TV SERIES Review: Stargirl S1E5 – Hourman and Doctor Mid-Nite ⭐️⭐️

7 years ago a young boy named Rick is left by his parents with his uncle … and attacked

Season 1
DC Universe / CW
June 14, 2020 @ 9:00pm PT (GMT-8)

Episode 5 – Hourman and Doctor Mid-Nite

Every Sunday night on the west coast in the United States at 9pm PT, a new episode of Stargirl!

Opens 7 years ago, a young boy named Rick being left by his parents with his uncle, moments later on a country road they have a fateful encounter with one of the Injustice League.

Present day and Courtney and Pat are stranded on the side of the road when an older Rick is walking by. Court notices an hourglass starts to glow yellow in her duffel bag in the presence of Rick.

She pulls it out and realizes that he is, in fact, Hourman.

Beth Chapel, a teenager, stops by Court’s house and is wrongly assumed to be a trick or treater by Court’s mom. She invites herself into the house — annoying, yes — and Court’s room, only to find and put on these special green all-knowing exposition glasses. Court comes home and discovers Beth with the glasses and confronts her.

Beth, with the amazing exposition powers of the glasses points out that Rick’s father was Rex Tyler, known as Hourman.

Pat is figuring out the same on his own, based on Rick mentioning a yellow car.

The three girls — Court, Wildcat Yolanda and Beth — not in uniform except for Beth with the green goggles, decide to go to a Halloween party to confront Rick. There’s underage drinking and bad dance music. One of the mean girls from a past episode is in attendance in costume as a vampire. Dude throws up and Court grabs his Gremlins mask and gives the hourglass to Rick. Letting him know that the hourglass gave Hourman super strength for one hour a day. One Rick puts it on the power courses through him…

Summary

Another origin story episode introducing Hourman and Beth with a sprinkling of Dr. Mid-Nite. Pretty much hated the green goggles, because they are a terribly obvious macguffin. Rick? Unlikable. Beth? Annoying and unlikable. Wildcat Yolanda? Less than five minutes of screen time. Pat? Wandering around as sort of a bad Watson to Court’s Sherlock Holmes/Stargirl.

Maybe it’s just me that feels this way, but I want to watch a superhero show to see the superhero. One of my favorite TV shows based on a comic, The Incredible Hulk always delivered at least two moments where Dr. Banner turns into Hulk. I’d like to be able to depend on Stargirl to get that costume on and do something. We do get to see a couple minutes of Stargirl and Wildcat in costume, so I suppose the writers are trying to make a similar storyline fit, but the underlying story, or rather mostly backstory, is underwhelming.

Wildcat does nothing except stand beside Stargirl. Green goggle Beth is there to dump plot points like some sort of green Google. Sure hope that Court gets out of build Stargirl team mode and goes back to kicking butt.

Sloppy, lazy writing, lackluster origin story episode and … well, we get the entire episode’s plot in the first few minutes. No surprises, almost no action and, well, no thanks. Didn’t care for this episode and don’t recommend.

Overall episode rating: ⭐️⭐️