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A review of “The Purge” Season 1 (2018)

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“The Purge” franchise continues to defy expectations after its move to television.  It still isn’t high art, and it probably can never fully transcend the high-camp trappings of its premise.  (I suppose it’s hard to script a truly grounded horror property about people in Halloween costumes murdering one another with impunity on a designated “holiday.”)  But, like the movies preceding it, the USA Network’s new dystopian horror show is still a bit smarter and more interesting you’d expect from its bizarre central plot conceit.

The 10-episode first season, which aired with seemingly little fanfare last fall, generally succeeds — I’d rate it an 8 out of 10, and I’ve spoken with a couple of other horror fan who were as happy with it as I was.  The people who recommended it to me are also big fans of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” (which has radically improved this season), and that makes sense.  Although “The Purge” has an entirely different feel than “The Walking Dead,” it also has a lot of common elements — both shows are milieu-type horror stories with a large, diverse group of characters negotiating a sprawling setting with innumerable deadly antagonists.

A surprising amount of thought went into this show.  There’s a nice degree of world-building and detail, with various characters embracing, rejecting or remaining ambivalent about the titular “Purge.”  The screenwriter here tries hard to round out the twisted America in which The Purge annually takes place, with a lot of creative and blackly cynical story elements.  (I’m not clear if the writer here is James DeMonaco, who wrote and directed the first three of the four “Purge” movies.)  We see, for example, a cult whose brainwashed members offer themselves up as willing murder victims, as well as anti-Purge revolutionaries who exploit the night to target the fascist oligarchical government which created the brutal holiday.  There are a lot of surprises in terms of plot, character and setting that I will not spoil here.

The gore and violence were surprisingly high for network television.  (Again, this show may be taking its cues from “The Walking Dead,” which always pushes the boundaries.)

Some of the acting is quite good — William Baldwin is absolutely superb, Lee Tergesen is always fun to watch, and the beautiful Hannah Emily Anderson is another talented standout.  I swore I recognized Fiona Dourif’s distinctive looks and mannerisms.  (She portrays the cunning cult leader who entices young people to sacrifice themselves, and I’ll be damned if she doesn’t totally look and sound the part.)  But, upon Googling her, I realized I’d never seen her before — she just reminds me of her father, who also plays a lot of bad guys — the amazing Brad Dourif.

Some of my enthusiasm for “The Purge” waned just a little as the season wound down toward its conclusion.  After Season 1’s unsettling ideas were left fully explored, the show did start to feel more like conventional television — right down to a standard good-guys-vs.-bad-guys shoot-em-up at its climax.  (If the show had fully sustained its tension until the end, I would have rated it a 9 out of 10.)  And the final minutes of Season 1 consist of a coda among three characters that is forced and preposterous … I’m surprised it made it past the editing stage.  But this still wasn’t enough to spoil the fun.

I should also note here that not everyone enjoyed “The Purge” as I and my friends did.  Critical and popular reaction to it is definitely mixed.  (As of this writing, the show has only a 42% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with just 63% of audiences liking it.)

Postscript — I could almost swear that the auditorium we see towards the end is the very same shooting location used for Thomas Smith’s school in “The Man in the High Castle.”  You can tell by the establishing shots.  It’s even lit the same way.

 

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A review of “The X-Files” Season 10

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I breaks my heart to say this, but 2016’s long-awaited return of “The X-Files” was not a triumphant one.  (Indeed, I am writing this review nearly two years after its conclusion because I only recently got around to watching the last of its six episodes.)  I’d rate the brief season a 4 out of 10 — the lowest rating I’ve ever given to a season of the show.

I hope this year’s Season 11 proves me wrong, but I’m finally starting to wonder of “The X-Files'” time has come and gone.  (This is coming from someone who was a lifetime fan.  I even thoroughly enjoyed seasons 7 through 9, which was when much of the show’s loyal fan-base began truly eroding between 1999 and 2002.)

So many of the show’s core elements seem outdated now.  The character arcs of its two heroes and their relationship were resolved seasons ago.  Its central overriding story arc — an elite cabal’s conspiracy about (and with) aliens — appears to have been milked for most or all all of its entertainment value.  And the show’s format of mixing a handful of “conspiracy episodes” with standalone “monster-of-the-week” episodes feels awkward compared with contemporary programs that better integrate multiple plot lines.  (Consider HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” for example, or even the various Netflix and television series that are part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.)

