I nodded off during both episodes but I watched at the end of trying work weeks so I was giving it the benefit of the doubt but what I've been reading here seems to support my initial impressions.
Constantine - Season 1
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
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I nodded off during both episodes but I watched at the end of trying work weeks so I was giving it the benefit of the doubt but what I've been reading here seems to support my initial impressions.
Just finished watching episode 2.
A big, MEH.
Though, I wonder about Constantine's smarts. Someone admits to him that she's a gypsy, which he feels is the "darkest" of magics, yet doesn't think: huh, maybe she's behind it all until the very end.
Meh. I might bother with episode 3... but... meh.
A big, MEH.
Though, I wonder about Constantine's smarts. Someone admits to him that she's a gypsy, which he feels is the "darkest" of magics, yet doesn't think: huh, maybe she's behind it all until the very end.
Meh. I might bother with episode 3... but... meh.
Yeah, this one wasn't anything that impressive. I've seen this kind of story plenty of times before. The big thing though was the introduction of Zed. I don't really have strong feelings about her either way. She seems like she could an interesting character, but she didn't really do anything that remarkable. I enjoyed it enough to stick with it, but it wasn't anything spectacular.
I was never a fan of the comics and the Keanu movie was mediocre leaning toward bad if I'm being really polite, so I didn't have particularly high hopes for enjoying this series, and it has met those low expectations handily. It's boring, the lead needs to be possessed by a demon with charisma, and the first sidekick actress from True Blood was superior to the even blander second one, albeit in the very brief single episode I've had to judge each one. I'll stick with it to see if it improves though once it moves beyond the transitional period of the first few eps.
Monster-of-the-week format, goes with the territory.
Christopher said:
Actually, isn't that precisely the way a horror story is supposed to creep you out?
Struggling to finish the 3rd episode.
I feel like they only switched women so they could ratchet up sexual tension (can't have Constantine getting all skeevy with his dead best friend's daughter...)
And I'm growing less and less interested in this version of Constantine. He seems like such a cartoony character placed in a very naturalistic world. Whereas Arrow and his world seem to match tones.
I feel like they are trying to hard to get the superficial things right, they aren't doing the important things well.
I feel like they only switched women so they could ratchet up sexual tension (can't have Constantine getting all skeevy with his dead best friend's daughter...)
And I'm growing less and less interested in this version of Constantine. He seems like such a cartoony character placed in a very naturalistic world. Whereas Arrow and his world seem to match tones.
I feel like they are trying to hard to get the superficial things right, they aren't doing the important things well.
Dr. Funkenstein
Lieutenant Commander
It's like a knock-off brand of Supernatural.
Hellblazer really needs a channel like HBO or maybe AMC to bring out its true potential. It's just not going to manage it like this.
Hellblazer really needs a channel like HBO or maybe AMC to bring out its true potential. It's just not going to manage it like this.
I absolutely agree with this. I really want this show to be good so I am giving it more of a chance than I gave Gotham -- but it is bad. I remember when Supernatural started I considered it to be Hellblazer Lite--but Supernatural is actually better than this show right now.
Hmm. I'm not finding the show very engaging, but I figured that was just my general disinterest in the supernatural-horror genre. There are some shows in that genre that I've watched, like Buffy, but only if they offer something else to hold my interest.
I wouldn't say the show is actually bad; it seems adequate, at least. It's just not my cup of tea.
I wouldn't say the show is actually bad; it seems adequate, at least. It's just not my cup of tea.
I'm out, I think.
I haven't finished the third episode but, 1. they just used Doctor Who's psychic paper, basically. I don't know if it's from the comics or not. Constantine used a playing card that turned into an ID, or whatever the holder needs it to be. Bleh. And 2. Constantine in a scene doubted someone's story about the Devil, dismissing it as "urban legend." He WORKS in legends, his whole DEAL is legends and things that go bump in the night.
What the hell?
Yeah. I was thinking if this show was on FX, I think I would be engaged. Or handled by the Berlanti people (who do Arrow and the Flash.)
But this show is just networked to death. Pass.
I haven't finished the third episode but, 1. they just used Doctor Who's psychic paper, basically. I don't know if it's from the comics or not. Constantine used a playing card that turned into an ID, or whatever the holder needs it to be. Bleh. And 2. Constantine in a scene doubted someone's story about the Devil, dismissing it as "urban legend." He WORKS in legends, his whole DEAL is legends and things that go bump in the night.
What the hell?
Yeah. I was thinking if this show was on FX, I think I would be engaged. Or handled by the Berlanti people (who do Arrow and the Flash.)
But this show is just networked to death. Pass.
Well, yeah, that's the whole point. I don't remember the specific exchange you're referring to, but I figure it's that he knows how demonic things really work, while the common-knowledge version is just a distorted interpretation. Obviously he wasn't saying the Devil doesn't exist, since the whole story was about souls being sold to the Devil. He was just correcting a misapprehension about the specifics.
Something can be supernatural and people can still get the facts wrong about it -- like the way people think Frankenstein is the name of the monster rather than the doctor. Or, I bet if you asked most people whether vampires reflect in water, they'd say no, when in "fact" it's only silvered mirrors that are supposed to reject their reflections, because folklore says that silver has the power to repel evil.
Most people aren't Constantine, nor have his experience.
It's the scene in the hospital with the old man. About the blues man selling his soul.
Edited to add: that if it had been Zed that said the line, "that's an urban legend" it wouldn't have bothered me. But a man that wheals and deals in legend... I could understand him saying, "that's not how the deal with the Devil works..." but to dismiss something as a "legend"? That doesn't make sense.
