Marvel/Netflix Daredevil Season 1

Several episodes in, I have some thoughts.

This show is incredibly well done. The acting is top-notch, the writing, cinematography and all that is amazing. It is a GOOD SHOW.

It's a terrible Daredevil show. If I saw a show called Batman in which adult Bruce Wayne fought gangsters, but didn't wear a bat-suit, use his signature weapons, fight supervillains, or be called Batman, that would be a fucking terrible Batman show. Come on, guys. Something I love about the MCU is that they just put the comicyness out there without apologizing for it. You're supposed to be beyond this, Daredevil. This is 1998-era stuff.

So yeah. Good, but not what it should be.

And yes, I know the black suit is from a comic. I don't care, it's not a proper Daredevil costume.

 

And how would you feel if the thirteen episodes of this theoretical show were about the journey to become Batman? That all those things would come into play over the course of the story told?

 

1. Yes, I realize that's what this show is.

2. Well, I wouldn't want it to be called Batman. And I would still want a freaking Batman suit before the last episode. I realize Daredevil is a far better show, but frankly, that's Smallville-level stuff.

 

Just started watching this and I am blown away by it. It certainly has excellent production values and the acting is an interesting mix of drama and comedy. Not 100% sold on Foggy but his interaction with Murdock is great chemistry.

Also, and please bear in mind I am only two episodes in, the slow reveal of the villains is an interesting build up to the threat. I have found the character building and action to be incredibly well done for a TV show, and very engaging.

I'm curious to see how this season unveils itself, and have no problem with the lack of the "classic" Daredevil look, yet. I see different hints as to what leads in to the costume, and that is enough for me, right now.

It definitely as an extended "Batman Begins" vibe that feels like it is allowing the character to organically grow in to his super hero persona without all the fanfare.

Can't wait for more!

 

There was also something from that arc and Fisk's arc that reminded me of something...

Spoiler: Spoilers of later Daredevil episodes

...Ben's wife and Fisk's mother's dementia reminded me of what Peggy Carter was suffering in The Winter Soldier, right on down to Mrs. Urich's sudden lapse at the hospital. The latter was as big of a gut punch as when Peggy forgot everything from her previous conversation with Steve.

 

They tend to have a home video release around a year after release, if your internet is good enough why not sign up for a free trial and give it a shot? You can cancel at any time.

 

Sound's like extortion from a protection racket.

 

By that logic, Man without Fear one of the most highly regarded Daredevil comics isn't it a 'proper Daredevil comic'.

As for not fighting supervillains - there is other MCU stuff for that - sounds like you want a very one-note universe?

 

One word: patience.

 

Just finished the series. I liked it. But...

Pros:
--they really nailed the characters and got good actors. Charlie Cox was particularly good. His voice was excellent. I worried about his American accent but it was flawless.
--the red costume looked awesome.
--some of the action scenes were shot in an interesting way with single long camera takes.

Cons:
--He doesn't become Dardevil until THE LAST TEN MINUTES???
--He doesn't get the awesome looking costume until THE LAST TEN MINUTES???
--The black costume was... bad.
--The Kingpin never wears a white suit ONCE???
--Was it just me or did they repeat the same couple of canned scores every single time?
--The entire thing just looked cheap to me. Like they had no money.
--They never showed what his radar sense looks like.
--The episodes just felt unnecessarily slow and drawn-out. I think that's an artifact from being on Netflix with these 55 minute running times. There's no lines they have to color within.
--Somebody's been watching Arrow too much. Everyone, especially Kingpin, are constantly talking about "this city" and what it needs and deserves and how they're going to save it. Waaaaaaaay too overused.
--Stick only appears in a single episode? He only fights a single Hand ninja, and they never even get name dropped? The Hand brings in some mysterious potentially powered kid who promptly gets killed before we see him do anything?
--After making such a big deal of placing this in the MCU, they certainly pretended it wasn't aside from a fleeting mention to the Chitauri invasion of NYC and a couple Avengers jokes. In a world of the Avengers, why is everyone so shocked as the appearance of a masked vigilante? If the Kingpin is so vexed by Not-Yet-Daredevil, why doesn't he hire one of the gaggle of super-powered villains we've seen in Agents of SHIELD?

I started watching the Affleck movie the second it ended. It was a surprisingly smooth transition

 

Black costume?

It was Jeans and a skivvy.