The truly fatal blow to “The X Files'” staying power, though, runs a bit deeper — network television just isn’t as positioned as it used to be to tell the scariest stories to a wide audience.  There is too much competition from sources less beholden to censorship or to the milquetoast sensibilities of mainstream appeal.  The first is easily accessible cable channels like HBO and AMC, which can shock viewers with visceral violence.  The second is subscription services like Netflix.

And third is simply the Internet at large, with its endless cornucopia of morbid or bizarre content.  “The X-Files” was created before the Internet was a common household utility.  Part of the show’s appeal was that it offered people the creepiest stories they’d watch anywhere anywhere outside of a movie theater.  And those stories at least seemed well researched by the program’s writers, who did a tremendous job for most of the show’s run.

Today’s Internet-connected entertainment marketplace is different.  No matter how much weirdness “The X Files” can pack into a 43-minute episode, the average consumer can find material online that is darker or more frightening in less time than that.  Compare the average “X-Files” episode, for example, to the array of material devoted to real-life “paranormal” subjects, like “Slender Man,” alleged UFO footage, or tragedies like the mysterious death of Elisa Lam.  (That last one is truly shudder-inducing.  Google it at your own peril.)

The only way a show like “The X-Files” can hope to compete is with excellent attention to tone, tension and character — something I thought that seasons 7 through 9 did pretty well with, despite a gradual fan exodus after David Duchovny’s awkward departure from the series.  Season 10 just didn’t follow suit.  It really was as though a range of previous “X-Files” episodes has been thrown in a blender, so that their component parts could be served yet again.  The conspiracy stuff, in particular, was poorly executed, too hastily paced, and just a bit too campy for my taste.  Mulder and Scully’s return was also too self-conscious — as though Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were reunited for a tongue-in-cheek reunion special.

It wasn’t all bad.  These two leads are always fun to watch.  The fourth episode was superb — “Home Again” served up both a creepy, macabre story and a meaningful character arc for Dana Scully.

Episode 3, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” was also fun enough.  But while a lot of other fans absolutely loved this humorous entry, I personally didn’t feel its central joke merited a full episode.  Besides, this particular twist has been done before, in a 1989 book by a well known speculative fiction author.  (I won’t name the book or the author here, in order to avoid spoilers.)

The rest of the episodes were … fair, I suppose.  Oh, well.

I’m thrilled that we’re currently being given Season 11 of “The X-Files.”  As someone who was a longtime fan, I never envisioned the show lasting this long, even after a hiatus of many years.  I just hope the show matures and grows in quality after this disappointing rebirth.

 

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A review of Season 2 of “The Exorcist” (2017)

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A show like “The Exorcist” must be difficult to write.  It stands in the shadow of some of horror’s greatest films (William Friedkin’s 1973 original and the third movie in 1990).  Its plot device is inevitably redundant.  (How many possessed innocents can we see strapped to beds while priests pray at them?)  It seems easy to stray into camp.  And it seems like a story concept that is tough to structure into a serialized format.

But the second season of “The Exorcist” was … fantastic.  It surpassed the first season, and I’d rate it a 9 out of 10.

The ten-episode arc wisely changes things up a bit from Season 1, which was maybe a bit too reminiscent of the films.  Our priestly dynamic duo are on the road in America’s northwest, and on the run from a Vatican that has been infiltrated by followers of the demon Pazuzu.  (As stupid as all of that sounds, the show actually depicts it quite well.)  As the story proceeds, there are a couple of surprise plot developments that will contradict most viewers’ expectations.  (I won’t spoil them here.)

The characters are all likable and all well played.  Ben Daniels remains possibly the show’s strongest asset as the senior priest; he’s just a superb actor.  John Cho also gives a fine performance as the head of a foster home where a demon runs amok.  Alfonso Herrera is quite good as the apprentice priest — his character is better written this time around, and isn’t saccharine to the point of annoyance.  And Herrera himself seems more comfortable in the role.  The kids are damned cool — all of them, and their interaction with their foster father was surprisingly sweet and funny — which raises the stakes emotionally when the entire household is besieged by a sadistic force.

