Naomi is 5 episodes in and it’s clear there are problems. What started quite strong in terms of live ratings, sitting on just over 800k, has now dropped to almost half at 479k for the latest episode. That’s quite a drop in numbers. You can see the source by clicking here.
Look, I’m going to be honest. The one thing that sets Comic Universe apart is I’m not afraid to give my brutally honest opinion, but the show’s trash. It has potential, yes. But 5 episodes I see no signs of the show improving.
We have reviewed all 5 episodes and at present, the show is averaging 5.7, with the latest episode being our joint lowest ever reviewed episode at 1.4/10. It’s not just ourselves but a lot of critics are hitting the same ratings. IMDB on average is 5.4 which is slightly less than ours.
I have a few pointers as to why I just don’t like this show. I will split them into sections to make them easier to keep on track.
1. Naomi just isn’t an interesting character
Before this show, I never heard of her. That’s not a bad thing per se as there’s an abundance of characters I’ve never heard of, but 5 episodes in you expect to resonate with the star character and I don’t. I simply don’t care. I don’t care about the backstory, the present day, her powers. I’m not just being harsh but the show hasn’t done enough on her character for me to actually care. This is a pointer that can change with better direction but as of right now, I’m bored.
2. We actually don’t know a whole lot more now than we did in episode 1
The show has had this annoying habit of subliminally telling us parts of the show, without bothering to tell us. In episode 1 we knew Naomi is an alien, we know she has powers, we know Dee is also an alien, and he has powers too. We also kind of knew her parents knew about it.
But, 5 episodes in a lot of questions raised still haven’t been answered. Why is she here? Who’s the villain? What’s Dee’s story? What’s going on with Zumbado? What are Naomi’s actual powers in the show? What is the military doing? What does the disc do with the writing? Granted, some of those questions may be answered a little but it certainly doesn’t feel like it.
You could also say I’m being premature as it’s only 5 episodes in but we’re meant to be in full swing at this point. In Superman & Lois for example, we knew who the villain was pretty quickly and where Superman was at with his life. In this, I’m lost. Literally lost.
Let’s look at episode 5 from 4. In episode 4 we got our first fight between Dee and the Bounty Hunter. It began to get spicy, then in episode 5 they piss off to camp and a completely unnecessary story is told. They didn’t really touch base on what happened in episode 4 and then decided to give us an episode that had nothing to do with what was going on. It was horrendously poor.
3. Where’s the action?
Even Arrow’s season 4 soap opera had more action. We’ve had ONE fight in 5 episodes. The action is non-existent. This is a superhero show. It comes to something when the fight between Dee and the Bounty Hunter has been the best part of the show so far and the fight wasn’t anything special.
They introduced Adam Blaine, who himself got into a fight. He has an interesting arsenal of powers but instead of showing us the fight, it happened off-screen. Why? That would have been entertaining as hell. It’s the same story as Superman in episode 1. We never got any of that, and as a viewer and hardcore fan of superheroes, it’s just blatantly obvious they don’t have the full rights or budget to use Superman. It reminds me of Deadpool 1 when Deadpool mentions none of the cast is in the movie because the studio couldn’t afford it.
4. A lot of the side characters are not interesting either
I couldn’t even tell you the names of her friends. Maybe Nathan, the one who plays football (soccer for our USA readers). That’s it. Her friends are just there and they do nothing significant to make them stand out. They just seem there to fill in for the time when I really couldn’t care less about them. I want to see Naomi train with Dee and get to the point, not pondering around camp chasing down a stupidly irrelevant ghost story.
5. As of now, the story doesn’t make sense
This may be down to the questions not being answered but as a viewer, I’m left confused. Even after the latest episode that Dee and Zumbado know each other very well and have also worked together previously. This is odd because we know Zumbado and Naomi have had two altercations where it got intense which Dee knew about. He’s barely brought it up to Zumbado. Also, Naomi is meant to run a Superman fan website, where has that gone? It felt like she was this major Superman fan in episode 1 and now it’s never mentioned, considering Superman is meant to be a big part of Naomi’s character.
6. The show is boring
This section is just straight to the point. The show’s boring. It offers nothing of value or entertainment. Again, being brutally honest, this show doesn’t deserve my time. I will stick with it at this point until the end of the season but my hopes for the show having huge potential are just dashed. I can understand The CW wanted to sway away from the usual Arrowverse shows but this proves by changing their formula doesn’t work.
I would have much rather it be like The Flash and Arrow where we know everything in episode 1 and can move forward with the story instead of constant questions wondering about what happened prior to the show. The fact Painkiller and The Green Arrow and the Canaries were canceled, and a Wonder Girl project scrapped then we get this, it’s disheartening.
Some positivity
I do these articles at times out of frustration, especially when I feel like I’ve wasted my time. I’m not saying the show is beyond poor to the point it’s unwatchable. The potential is there, they have a good ground, a solid cast, they need to work with that. They can easily turn this around. Stop leaving us hanging with questions, get in with the action, and stick to the main story.
I believe there are only 13 episodes of this season which seems to be the new better way The CW is going. The fact we’re already nearly halfway through with nothing amazing happening isn’t great. There are still 8 episodes left so I have full hopes the show can redeem itself. After all, look at the state of Batwoman during season 2, and season 3 has been a masterpiece so far.
Because the character is still relatively unknown, the safer bet would have been to stick to the original formula The CW is used to. Superman & Lois took a slightly different route but we know who Superman and Lois are, we know their stories. It can work to take risks with those but not with a character that is still very new.
