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Constantine - Season 1

A

Agent Richard07

Admiral
Admiral
***SPOILER DISCUSSION***







occult-s1.jpg



^ The number is real in case you're wondering.

DC's latest (anti)hero comes to NBC on Friday Oct. 24th.​

"The series will focus on John Constantine, a dark exorcist, occult detective and con man who is struggling with his past sins as he tries to protect humanity from a gathering supernatural threat.

The series was developed by Motive creator Daniel Cerone and The Dark Knight trilogy alum David S. Goyer, with the pilot episode directed by Dog Soldiers, The Descent and Game of Thrones director Neil Marshall.

The show will remain more faithful to the source material than the 2005 film, although on-screen depiction of Constantine's chain smoking habit will be absent due to broadcast television restrictions. Additionally, the character will be heterosexual, as opposed to bisexual as in the comics. Executive producer Daniel Cerone said, "In those comic books, John Constantine aged in real time. Within this tome of three decades [of comics] there might have been one or two issues where he’s seen getting out of bed with a man. So [maybe] 20 years from now? But there are no immediate plans." This was met with criticism from the LGBTQ community.

[Lucy] Griffiths was originally cast as the female lead Liv Aberdine, the daughter of a late friend, who comes to discover that she has the ability of seeing the supernatural world among us. She teams up with Constantine to fight the demons who have targeted her and learn more about her late father. Griffiths was dropped after Goyer and Cerone decided to take the series in a different creative direction. Instead the original comic character Zed will be written in. Angélica Celaya was later announced to fill the role. Some of Griffiths' final scenes from the pilot will be reshot, explaining why she doesn't join Constantine in his adventures as it was originally intended." - Wikipedia

 
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on-screen depiction of Constantine's chain smoking habit will be absent due to broadcast television restrictions. Additionally, the character will be heterosexual, as opposed to bisexual as in the comics.
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:sigh: :brickwall: :censored:
 
He was a rock star on drugs in the 80s.

A lot of Magic is about doing sexual things into the severed heads of farm animals who are also sometimes more than probably the gender you're advised against indulging with by the bible belt.

Sex with any human after doing that is a big step up.

:)

Is there a new second pilot now?
 
I liked the premiere a lot more than I thought I would and that was due in large part to the two leads. Matt Ryan was fantastic as John Constantine and brought enough to the part to make up for the changes they made to the character. I also took quite a liking to Lucy Griffiths as Liv, so it's unfortunate that we'll be losing her. I hope that the decision to replace her was a good one and pays off.

NBC's ‘Constantine’ Boss Reveals Why Series Is Better Without Keanu Reeves and Lucy Griffiths
 
Wow, that was dysfunctional.

Gonna call it right now. This will be the first of the DC Comics properties currently on air to get cancelled. I give it half a season unless something miraculous happens after that pilot.
 
When I saw the sign for Ivy University, I thought we may get a Ray Palmer cameo but then I remembered that he's in Starling City right now.

I'm kind of lukewarm on the pilot. The first half seemed like a really dark Doctor Who episode, with supernatural elements instead of sci-fi. Then the whimsy disappears in the second half and is replaced with some heavy angst. This Constantine sure likes to dredge up terrible memories from his past. I think he left therapy a bit prematurely.

Just before the ending with the cool comic illustrations, the writers shoehorn in a pretty heavy-handed explanation of why the female lead won't be around for next week's adventure, but -- hey, don't worry -- she conveniently left all pertinent plot devices behind. Very considerate of her.

I liked the Easter eggs. I liked the foreshadowing of the Dangerous Habits storyline. And I read that the show will be borrowing heavily from Swamp Thing's American Gothic issues, so that alone should be worth sticking around for.
 
It was a fairly interesting premiere. I've never read Hellblazer, so this is all new to me. It feels like Supernatural sans the Winchester brothers, with the usual "monster of the week" format. It doesn't quite grab me the way Arrow and Flash do.

Will it get canceled? Hard to say at this point.
 
Remember when Spike used to flick butts at people he didn't like?

sojourner said:
Wow, that was dysfunctional.

Gonna call it right now. This will be the first of the DC Comics properties currently on air to get cancelled. I give it half a season unless something miraculous happens after that pilot.
Click to expand...

Yes, the show was picked up, but they person in charge of that decision had notes, chief among which was "Find a hotter female lead."

After the pilot is "different" than the pilot, Agelica Celaya is also a little prettier and 4 years older than Lucy Griffiths.

So the pilot is wrong introducing the wrong people.

It looks like she's not in episode 2, which could be hilarious if handled correctly.
 
It was interesting, though I'm not generally a follower of the horror genre so I don't know how long I'll stick around. I can understand why they dropped Liv; she was pretty, but she was a bit underwhelming. I can see the producer's point that she was too "reactive" and not enough of a peer to Constantine; it shows how far we've progressed that it's no longer seen as acceptable for the female protagonist to be an innocent subordinate who's just following her male mentor's lead. But it was pretty darn awkward the way they spent most of an hour telling her origin story and then abruptly put her on a bus off-camera and had the taciturn cab driver suddenly giving a long speech that was almost certainly meant to be Liv's originally. I suppose it works in a way -- it's kind of subversive, making us think this is a standard "companion origin" setup and then have the companion flee in terror because the job is just too dangerous. It does up the stakes, make the danger and emotional impact feel more real. But it was still a pretty blatant retcon.

It's an interesting choice to begin the story in medias res, with Constantine already an established demon-fighter with a ton of personal baggage. Usually these things begin with origin stories, whether they're comic-book shows like The Flash or original ones like Grimm. But I can already tell that this is a character who only works with experience and baggage behind him. It's that world-weariness that defines him. People have compared this to Doctor Who, and I can certainly see that, but there's an element of The Dresden Files in it too.
 
I've never read the comic... vaguely remember the movie... I enjoyed the pilot and I'll keep watching. I wikied the character afterwards and it sounds like they were extremely loyal to the comic book which is great.
 
Coming in as someone more or less unfamiliar with the John Constantine character, I've read JLDark #1 and read about him on Wikipedia, I enjoyed this. It wasn't quite up the level of Grimm or Supernatural, but it has a lot of potential. I'm a little disapointed to see Liv go after spending so much time here focused on her, but I can also understand wanting to bring in a more proactive character. I'm curious to see how much of this is going to be monster of the week and how much will be mythology/arc.
 
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