The weaknesses here were minor.  I think the ten episodes could have been shortened to seven or eight, to make them tighter.  (I realize I write that about a lot of shows, and I’m not sure why.)  The first five episodes were tightly plotted, while the second five were a little loose.  I think better editing would have entirely excised the flashback scenes depicting Daniels’ character and this season’s new female exorcist, played by Zuleikha Robinson.  (Yes, that is indeed Yves Adele Harlow from “The Lone Gunmen” and “The X-Files.”)

The flashbacks were cheesy, even if they gave Daniels a chance to show his range.  They depict his tutelage of Robinson’s character decades prior, complete with some cliche pulp novel stuff.  (Ugh.)  We’re shown that the priest is younger because of his blond, surfer-esque haircut.  (Really?)  The flashbacks were out of place, and a little too campy.  They reminded me of the comic book style of the “Highlander” films and TV series — this show could have done without them.

I also found myself slightly annoyed by a dearth of exposition about the process of exorcism itself.  After the films and now two seasons of the show, I wanted to know more about the key actions here that affect the story’s resolution.  Do some prayers or methods work better than others?  Then why not use them all the time?  Why are some interventions more lengthy or difficult?  We are told that the demon attacking this family is different than Pazuzu, who we’ve seen in the past (though Pazuzu still puts in an appearance this season).  Can the demons coordinate their efforts, or at least communicate with each other?  If not, why not?  These seem like logical questions to ask, both for the characters and the viewers.

But there is something more that bothered me.  If a demon is intelligent and wants to harm people, then why make its presence known — and why torment or kill only a few people?  Why not remain undetected until it can commit a mass murder?  Or even perpetrate an act of terrorism, and harm far greater numbers of people by causing riots or wars?  That would suit evil’s purposes far more than the garish individual spectacles we find them performing in horror tales like these.  (Maybe I’m just analyzing too much.)

Anyway, I cheerfully recommend “The Exorcist.”  It might be the most grownup horror show on television.

And one more thing — there’s some fun to be had here recognizing actors from other roles.  Daniels was a member of the Rebel Alliance in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016).  And there is actually another “The X-Files” alum here — even if it was only a small role.  I thought that Harper’s mother looked familiar — the actress playing her was Rochelle Greenwood.  She’s none other than the teenage waitress who witnessed Walter Skinner getting shot waaaaay back in 1996’s classic episode, “Piper Maru.”  (Can I remember faces or what?)

 

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A very short review of the Season 7 premiere of “American Horror Story” (2017)

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I finally got around to watching my first episode of “American Horror Story” last night; I started with this season’s critically praised premiere.  (People have been enthusiastically recommending this show to me for years, and “Game of Thrones” taught me that the bandwagon isn’t always a bad thing.)

I can’t say that I was overly impressed.  Season 7’s opening episode, entitled “Election Night,” consists mostly of heavy-handed political commentary with caricaturized portrayals of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters.  Nearly none of the characters are likable; not even the one played by the terrific Evan Peters.  (Yes, comics fans, that’s none other than Quicksilver from the latest “X-Men” movies.)

There is a lot of “scary clown” horror here, as anyone who’s seen any marketing for the show at all should know.  Between that and the political elements, I suspect I am not the right audience for this show.  I simply find clowns obnoxious instead of scary, and political commentary in horror usually falls flat with me.  (I’m the rare horror fan who loves George A. Romero’s work only because it’s scary, without caring much about the social statements he’s supposedly making.)

With all of that said, there actually were a couple of creepy moments late in the game.  And there was one (as of yet, minor) character that I liked — the child of the liberal couple who were so devastated by the election results.  He’s cute, and any kid who hides parentally forbidden horror comics under his pillow is one of my tribe.

I’d somewhat grudgingly rate this a 5 out of 10.

Anyway … scary clowns are ubiquitous now, and we already have the zombie shows we need.  I propose that we bring back … body snatchers.  Those can be terrifying in the hands of a talented writer, and they require no special effects.  Or, what about vampires?  Now that “The Strain” has concluded, how about a well written television excursion into Steve Niles’ “30 Days of Night” universe?  Or maybe a “Stakeland” TV show?  Looking at you, AMC.

