Get an inside glimpse at Powers, Sony’s first PlayStation original

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With these stars onboard, Powers has a good chance of being great. Photo: PlayStation Originals
With these stars onboard, Powers has a good chance of being great. Photo: PlayStation Originals

There’s less than a month left before Sony’s first original television show airs on its flagship video game brand, PlayStation.

Based on Eisner award-winning comic Powers by Brian Michael Bendis (Daredevil, X-Men) and Michael Avon Oeming (B.P.R.D., The Mice Templar), the new show will air exclusively on the PlayStation platform, bypassing traditional distribution methods and heading straight for the gut of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video services.

It’s got an all-star cast and an intellectual property as wildly popular as The Walking Dead, a comic that AMC took and build a successful cable show around.

The creators of Powers hope they can do the same thing, of course, but it will no doubt be an uphill battle, with fewer PlayStation consoles than cable subscriptions in US households.

The show itself brings Sharlto Copley (District 9, Elysium) on as Detective Christian Walker, a former Superman-like who’s lost his powers. He now serves as a detective in the Los Angeles police department, investigating other superheroes who fall afoul of the law.

His young new partner is Deena Pilgrim, played by relative newcomer Susan Heyward (Mother of George, Poltergeist), who will have to negotiate her way around LAPD politics, race and gender issues, as well as dealing with her PTSD-afflicted partner, just to stay afloat.

Topping it all off is Eddie Izzard (Dress to Kill, Ocean’s Thirteen) as villain Wolfe and Michelle Forbes (Battlestar Galactica, True Blood) as Power Girl, another superhero with ties to Walker.

The PlayStation production allows the creative team to go a little grittier than you might see on a standard cable show, which should serve this R-rated comic storyline well.

Here’s hoping we get more than a pilot and couple of episodes and that Sony lets this show find its footing, regardless of the initial “ratings,” which may or may not matter on a brand-owned show like this.

Bottom line, it’s great to see a favorite comic get the television show treatment, even if it will initially play to a smaller, video gaming audience. You’ll need a PlayStation Plus membership to see it, but if you’re already a member, you’re golden.

Source: PlayStation

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