Here at TWoP, we bitch a lot about Smallville and Heroes, with their dull characters and their hackneyed and/or convoluted plotlines, but maybe we should stop being so surprised that they're terrible. Because while superhero comedies are usually hysterical (if short-lived -- see The Tick and The Middleman), superhero dramas are often the worst things on television. We looked back on over a decade of terrible super-powered TV, and found that most of the time, we really didn't need a hero.
Blade: The Series (2006)
If they were going to turn the Blade franchise into a TV series, they probably should have done it before the weak third film, where Blade ran around in a turtleneck the entire time. Also, and this may just be the drugs talking, maybe you should cast an experienced dramatic actor in the role, and not a rapper named "Sticky Fingaz." No offense to Mista Fingaz.
Birds of Prey (2002)
"Hey let's make a TV show about Gotham City, except Batman and Catwoman aren't available, since they're making movies, so we'll take the names of some other DC comics superheroes and assign them randomly to teenage girls! True, they won't be anything like the characters in the comics, except for Batgirl, who we'll inexplicably get totally right, but they'll fight the Joker's girlfriend, because that's the most threatening female villain we can find. Oh, and Alfred the Butler is in it. It'll be great!"
Night Man (1997)
Take Batman, but give him floppy hair, a big red eye and the ability to fly around like Superman, and you've got quite possibly the lamest superhero ever. Star Matt McColm could do little to make us care about this lame-o, which makes the two seasons it existed fairly remarkable. The guest appearance by Manimal didn't help, either.
M.A.N.T.I.S. (1994)
He's a wheelchair-bound scientist by day, and an exo-suit wearing superhero by night! If only the Mechanically Automated NeuroTransmitter Interactive System had been able to stimulate viewers at home, the show wouldn't have had to change so much during its run, losing characters and slashing budgets until the hero was finally killed by an invisible dinosaur.
Witchblade (2001)
By dressing this normally scantily clad superheroine in jeans and a leather jacket, the producers managed to take away everything that was interesting about the original comic book character. Namely, her constant near-nudity.
The Flash (1990)
One of the only actually good superhero TV dramas, the only thing holding this dark, gritty show back was the creepily detailed muscles on John Wesley Shipp's superhero suit. That, and the fact that the main character could mainly just run fast.
Black Scorpion (2001)
With all of the great superheroes out there to base TV shows on, was it really necessary to make a series out of one of Roger Corman's S&M dreams, a movie that starred erotic film legend Joan Severance as a leather-clad dominatrix-type? Yes? Well, okay then.
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993)
This show is like a worst-case scenario for what Smallville is going to look like in a few years. And if you thought the constant romantic back-and-forth between Lois and Clark on Smallville was annoying, imagine them getting engaged, and one of them being Teri Hatcher.
The Crow: Stairway to Heaven (1998)
We know the whole point of this guy is that he comes back from the dead, but four movies and 22 episodes worth of him and his little girl sidekick made us wonder if life was worth living. A shame, because we usually love Mark Dacascos.
Were you a fan of one of these shows? Any Mutant X fans out there? No? Didn't think so.
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