 

 

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A few quick words on the Season 3 premiere of “Fear the Walking Dead” (2017)

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I’m going to go ahead and commit horror-nerd heresy here … at this point, I think I enjoy AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead” more than “The Walking Dead.”  The characters feel more “real,” and the stories move far, far faster.

Last night’s first episode was a hell of a lot of creepy, disturbing, pathological fun — enough for me to give it a 9 out of 10.  And to make it a little cooler, we’ve got a couple of terrific “that guy” actors in supporting roles.  The first is “Band of Brothers” and “24” alumnus Ross McCall, the second is “The Following’s” Sam Underwood.

Good stuff!

 

 

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A tiny review of “Stake Land II” (2016)

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“Stake Land II” (2016) can’t match the magic of the original, but it’s still good enough to recommend, I guess.  I’d give it a 7 out of 10.  (I’m told that an alternate title is “Stakelander,” but I refuse to call it that, because it sounds too much like a spoof of either “Zoolander” or “Highlander.”)

This sequel has a direct-to-video feel to it.  Set a decade following the events of the original, the movie reunites Connor Paolo and Nick Damici, as the now-adult Martin and the enigmatic, vampire-killing powerhouse, “Mister.”  Paolo feels flat this time out, the movie is occasionally slow, and the action sequences are a little underwhelming.

Still, Damici shines.  And I couldn’t help but find myself engaged by the movie as a whole.  Even if the film isn’t a classic, the brutal, unflinching “Stake Land” fictional universe is still front and center.  The post-apocalyptic setting and character backstories are so dark and unpredictable that the film is still fun for a seasoned horror fan.  It’s at least as interesting as an average episode of AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”

 

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A few quick words on “What We Become” (2016)

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“What We Become” (2016) is a competent, serviceable Danish horror film that nevertheless could have been better.  (The film’s original title was “Sorgenfri.”)  It’s capably written, nicely filmed, and well performed by its actors, and there is genuine suspense once its zombies are allowed to run amok.

The trouble is, that takes far too long.  Like America’s “Viral” (2016), this is a zombie movie that spends so much effort on its setup that there is little time left for enough payoff.

This is another thoughtful apocalyptic monster movie that pays a great deal of attention to the media and military response to the emerging crisis.  (And it’s creepily effective the way this is told exclusively from the point of view of a Danish suburb’s residents.)  It will hold your attention as a kind of “slow burn” horror film — it reminded me a little of the first season of AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead.” Ultimately, however, the zombies get too little screen time.  And that’s a shame, because what we do see as a horrifying, tragic climax is actually very well executed.

Overall, I’d rate this a 7 out of 10.

 

 

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A review of “Goodbye World” (2013)

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“Goodbye World” (2013) is technically a post-apocalyptic drama.  I say “technically” because this sometimes misguided movie contains little tension associated with its apocalyptic event.  (A cyber-attack destroys the technological infrastructure of America and possibly the world.)  Indeed, this catastrophe doesn’t even truly drive the plot — it’s more of a background subplot that fails to even affect the tone of the film.  (The poster you see below is misleading.)

Instead, the film scrutinizes the personal lives of a group of thirtyish college alumnae who have an informal reunion at a mountain cabin — one of their number is a plot-convenient intellectual-turned-survivalist.  They’re portrayed by an (admittedly quite good) ensemble cast.  I think a lot of my friends would smile at “Gotham’s” Jim Gordon (Ben Mckenzie) being a rather meek, feckless husband.  And Caroline Dhavernas here is no longer the alpha female we saw in NBC’s “Hannibal,” but is rather an insecure, overly sensitive young wife who immaturely pines that she was the student “everyone hated.”

And there lies a problem that the movie has … few of these characters are terribly likable.  Only Gaby Hoffmann’s surprisingly tough civil servant made me root for her.  And Kerry Bishe’s perfectly performed, chatty neo-hippy eccentric was also pretty cool … Bishe might have given the best performance in the film.  Finally, Linc Hand is a surprise standout, arriving halfway through in a menacing supporting role.  It’s a far smaller role, but damn if he doesn’t nail it.  (Please, Netflix, cast this guy as Bullseye in Season 3 of “Daredevil.”)