 

I see that as world building rather than a problem - I would think that stuff comes to the fore either in the Defenders or more likely season 2 of this - it's enough for the casual viewer to know that the world is a little more strange than they think but without interfering with the A-plot - same with the Iron Fist hints, if you are a nerd you'd get them but if not, you'd simply pick up something odd about a couple of characters.

 

Some of these decisions just scream "don't have the budget for it" to me. I'd be curious to see what their pocketbook was compared to Agents of SHIELD or Agent Carter which both look pretty good.

 

I couldn't disagree more.

If you want suits, flashy special effects and gadgets go watch the MCU movies, Shield or in the case of DC watch Flash and Arrow as it sounds more like your cup of tea.

This show is about street level heroes, on the powerscale barely above a (very) well trained normal human without huge ressources to call upon.

This show has a different tone and approach to the general MCU and i like that very much. It sounds like you want the movie version of Daredevil (and i'm in a small minority who liked the Affleck version) so maybe you should let go.

From the sound of it the next season may introduce more familiar elements so maybe you will get your wish but if not and they continue down the path they have established i will be very fine with it.

 

I was thrilled that they explained the more run-down Hell's Kitchen of the Marvel Universe as a consequence of the Battle of New York, because that's exactly how I've been saying all along that they should explain it. It is a very effective way to show the interconnectedness of the MCU, but in a more nuanced way than just a name drop or a guest cameo. (I do wonder about the Crusher Creel connection, though. The actor who played Creel in AGENTS OF SHIELD is only four years older than Charlie Cox, so how could he have been an adult boxer taking on Jack Murdock while Matt was a kid? Apparently the idea is that he was a precocious teen at the time, but still, it requires assuming the Creel actor was playing older and Cox is playing younger than their actual ages.)

Overall, I'm finding it extremely well-done, although darker and more violent than I prefer. The corridor fight in episode 2 was an extraordinary piece of stuntwork and cinematography. They're taking advantage of the lack of commercials and compressed, 40-minute running times to indulge in extended, deliberate scenes that you couldn't really do elsewhere. (It's also interesting how many scenes were in foreign languages, even when the speakers were capable of speaking English. Generally a show would do a few token subtitled lines and then switch to English, but this one really stuck with the Spanish and Chinese.)

I'm also pleasantly surprised at how funny it is. I was afraid a Milleresque DD would be too grim for me, but there's some of the sense of fun I enjoy in the more recent Mark Waid DD. The cast is terrific. The core trio has great chemistry and comic flair. Bob Gunton is a particular hoot (pun not intended, but serendipitous and welcome) as Leland Owlsley. D'Onofrio is a more diffident Fisk than I expected, but there were moments when he was totally the Kingpin.

The one thing that bugs me is that they avoided the term "Kingpin" like the plague. The closest they came was a visual pun involving a king playing card tacked up with a pin. Why? It's not like "kingpin" is a strange or facetious word. It's the natural term to use for the head of an organization. When Ben and Karen were talking about who the big boss was, it would've been more natural and uncontrived for them to use the term "kingpin" than to concoct excuses for using "king" metaphors.

Still, Fisk was a fascinating character -- a man who desperately wants to believe he's a good guy, but who's too much a prisoner of the violent nature his upbringing instilled in him. And I liked his relationship with Wesley, the intense loyalty and compassion Wesley showed him. (I belatedly realized that Wesley was essentially Waylon Smithers played seriously.)

Spoiler: Final episode

And the final debut of Daredevil seemed anticlimactic. Fisk had already been exposed, his empire ruined. The only thing that was at stake at that point was whether Fisk would be caught or not. Daredevil wasn't saving lives at that point, just catching a fugitive who'd already been ruined. It felt like an afterthought. A superhero debut should be bigger. Fisk should've had some endgame that put a lot of people in danger and that only the fully costumed Daredevil could stop. That would've given his debut more meaning than just beating up on one guy who was already essentially defeated.

For all that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has achieved, it's still embarassed by its comic-book roots, still reluctant to come out and actually call its heroes and villains by their nicknames without apologizing for it. This was a Daredevil season that hardly had Daredevil in it, and a Kingpin story that never used the word "Kingpin." Even now, even after superheroes rule the media, they're still afraid to admit they're telling superhero stories. And that was the one major flaw in what was otherwise a superb series.