It's the scene in the hospital with the old man. About the blues man selling his soul.
Edited to add: that if it had been Zed that said the line, "that's an urban legend" it wouldn't have bothered me. But a man that wheals and deals in legend... I could understand him saying, "that's not how the deal with the Devil works..." but to dismiss something as a "legend"? That doesn't make sense.
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Specifically he is referring to the "voice of the deceiver" being recorded on the disc. I think the intention was to show his arrogance (thinking he is so knowledgeable about magic) but I agree that the line had a false ring to it.
I enjoyed this one more than the last one, but it's still not anything spectacular. Papa Midnite seems like he could be an intersting villain. I wonder if we'll ever learn more about the history they seem to have.
I was reading an interview with the actress who plays Zed on IGN, and she was saying that next week's episode is going to be an adaptation of the first Hellblazer comic book story. Should be interesting.
So far this has still been a fairly standard supernatual show, but I'm still enjoying it enough to stick with it for now. I think it does have a lot of potential to get better once it really gets going.
I was reading an interview with the actress who plays Zed on IGN, and she was saying that next week's episode is going to be an adaptation of the first Hellblazer comic book story. Should be interesting.
So far this has still been a fairly standard supernatual show, but I'm still enjoying it enough to stick with it for now. I think it does have a lot of potential to get better once it really gets going.
I think this touches on the problem with the television series. The original 100 or so issues of the comic book run that defined the character and the type of story telling were very nuanced and often subtle. It wasn't "really" about magic, it was about this con-artist/addict/grifter whose greatest con was fooling himself about who he was.
Hellblazer is as important to the development of comic books as Miller's Batman or Moore's Watchmen, even if it isn't as popular.
It told sophisticated stories where evil and good were rarely, if ever, absolutes.
Constantine, himself, was one of the first great antiheroes of comic books. In fact, it was Hellblazer and Sandman that inspired DC to create the Vertigo line.
(Christopher, you should pick up some of the reprinted trades of the original stories--they are great!)
The problem with the series, is that it is making a very subtle story into a middle of the road two-dimensional one.
Similar to Coppola's The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, the television series of Constantine is concentrating too much on the details and missing the finer points of the story.
I read the first two issues of Hellblazer before tonight's episode based on that story and it really shows how mundane the series is. Just for starters, in the comics you have Constantine haunted by the ghosts of those he's failed or betrayed before he forcibly seals the the (undeniably a) junkie to his unwilling fate. Here not only the story but the characters themselves are all cleaned up.
It's too bad as I think a show like this in the 10PM slot could use some more meat. It seems like they are trying to mine the same territory as Arrow/Flash with some gore thrown in.
I don't know if it's just me but it doesn't help that I don't feel that Matt Ryan owns the role. Like when I watch Game of Thrones I see Tyrion I don't see Peter Dinklage, or I see House not Hugh Laurie, but when I watch Constantine it's too obvious I'm watching Matt Ryan.
It's too bad as I think a show like this in the 10PM slot could use some more meat. It seems like they are trying to mine the same territory as Arrow/Flash with some gore thrown in.
I don't know if it's just me but it doesn't help that I don't feel that Matt Ryan owns the role. Like when I watch Game of Thrones I see Tyrion I don't see Peter Dinklage, or I see House not Hugh Laurie, but when I watch Constantine it's too obvious I'm watching Matt Ryan.
I think the demon plot here was very boring; out-of-control binge eating doesn't really strike me as a scary thing to watch, more a silly thing to watch. But the way it went in the climax was promising. Just yesterday I read an article about how the show gets the character wrong, how he's much more reluctant and dark and "toxic" in the comics, tending to cause harm to the people around him. And the very dark and tragic ending here did point in that direction.
Sure, up to this point, the show has been a lot more sanitized and formulaic. But I have a theory about TV, which is that the first few episodes of any show are about selling it to the network suits, putting them at ease about the money they're investing in the show, and that means giving them something that looks familiar and formulaic and conservative to appease their expectations. So it isn't until after the first half-dozen episodes or so that the producers are finally able to start making the show they wanted to make all along, to gradually strip away the protective camouflage of exec-friendly procedural formula and begin to get more daring and innovative.
And this episode felt like a step in that direction. They probably had to make Constantine relatively tame and safe as a character to get the show on the air at all, but the ending here suggested that they're willing to push him more in the direction of the comics character over time. They just have to do it gradually and subtly enough that it doesn't scare off the execs. The risk, though, is that they'll have lost their real target audience by then.
Sure, up to this point, the show has been a lot more sanitized and formulaic. But I have a theory about TV, which is that the first few episodes of any show are about selling it to the network suits, putting them at ease about the money they're investing in the show, and that means giving them something that looks familiar and formulaic and conservative to appease their expectations. So it isn't until after the first half-dozen episodes or so that the producers are finally able to start making the show they wanted to make all along, to gradually strip away the protective camouflage of exec-friendly procedural formula and begin to get more daring and innovative.
And this episode felt like a step in that direction. They probably had to make Constantine relatively tame and safe as a character to get the show on the air at all, but the ending here suggested that they're willing to push him more in the direction of the comics character over time. They just have to do it gradually and subtly enough that it doesn't scare off the execs. The risk, though, is that they'll have lost their real target audience by then.
I think the oppsite is true, a show will normally put the wilder stuff out there first, then after feedback from the studio, the nework heads and the audience shows are toned done and altered. We've never had gotten the Daleks if shows followed your theory, they were a huge risk for Verity Lambert at the time.
I'm not experiencing this myself but it might be due to the fact that I haven't seen Matt Ryan in anything else.