The others all seem either self-absorbed, self-righteous and preachy, or inscrutable and vaguely dumb.  Dhavernas’ character actually steals a child’s teddy bear (which she herself had brought as a gift) and … sets it free in the forest.  It was a belabored character metaphor when written.  Worse, it just seems jarringly weird when it plays out on the screen.

All the characters seem strangely detached about the watershed national or global crisis. Some cursory dialogue is devoted to the imagined welfare of their family, colleagues or other friends; the character interaction is devoted mostly to  marriage issues and personal emotional crises that I have mostly forgotten as of this writing.  And those seem maudlin and slightly selfish compared to the Fall of the United States.  The characters mostly failed at engendering viewer sympathy in me.

The screenwriters’ juxtaposition of personal matters and the end of the world also seemed tone deaf.  We follow what the writers hope are educated, successful and endearingly quirky fun people, and we’re asked to worry about their love triangles and spousal communication issues.  But … we’re then asked to view this in the context of a pretty frightening collapse of society, complete with plot elements that are interchangeable with those of AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”  (One secondary character turns violent over the issue of resources, then charismatically justifies his violence to  a crowd using a half-baked ideology that seems to channel “The Governor.”)

I felt like I was watching two movies at once, and not in a good way.  The opening motif is brilliantly creepy — the virus causes cell phones everywhere to receive a text reading the titular “Goodbye World.”  Our laconic, uniformly telegenic protagonists kinda just shrug at it.  And even when suspicions arise in the group about whether one character is connected to the cyber-attack, there is dry, dialogue-driven humor instead of any real consequent tension.  It was like John Hughes wrote a thirtysomething dramedy, but then tried unsuccessfully to sprinkle in the human pathos of one of George A. Romero’s more pessimistic zombie films.

But don’t get me wrong.  This wasn’t even really a bad movie.  I didn’t hate it.  It held my interest, its actors gave good performances, and I am a shameless fan of Dhavernas in particular.  The cinematography was very good too, and the story’s tonal differences were occasionally interesting.  (This is definitely a unique end-of-the-world tale, if nothing else.)

I’d honestly give “Goodbye World” a 7 out of 10.  I think my expectations sitting down with it were just unusually high, seeing Dhavernas attached to what looked like an independent, cerebral, apocalyptic science fiction thriller.  I might even recommend it if you’re in the mood for a really unusual doomsday movie.  Just don’t expect “28 Days Later” (2002) or “The Divide” (2012), and you might like this.

 

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My review of “The Walking Dead” Season 6

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Season 6 of “The Walking Dead” ended terribly last Sunday night, with a gimmicky, redundant, cartoonishly filmed cliffhanger that seemed like a power trip for the show’s writers and a shameless trick to ensure ratings for the Season 7 premiere.  Even that blunder, however, can only partially mar an otherwise great season of television; I’d still give the sixth season a 9 out of 10.

Seriously, Sunday night’s closing minutes were a big disappointment. We did not — I repeat, we did NOT — get to see which of our heroes would fall victim to new arch-villain Negan and his barbed-wire baseball bat, “Lucille.”  (I don’t think that I’m writing a spoiler here, as I’m informing the reader of an event that was not yet depicted.)  We get to see the dramatic and frightening events leading up our heroes’ capture — overall, the episode was pretty good, I think.  And we get to see some iconic images and hear dialogue that we remember from the original comic series.  And we finally get to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan appear as the new big-bad, something the show’s marketing suggests AMC believed fans would be happy with alone.

But the season ended with a cheesy point-of-view shot of the nameless individual who Negan executes, then a black screen along with the muffled screaming and shouting of those protagonists who are left to witness their friend’s murder.  (Check Youtube — some pretty ardent fans have actually analyzed the sounds and provided subtitles, supposedly providing clues as to who the victim was.)  And the manner in which it was filmed was kitsch — it reminded me of the over-the-top POV shots employed by Sam Raimi.