I sincerely hope so. I'm not that familiar with Iron Fist, but I read an essay a while back arguing that, while it's necessary for Danny Rand to be American, that doesn't mean he has to be white. An Asian-American Danny would serve the story and the character without the appropriation issues.

It's no stranger than Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures coexisting in the Doctor Who universe. Which, granted, could get pretty strange sometimes.

Even so, there were some really long, impressive stunt sequences between the cuts.

I thought I saw a blurry Avengers Tower behind Fisk during a certain nighttime scene involving a Russian and a car door, but now I think it might've been One World Trade Center. Because there's a daytime scene in episode 11, a conversation between Karen and Ben, where in some shots you can clearly see the MetLife Building in the background -- i.e. the building that Stark/Avengers Tower replaced. So they dropped the ball there, just as Agents of SHIELD did in one or two of their NYC skyline shots.

The one I caught was Clare calling Matt "Mike" at first. A nod to the old storyline where Matt pretended to be his identical twin Mike Murdock for convoluted reasons.

Also, Ben Urich's bulletin board had clippings referencing the Battle of New York and the Hulk's Harlem clash with the Abomination.

Oh, excellent point. Sort of like how Coulson linked the Phase One movies. That would've been fitting.

Funny, I found his American accent unconvincing. The vowels weren't quite right.

Stunt sequences that elaborate are not cheap. Especially not with the intricate cinematography they used.

They didn't really use the radar sense. Instead, they came up with a very interesting alternative explanation, as Matt spelled out to Clare in episode 4 or 5 -- about how his brain takes the various inputs of his multiple senses (including the senses we don't often recognize beyond the big five) and created a composite that he perceived as a "world on fire." And we did get a brief shot of it at that point.

I would've liked something that showed the radar sense as well as the recent comics have, but I think the Affleck movie did that pretty well.

Or maybe it's just not what we're used to anymore. TV shows in the '60s and '70s had running times close to this and about this kind of pacing, which is fitting, given that the show was basically recreating a '70s version of Hell's Kitchen.

I did occasionally feel a scene ran longer than it had to, but I at other times, I really appreciated it that a scene was given room to breathe, that a conversation got to be in-depth and deliberate rather than bare-bones and efficient. (Like the priest's monologue about how the idea of Satan as an individual rather than just a generic word for "adversary" was the invention of medieval theologians. Was that true? That was fascinating.)

Except that it's been endemic to the Daredevil/Kingpin narrative since long before Arrow came along. If anything, Arrow probably used it because its chain of influences extends back to Frank Miller's Daredevil run (which led to Miller's seminal Batman stories, which influenced the Nolan films, which influenced Arrow).

Clearly setup for the future, whether the other Netflix shows or a potential season 2. Same with the mysteries about Gao.

They're not shocked. If anything, several characters speak about it as if it's more common than it actually has been in the MCU so far. Like

Spoiler: spoiler

when Foggy says "I thought you long-underwear types sewed your own costumes."

I can't think of anyone in the MCU who fits that description. Certainly not Iron Man or Cap or Thor or Widow or Hawkeye. They generally go in more for fancy armor than "long underwear." And none of them are vigilantes either. This kind of street-level crimefighter isn't something we've seen in the MCU until now, but it was treated as though it was.

Because he loves his city. Superfights damage his city. He doesn't want to see his city damaged unless it's on his terms, for his own ends.

Besides, as far as he knew, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen was just some ordinary guy in a mask. He had thousands of enforcers capable of handling a threat like that. When they failed, he had Nobu's "specialists," presumably Hand assassins, to call on.

They're very similar in their story arcs. They're both about Matt Murdock starting out as a violent vigilante, questioning his methods and his morals, and growing into something more heroic. Although the movie's Matt had a longer journey, starting out as an actual killer and then deciding to choose a better path (essentially the same as Oliver Queen's journey in Arrow season 1, again showing the DD influence there). This Matt never became a killer (not directly, though some people did die as a result of his actions), and didn't really improve his methods that much, just his equipment.

Although I have to say, it's refreshing to see an MCU protagonist who actually has qualms about killing. That's supposed to be a common trait of superheroes, but none of the movie heroes have shown any reluctance to kill. Which makes it ironic that this show is considered darker than the movies.

 

$200 million across 60 episodes according to Varsity which is a fair chunk of change. I don't see any budgetary problems - if there were, we would see some cheaper city stand in for New York rather than actually filming there...