Most prequels are met with disinterest or frustration and there’s a reason for that. In most cases, prequels like The Phantom Menace feel unnecessary because we already know the “end,” which is where the original story picked up. For long-running TV shows like Smallville and Gotham, the show will keep pushing away the “ending,” delaying it to a frustrating degree. In both cases, the show started changing and contradicting the original story until it became its own universe. Then there are the knowing winks and cameos to storylines and characters that can become more annoying than entertaining. In the worst case scenarios, prequels can actually make the original story seem worse. All this is known as “prequelitis,” defined as “when prequels suck.”
Of course, some prequels have bucked the trend. Star Wars: Rogue One was an awesome prequel because they introduced new characters and settings that we didn’t know the outcome for. Star Trek’s rebooted movie series changed history so they could ignore canon and timelines. It looks like SyFy’s Krypton has taken a tip from the latter.
Krypton owes a lot to Gotham in that it’s set in the past home of a famous hero, this time Superman. Set two hundred years before the destruction of Krypton and birth of Kal-El, it revolves around Superman’s grandfather, Seg-El. Superman’s House of El, has been shamed and Seg-El fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his beloved world from chaos.
We weren’t too excited about Krypton – who wants to see a show about Superman without Superman – until we heard a crucial plot point – time travel.
[Spoiler for the Pilot]
In the very first episode, Seg-El is visited by Adam Strange, a time traveler who tells the Kryptonian about Superman and warns that Brainiac is coming to stop the superhero from existing. That one element can save the show. It sets up that this series could be an alternate reality where things turn out different. It gives the threat that Superman (the so-called “ending”) might not happen. It also makes us wonder about the outcome. Maybe Seg-El becomes Superman. Maybe Krypton never gets destroyed. Then there’s the moral dilemma of whether Seg-El should allow Krypton to be destroyed to let Superman save the universe. In other words, it gives us a reason to watch besides “Hey, this is what happened before Superman.”
We like it.
What do you think of Krypton? Let us know in the comments!
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