I think this is poor storytelling.  The Saviors storyline has been building for at least half a season (earlier if you consider the first encounter with Dwight), and the death of one of our heroes was the universally expected, logical conclusion of that.  The cliffhanger also felt like a little bit of a “f*&% you” to the fans.  The show’s creators know that its viewership was so eagerly anticipating an answer to the million-dollar question — “who dies?”  And they showed us that not only have they enjoyed stringing us along, they’re going to enjoy gratuitously stringing us along for another seven months until Season Seven.

And, hey, it looks as though this parsimonious storytelling will be the case with tie-in promotions as well.  I read today over at Hollywood Reporter that Robert Kirkman has produced a 48-page comic containing Negan’s backstory.  As you may read at the link below, however, only four pages at a time will be made available to fans, as they are released monthly in a comics preview catalog, “Image +.”  (And I’m unclear about whether readers will have to pay for that.)  C’mon.  Gimme a break:

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Furthermore, the final scene was a little problematic in other ways.  I liked Morgan’s performance, but I he didn’t knock my socks off as he apparently did for other fans.  The monologue scripted for him was far too long.  Much of it is lifted from the comics; I think that a lot of it did not translate well from page to screen.

Finally, the cliffhanger was redundant — didn’t the season’s penultimate episode also tease a major character death in its final seconds, employing a cheap visual trick to obscure this person’s fate?

Ah, well.  Like I said, I think Season 6 actually was stellar.  We hardcore fans tend to criticize our show a lot (hence my bitching above).  Our criticisms are often well deserved, but I think we might have been spoiled a bit by “The Walking Dead.”  After six years, five of which were downright addictive, it’s easy to lose sight of how groundbreaking the show has been.

There has never been anything else like it on television.  The fact that it’s the first real zombie apocalypse serialized horror show is obvious, along with its new levels of gore, pathos and goddam amazing makeup effects.  But think also about its breadth and scope — since Season One, I think it’s gone to great lengths to tell an epic story.  Budget constraints — including a limited range of shooting locations in rural southern Georgia — restrict it somewhat.  But like no other show before it, it portrays a horrifying apocalypse from the points of view of a very broad and constantly changing ensemble of characters.

Sometimes this broad and changing ensemble works against the show.  I think one of its weaknesses is that it sometimes doesn’t feel like a well crafted, deliberate story at all, but rather a kind of “reality show” like “Survivor” (2000 – 2016).  Instead of watching in suspense to see who is “voted off the island,” we instead watch in suspense to see whether our favorite fictional character meets a grisly end.  I wouldn’t be surprised if people placed bets.  (I’ve heard that people indeed used to bet on “Survivor” in Las Vegas.)  Consequently, it feels more like bread-and-circuses than real meaningful storytelling within a post-apocalyptic context.

But “The Walking Dead” still manages to be damned good.  Early on in Season 6, I commented to another fan that the show actually seems to be getting better.  It’s getting smarter, with more ideas, and greater attention to detail.  I honestly get the sense that its writers sit down and think about the plausibility and logistics of various elements of this imaginary world.

It has essentially become a war story, even when it’s often just a neverending war of attrition with a universal enemy.  The writers grasp this, and they pick up the ball and run with it.  Attention is paid to strategy, logistics, leadership, morale, levels of training and commitment — Rick’s grand plan to lead the newly released “herd” away from Alexandria in the season’s earliest episodes is a great example of this.

And there is far more world-building.  Based on my familiarity with the comic book series, I recently advised another fan that the entire structure of the show would change.  Instead of people moving place to place and negotiating the various threats there, we now see stationary groups of survivors either fighting or cooperating with one another’s societies — something we’ve previously only really seen with The Prison vs. Woodbury.  This creates a range of larger, more layered and interesting storytelling possibilities.  And there are more enclaves even than we’ve seen so far.  (I’m trying to keep this spoiler free.)

Complementing this new change in story structure are elements of the show that seem to have improved even further.  The action and suspense have increased greatly.  I found myself on the edge of my seat during a few episodes — the one that comes to mind is when our heroes invade the satellite station.

The horror elements are new and stronger.  Story arcs involving the Wolves were extremely unsettling.  (I myself wanted far more of that bizarre little clutch of psychopaths.  Are they a cult?  Do they have a coherent ideology?)  The Saviors, whose survival skills and competence match or exceed Rick’s group, are frightening, especially for those of us who are already acquainted with them through the comics.

