Recent Posts
Categories
Follow us on Twitter
My TweetsNow Watching
Russ:
Fringe, The Flash, Gotham, Parks and Rec, Psych
Caer:
Twelve Monkeys, Utopia (UK), The Americans, Arrow, Twin Peaks
Netflix and Marvel are teaming up to bring four new superhero shows to viewers, showcasing characters that are not as popular in the comics pantheon. The first of these shows, Daredevil, saw its digital premier this weekend, with all 13 episodes in the first season releasing at once. One 13-hour binge watching session later, it’s clear that this is a good show. Good, but not great. It has a lot of action, a lot of fighting and a lot of fantastic stunts, but it also spends a lot of time standing around talking. For this, the source material is to blame: Daredevil simply isn’t that exciting of a superhero. By day he’s a lawyer and by night he’s a vigilante who is simply human, with all the vulnerabilities that anyone else would have. Still, if you liked Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, this is a show that you’ll enjoy – only the names were really changed.
Matt Murdock, the main character, was struck blind in an accident as a child. He pushed a man out of the way of an incoming truck, and then got dowsed in the hazardous chemicals that the truck was carrying. These chemicals may have blinded him, but they also enhanced his other senses. As a result, he became incredibly sensitive to the smallest sounds, changes in air currents, the slightest fluctuations in temperature and the like. He developed a way to see the world around him without seeing it.
His father was an amateur boxer who was in on a scheme to rig fights, and he would often lose intentionally as a way to earn extra cash. After Matt’s accident, his father decides he wants to be a hero to his son for once, and wins a fight he was supposed to lose. The men rigging the fight lose a lot of money because of it, and have him killed, orphaning Matt. While at the orphanage, Matt meets a man called “Stick” who is also blind and who teaches him how to utilize his remaining senses as a fighting technique. Matt eventually becomes a lawyer and returns to where he grew up, the Hell’s Kitchen area of New York. He begins patrolling in the night, using his super hearing to listen for crimes in progress that he can stop. While he starts with petty crime, he soon ends up involved in a battle for the entirety of Hell’s Kitchen, thanks to a case he gets hired onto in the course of his day job. The Russian, Chinese and Japanese mafias are all working together under the leadership of a man named Wilson Fisk – known in the comics as Daredevil’s greatest adversary, “Kingpin” – and Matt is determined to keep his home safe.
The show does a good job of balancing Matt’s nighttime activities with his daytime life, as well as the lives of his friends and allies. His law partner and best friend Foggy Nelson, along with their secretary Karen Page and journalist Ben Urich, spend their days working to take down Kingpin using the legal system, not knowing that Matt is spending his nights working outside of the system to accomplish the same goal. At the same time, the show also gives viewers an in-depth look at Kingpin himself. It looks at his background being abused by his father, explores his motivations behind attempting to take over the area (spoilers: his motives are actually noble, though his methods are underhanded), and it even shows his warmth in dealing with those he loves. In many ways, Kingpin comes off as a more believable and likable character than the titular hero.
Normally, when a show has this many moving parts, it’s hard to keep all of the plates in the air at once. Daredevil manages to keep them aloft by not overreaching with any of them. The characters are not one dimensional by any means, but most do stop at two dimensions. This problem is likely due to the limited number of episodes, and will be corrected with a second season. The plot mostly revolves around the characters finding some new piece of information and then hiding from or getting roughed up by Kingpin’s men until that information can be put to use while Daredevil is either beating up gang members or getting beaten up badly himself. The show does shine during the action sequences, though, and anyone who is a fan of watching acrobatic fighting maneuvers as one man takes out an entire army of gang members will love this show for that. It just begins to feel formulaic and repetitive after a while.
The show is being praised by many for being darker and grittier than anything else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it is at that. It is the first Marvel product to get a Mature rating on television. This fits with the tenor of the comics; Daredevil is more of an antihero akin to Punisher or Batman than he is a hero like the MCU has given audiences so far. This is a trend that is likely to continue in the upcoming Netflix/Marvel shows, as Jessica Jones has a rather dark history, as does Luke Cage. However, just because it is dark and gritty and mature does not mean that it is a great show. That’s not to say it’s bad, and it is, in fact, a good series. However, it is being overhyped due to its realism as stacked next to other Marvel properties, and that is praise it simply does not deserve.
I recommend Daredevil to anyone who likes the Dark Knight trilogy because that is the mental comparison I made throughout every episode. I recommend it for those who like shows based on comics, particularly if you plan to watch the other upcoming Netflix/Marvel shows leading up to the Defenders miniseries. I recommend it for anyone who just likes to watch action and violence. I do not recommend it for anyone who doesn’t like these things or who is just looking for a new crime procedural or cop drama. This is so much more and so much less than that.
