerds like us smell the stench of death on a project with this level of idiocy from fifty paces. Were we together right now, physically in person like, we would exchange knowing glances, nod slightly, and move on with our lives. That’s just how we would roll.

And yet–again, the tiredness and the urge to riff overtake me.

I don’t understand what this show will have to do with Dick Grayson at all. I don’t think he’s going to be the teenage son of a pair of circus acrobats, although if the CW is really willing to commit development dollars to a show about a family of circus acrobats, then GOD BLESS THEM.

It might be cool if they slowly started to weave in Batman as the series went on, so that by the end of the first season, maybe Dick Grayson actually meets the caped crusader…but I seriously doubt that will happen. For one thing, Warners has a perfectly successful Batman film franchise going on right now that doesn’t really need to be polluted by some dumb hour-long drama.

For another thing, apparently the appeal of a show like this is the same as the appeal of a show like Smallville–the chance to witness absolutely pedestrian high school soap opera that just happens to star characters with the same names and possibly the same futures as comic book characters. Clark Kent on Smallville is Dawson Leery with heat vision. Which I guess will make Dick Grayson Pacey but with better athletic ability…?

It has never made sense to me, the appeal of Smallville, and if The Graysons is anything like it, that show will make no sense to me either. In fact, it may actually make LESS sense, since there won’t be any superpowers or sci-fi kerfuffle to at least give the show some minor geek appeal. It’ll just be a crappy CW drama, with a character who shares the same name as the first Robin.

I mean, shit–don’t they know Dan DiDio was gonna KILL the guy a couple years ago, because he couldn’t see the point? I’m no fan of the guy but he may have been onto something there. Hell, make a TV show out of Jason Todd–at least he started out as a homeless rapscallion stealing hubcaps off superhero vehicles. That could be a show.

This is not a show, but it will be a show. So, wonderful. I’m rooting for the CW, cause I need my One Tree Hill fix at this point, like a heroin addict needs his methadone. But damn, this is a stupid idea.

Unless they go this route, in which case, I WILL BE THERE EVERY WEEK WITHOUT FAIL:

(Image courtesy Night Graffiti)