I even find I like the show’s drama better in this and recent seasons — more so than in the show’s early years.  Yes, the sad, unsupported, inexplicable recent character change in Carol was a disastrous choice.  And Abraham’s love triangle was a mostly inscrutable nod to the comics.  But there were a lot of other good things to be found this season — Morgan’s backstory, Nicholas’ character arc, the arrival of Jesus and the outcome with Denise.

All told, it was a great season.  Maybe someday a DVD special edition can rectify its final minutes, and supply a necessary face for Negan’s anonymous victim.  Hey, the show obviously wants to milk each cow for all it’s worth, right?

 

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Season 1 of Netflix’ “Daredevil” was downright superb!

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Throughout the entire first season of Netflix’ “Daredevil,” the obsessive comic book nerd in me kept scanning outdoor scenes for The Avengers Tower.  I don’t think I saw it once.  But that didn’t affect my enjoyment of a serial crime thriller that was so often fantastic.

And I think that sums up the program nicely.  This is only a putative part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  References to the fantastical larger universe of Marvel’s comic book movies are perfunctory and vague.  The intergalactic invasion of the Chitauri lizard-men, engineered by the Norse God Loki, is referred to only as “the event” — even though the destruction in New York is part of this season’s plot setup.  Characters like Iron Man and Thor are referred to dryly by a secondary bad guy who doesn’t even mention their names.  And other “comic book connections” tend to be minor, obscure, and sparing for a 13-episode season.  I actually gained the suspicion here that the screenwriters for this brutal crime drama were unconsciously embarrassed that their show was part of the MCU.  Yes, I do know that Netflix will soon launch other related shows, for less iconic comic book characters such as Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and that this incarnation of Daredevil seems fated to join something called “The Defenders.”  (Ugh.)  But that thankfully hasn’t happened yet.

Even the comic book elements of the Daredevil mythos seemed to me to be underplayed here.  His unusual powers (they don’t even feel like “superpowers”) rarely take center stage.  His villains aren’t garish. He’s only nicknamed “Daredevil” via a news article in the final episode; nor does he don anything approaching his trademark costume until then.  Wilson Fisk, our Big Bad, is never once referred to by his comic book appellation, “The Kingpin.”

And you know what?  All of that works just fine.  The Hell’s Kitchen we see in “Daredevil” might seem like a universe unto itself.  But, given this show’s quality, even a diehard comic book fan like me can concede, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

It ain’t broke.  I’d rate Season 1 at a 9 out of 10.  In many ways, “Daredevil” is far superior to anything else in the MCU.  This show’s distinguishing characteristic isn’t that it’s dark.  It’s that it’s a well written, well directed, and usually quite well performed crime-thriller.

It has surprisingly three-dimensional, truly interesting characters who are rendered in depth and detail.  This includes a few bad guys, by the way, who might have a knack for winning over viewer loyalty just by being so good at being bad.  (Most people would point to Fisk, but for me, Wesley was the guy you hate to love.)  Many characters are so well written and played by their actors that they seem 100 percent “real” — particularly Ben Urich and Karen Page.  This is the single MCU property with the most compelling characterization and, yes, I am including the “Iron Man” films in this comparison.

Yes, everything you’ve heard about this being Marvels darkest onscreen outing is correct … and THEN some.  The story is not just thematically dark; the story is itself brutal.  This seems to be a corner of the MCU in which the harshest consequences result for characters at every level.  Daredevil doesn’t just “take a hit” here; he gets cut up, bloodied and scarred — so much at several points that he requires the services of a (regrettably plot convenient) off-duty emergency room nurse.

Far worse is what happens to ordinary people who are heroic themselves.  No good deed goes unpunished in this nasty niche of Marvel’s world.  Defenseless people are shown no mercy by the story’s stronger protagonists.  The murder of one beloved character is all the more chilling because we witness their fruitless attempts to defend themselves despite a complete absence of special powers or training.  It’s … actually a bit worse than what we saw in that paragon of gritty superhero films, Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy.