Daredevil is a Netflix original series that began streaming on April 10, 2015. It stars Charlie Cox, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Vondie Curtis-Hall and Vincent D’Onofrio.
With the winter hiatus upon us and a lack of new episodes until mid-January at the earliest, now seems like a good time to take a look back at one of this season’s newest gems. Constantine premiered late in the season in the timeslot vacated for Hannibal’s season break. NBC didn’t stray far in swapping out the two shows – they’re comparable in terms of blood, mystery and number of gnawed on humans. Production on Constantine’s inaugural season halted after only four episodes had aired. However, right around the time of the fifth episode, things started picking up. Viewership increased, ratings went up and the plot began to truly resonate with the audience. Unfortunately, because the show hit its stride after the decision was made to halt production, we may only get to see the 13 episodes already made before this show is gone. That is, unless it picks up more in ratings and viewership. So, here’s why your date night on Friday, January 16th should involve a date with your couch and an NBC show about a British detective… who hunts demons.
Constantine – based on DC Comics’ Hellblazer series – centers on supernatural detective John Constantine and his companions as they fight the often referenced “rising darkness.” John’s core support team is his seemingly immortal friend Chas Chandler and the clairvoyant mystery woman Zed Martin, both of whom appear in the original comics in some form. Heaven’s support of the team arrives in the form of an angel named Manny, whose cryptic clues often frustrate John onto the correct path. How can a show get more interesting than when it has a spellcasting detective, a psychic, an immortal and an angel fighting evil? You add in a haunting backstory, powerful and threatening villains, and easter egg allusions to other DC properties.
Harold Perrineau, Matt Ryan, Angélica Celaya and Charles Halford as Manny, John Constantine, Zed Martin and Chas Chandler respectively.
Though the show is based on a comic book line, it’s not a direct port to the screen. John’s backstory in the show is from an arc that happened early in the Hellblazer run, but the detective’s introduction to the supernatural world happened differently in the comics and the show. Constantine opens with John in a mental hospital after a trauma from years before – the accidental casting of a young girl’s soul into Hell – finally caught up with him. The show has done a good job of building on this background with each episode while not rubbing it in the audience’s face. In these first eight episodes, John has teamed up with a number of others who were a part of that exorcism gone wrong, all of whom are dealing with the psychological damage in their own way, from drinking to drugs to joining a convent. Meanwhile, the mystery of Zed – who saw visions of John before they met and who is learning from him how to control her clairvoyant powers – is dangled tantalizingly both in front of the audience and in front of John himself, as Zed refuses to share any details about her past.
To counter such a crack team as this, the forces of evil moving against them have to be compelling and believably strong. While the show has started as a “monster of the week” type show, using the phrase “rising darkness” as a catch-all for the things going bump in the night, the individual villains don’t feel forced or out of place in this story. The only antagonist to show up more than once so far is a character named Papa Midnite, though his motives tend more toward personal gain and less toward outright evil. Papa Midnite is another character straight from the comics, and he’ll likely make more appearances in the back half of this first season. While remaining free of spoilers, it should be noted that the presumed cause of the “rising darkness” is introduced in the eighth episode, the cliffhanger episode that aired leading into the hiatus.
One thing that makes tv shows based on comic books fun is the connection to the source material. With such a rich and extensive history to look at, fans who have read the comics have the opportunity to speculate on what might happen next based on what they know of the characters and plotlines already. Not only that, but the linked nature the DC universe allows for other popular characters to show up unexpectedly. While we likely won’t see Batman or Superman or any of the other big names of the Justice League on the show anytime soon, there have already been some hints toward the characters Dr. Fate (his helmet was in the first episode) and Swamp Thing (mentioned in a message if you call the phone number on John’s business card). Jim Corrigan, known to DC Comics fans as the man who becomes The Spectre upon his death, showed up in episode five; his return as The Spectre was hinted at through Zed’s clairvoyant visions. While this does give a little extra treat to those in the audience who have read the comics, not recognizing these add-ins doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the show at all.
Every show has its growing pains, but Constantine got them out of the way early. It has become a solid show that deserves more than one truncated season. With over 25 years of source material to draw from and a skilled cast to bring the characters to life, the only thing this show lacks is the dedicated fanbase and audience to keep it on the air. January 16th, the return from hiatus, will be a key night in deciding the future of this show. In the meantime, new viewers can catch up on Hulu and NBC.com. I highly recommend this show to anyone who is a fan of fantasy, science fiction, comics, horror movies or any good, character-driven dramas with witty and sarcastic humor.
Constantine stars Matt Ryan, Angélica Celaya, Charles Halford and Harold Perrineau and airs Fridays at 8/7c on NBC, at least for five more weeks.