hollywood q&a
By Adam Thomlison
TV Media
Q: I’ve started watching
the “Flash” TV show, and I
remember watching anoth-
er one back in the ‘80s. That
got me wondering, which
superhero has been on the
most shows?
A: Marvel’s heroes — Cap-
tain America, the Incredible
Hulk and company — may be
getting most of the attention
on the big screen, but the small
screen has always been domi-
nated by competing comic
publisher DC. In particular, it’s
been a Superman’s world.
But you don’t have to take
my word for it. No less an
authority than the Guinness
World Records organization
has kept track, and the Man of
Steel holds the record for the
most-portrayed superhero on
live-action TV.
Superman has been played
by several different actors,
starting with the great George
Reeves in “The Adventures
of Superman” from 1952 to
1958. More recently, Dean
Cain played him in “Lois &
Clark: The New Adventures of
Superman” from 1993 to 1997,
and Tom Welling played him in
CW’s “Smallville” from 2001
to 2011.
And those were just the
shows that were specifically
about him. Superman has also
showed up in guest spots in
“Superboy” (1988 to 1992)
and most recently in the whole
pack of ongoing DC shows
on the CW network — “Su-
pergirl,” “Arrow” and (spoiler
alert if you haven’t gotten this
far yet) “The Flash.”
By comparison, your buddy
the Flash has had less success.
Though the current series is do-
ing pretty well on CW, recently
wrapping its fifth season, the
previous iteration you mention
(which actually aired in 1990)
only lasted a season on CBS.
Note that this is just the
live-action stuff, too — Super-
man has shown up in loads of
animated series as well.
Q: Anderson Cooper
released a documentary
called “Nothing Left Un-
said.” Will it be available for
rental on Netflix? I hope so.
12 | Screentime
A: The short answer is no,
but of course there’s a longer
answer. There always is with
Netflix.
“Nothing Left Unsaid,” CNN
personality Anderson Cooper’s
documentary about his famous
mom, Gloria Vanderbilt, was
produced by and aired on HBO
in 2016. That’s a big roadblock
right there, because HBO is try-
ing to get its own web-based
TV service going, called HBO
Go.
For that reason, HBO has
been reluctant to make any of
its content available on Netf-
lix — they want to make it so
that if you want to watch any
of HBO’s headline-grabbing
content online, be it “Game of
Thrones” or “Westworld” or
“Nothing Left Unsaid,” you
have to do it via HBO Go.
But of course, things change
(this is where the answer starts
getting long) — Netflix is
famously cutting new deals for
content all the time. The Starz
series “Outlander” was win-
ning fans for four seasons be-
fore the network finally agreed
just a few weeks ago to put it
up on Netflix.
Your use of the word
“rental” makes the answer
even longer, because it means
you could be referring to Net-
flix’s surprisingly persistent
DVD business. The company
actually got started by renting
DVDs by mail, and not only is
that wing still running, but it
has some HBO content in its
catalog (presumably, because
HBO isn’t offering a DVD busi-
ness, it’s not as worried about
the competition). But it doesn’t
have “Nothing Left Unsaid.”
There are reasons for hope,
though. America’s fascination
with the Vanderbilt family has
lasted generations, and its fas-
cination with Anderson Cooper
has made him a multi-platform
superstar, so interest in this doc-
umentary should remain high
for a while. And in the mean-
time, the streaming-TV land-
scape is changing all the time,
with new Netflix competitors
launching and crashing along
with their exclusivity deals.
Have a question? Email us
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Please include your name and
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May 29, 2019 | East Oregonian and Hermiston Herald
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Murray Bartlett and Laura Linney in a scene from
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By Shona Dustan
TV Media
NEW ON NETFLIX:
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If you’ve never seen it, you can watch the first two seasons of Netflix
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Kiefer Sutherland as seen in “Designated Survivor”