And the crimes and criminals themselves?  Yeesh.  An early scene in the very first episode gives us a chilling little glimpse of human trafficking, with sobbing, kidnapped women loaded into the back of a dockside shipping container.  Not long after, we witness a father being beaten in the street before his son’s eyes; the child is then snatched.  The running theme here is that ordinary human evil can be more terrifying than dimension-hopping lizard-man armies or tyrannical Norse gods.  Sure, this theme is something we’ve seen plenty of times before.  But here, it’s just done so damn WELL.

The fight choreography was frikkin’ SWEET.  It was fantastic enough to be comic book violence, but gritty and consequential enough to be real-world violence.  I kept trying to figure out where a stunt double might be filling in for Charlie Cox, who portrayed Daredevil.  I couldn’t.  He’s … not doing his own stunts, is he?

The acting was usually quite good.  Deborah Ann Woll consistently stole the show as Karen Page — the script here beautifully elevates Karen beyond her pretty pathetic comic book incarnation.  (A caveat — I was reading the “Daredevil” comics in the 1990’s, and am using those as a frame of reference here; of course they might have changed significantly since then.)  Karen often seems to emerge as much of a primary protagonist here as Daredevil himself.  She’s got far more at stake, personally, and Woll expertly gets that across to the audience.  And she’s a complex character, playing the fool for Foggy Nelson, being the the darkly driven de facto apprentice to Ben Urich, and occasionally being manipulative and ruthless in ways that our other protagonists never could.  What a great improvement on the original source material.  (Hint — comics are not a medium known for its feminist sensibilities.)  Woll, who I remember hitting it out of the park in her psychopathic role in HBO’s “True Blood” (2008) outshines every co-star.

Nearly every other cast member was perfect or near perfect.  Vondie Curtis-Hall needs special mention here for truly bringing Ben Urich to life on the big screen for the first time.  His turn as the aging, jaded newspaper reporter was flawless.  Urich, to me, will always be the greatest reporter in comics.  (F&*$ Peter Parker and those Daily Planet pretty people; Ben was the real deal.  Who cares if he was past mid-life?  He was the only character in the comic books who spoke and proceeded like a real journalist.)

There were really only a couple of forgivable weaknesses that affected my enjoyment of Season 1.

First, the narrative structure … seemed “off” somehow.  I see the basic underlying story here as ultimately being an deeply personal battle between two men: Daredevil and the Kingpin.  (This is despite the way that Karen and Ben delightfully distinguish themselves as prime movers in the plot.)  I …. never really sensed any momentum here.  For a while, Daredevil and Fisk have minimal information about each other.  We see Matt Murdoch in skirmishes with many underlings; these seem episodic and without greater consequence.  Then … Matt quite accidentally meets Fisk for the first time, when he tries to “get a sense of” his enemy by … meeting his girlfriend?  Huh?  I never really got a sense of these two primary characters moving toward each other until the last episodes.  Oh, well … the comics were kinda like that.  But I do hope that future seasons are more tightly plotted, with more consistent tension.

Second, there really seemed to be multiple problems connected with the character of Foggy Nelson.  I do think that Eldon Henson performed quite poorly in the role.  Maybe he was just miscast.  He doesn’t once come close to the performances of his co-stars.  I also think the script did absolutely nothing to make Foggy a likable character.  He’s immature, self-absorbed, and ethically rickety.  His jokes fall flat; his flat “banter” with Karen is grating (and makes her look like an idiot).  He’s … downright irritating.  Why would Matt want him as a “best friend” or business partner?  Why would anybody?

Third, I occasionally would like a more specific nod in Hell’s Kitchen to the larger Marvel universe.  Maybe a truck passes by with the Stark Industries log.  Maybe a kid passes by with a Captain America t-shirt.  Maybe a couple of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents investigate Fisk’s employees in connection with offshore partners who are alleged to have super-powered henchman.  Just something small — it wouldn’t spoil the “real” feel of our dark drama, and it would place our protagonists’ lives in a larger context.

All in all, though, “Daredevil” was surprisingly superior to what I thought it would be, even with all of its glowing press.  See it.

One final note — if you’re a fan of both superhero comics and AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” then Season 2’s casting has a wicked cool surprise, if you haven’t already heard about it.  Head on over to The Internet Movie Database to see who is playing whom.  You’ll smile.

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