Krypton was born to die.
It lived on as a source of Earthly intrigue.
The murderous green rock came from Krypton.
Credit: Gavin Bond/Syfy
The murderous terraforming terrorist came from Krypton.
The puppy with a red cape came from Krypton.
So the dead planet was also a toy box, with kryptonite in every color.
SyfysKrypton(debuting Wednesday at 10 p.m.) takes place on the titular rock 200 years before Superman.
And it argues that, 200 years before Superman, Krypton was boring.
This world is antiseptic and violent, emotionless and brutal.
Seg is trying to redeem his family.
The House of El has fallen on hard times, and things get harder in theKryptonpilot.
Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos) is a time-traveling Earthman holding Supermans cape.
He tells Seg-El about his grandson.
Its an oddly pointless premise for a show save Krypton now so it can explode later!
and it distracts from the stuff that should feel vital.
Shes also Segs lover, but the best scenes in the five episodes Ive seen belong to her.
Theres a sequence in the third episode involving her squad that winds up portraying police brutality.
Shes ably assisted by Ann Ogbomo as Jayna Zod, Lytas mother and commanding officer.
Their scenes together crackle with energy, even if they always have the exact same argument.
But the Zods cant saveKrypton.
If youre any kind of Superman fan, stick toSupergirl.
If youre a science-fiction head desperate for some weird alien worlds,Kryptonfeels hermetic, gray, unfun.
(At least onCaprica,people wore cool hats.)
But if youre willing to read some deep meaning into shallow waters, theres something terribly poignant aboutKrypton.
Man of Steelopened with an overextended Kryptonian prologue, andKryptoncan be understood as an overextension of that extension.
Key elements ofMan of Steelare replicated with odd precision.
He met a hologram of his dead father, played by Russell Crowe.
In theKryptonpilot, Seg travels to the same Fortress of Solitude in a different icy wasteland.
Other aspects ofMan of Steelrecur, in specific or ambient ways.
That dumb little command key which so tormented Lois Lane reappears.
And the one decent thing aboutKryptonis how its Zods explore more ambiguous layers of duty and justice.
Theyre a family of stormtroopers passionately devoted to a society they know is partially (or entirely) broken.
The Zods are also, it must be said, ultraviolent characters.
At the end of her combat, Lyta is victorious, and her opponent is beaten.
And then she snaps his neckthe same way Superman killed General Zod at the end ofMan of Steel.
Snyder was building a whole cinematic universe.
The director was planning twoJustice Leaguemovies, and the studio demoted that plan to one.
Wrong to say that the Snyderverse is over.
Snyder carries a Story By credit onWonder Woman, the most universally beloved of the recent DC films.
But its not clear how involved hell be as a producer on the second film.
Snyder developed the look of Jason Momoas Aquaman, starring in his own movie this year.
Viewed against this background, theres something terribly poignant aboutKrypton.
You must keep that flame alive.
Pass it on to the next generation.
The man saying these words is dead.
Hes saying these words on a planet that is famously dead.
And death was a constant fixation of Snyders films.
(Conventional wisdom holds that Whedon shot that scene, and probably any scene where Superman smiles.)
The show recreatesMan of Steels Kryptonian sensibility, androidal gene-fascism awkwardly stacked on top of ancient-empire bloodlust.
