Amph Marvel's The Defenders

I watched the first four episodes on Friday and then totally forgot this series existed. That probably says enough.

 

Gotta thank you folks for sparing me from devoting four more hours of watching this trainwreck. I have a bad feeling they're gonna screw up Punisher too.

 

Punisher is more real-world. I think their writers handle that stuff better,

 

It seems as true now with Marvel/Netflix as it is with the Marvel movies: quantity is the mortal enemy of quality.

 

Other Jabba, all of the MCU was always stupid. From the beginning. It is only now that people are seeing its true nature.

 

All of Marvels Netflix properties ended up losing steam and come crashing to variable endings save season 1 of Daredevil. I saw nothing of Iron Fist save the first episode which was so bad it retroactively made me dislike this entire universe.

I gave Defenders a try, watched all of it and it was just so disappointing. I thought they could do something cool with this Street level super hero team but it's just so deathly boring. The thing that killed Daredevil season 2 is here and is most of this show, and it leans quite heavily on Iron Fist, the show I didn't watch, to sustain some of its plotting. The actors are fine and some of the quips they get are fun, but other than that it's pretty dire. The action is not great, the show is shot just way too dark, the plot is so muddy and dumb and redundant and I feel so bad that Sigourney Weaver is stuck in such a nothing villain role.

Dreadful show that killed my love for this franchise dead. Punisher is 13 episodes and I will give it 3 to win me over. Other than that or critics hailing new seasons of these shows as amazing or revelatory I'm don't with this enterprise. A real shame.

 

double post that's what I get for posting through mobile on not-the-app

 

I have zero interest in Psychopathic Maniac Kills People With Guns Because They Do Crime: The TV Show

 

But you were thrilled for Alcoholic Woman Punches People?

 

Yes

 

I felt unsettled and unbalanced through nearly every episode of Alcoholic Woman Punches People, and I really appreciated that. Marvel hasn't done anything else like it. They perfectly captured the horror at the center of the drama without succumbing completely to it.

 

But Wocky, did you enjoy honorable ascetic man who sleeps on the floor of the dojo?

 

Great. The thread went to ****, just like the show it featured.

 

Getting back on track then, while I overall enjoyed The Defenders, I found that it didn't really live up to the hype (even though most of that was personal hype as I'd been looking forward to this since Jessica Jones came out) and has numerous flaws.

First, the things this series did well. I loved the aesthetic of this show. The lighting for each of the four heroes was nicely color coded (red lighting for Murdock, blue for Jones, yellow for Cage, and green for Rand), which sounds cheesy on paper, but this show really made it work. And in this same vein, I love how Alexandra's dominant color was sheer white--it worked very well. Also black mixed with red for Elecktra, because of both being the Black Sky and her affections for Matthew. I love that stuff, and it was very thematically appropriate in this show. Likewise, this series has the best intro sequence out of the five (narrowly beating out JJ in that regard)--it was beautiful to watch, the music was gorgeous, and I loved the city map motif.

Far and away the biggest selling point of this series were the character interactions, and I'm glad that these at least did not disappoint. (My only real criticism here is that almost all the juicy interactions and ragging jokes were spoiled by the trailers. Oh well.) I've been looking forward to Jessica and Daredevil meeting since JJ S1, and that turned out to be worth the wait. And Luke's dressing down of Danny after their first encounter was worth the price of admission alone. Furthermore, I think the show did a fine job of showing the team coming together and starting to care for each other. Jessica's line to Matt in the finale, "We're not leaving without you," was genuinely touching to me. (Of course, they ended up leaving without him after all, but that's a different kettle of fish!)

Also, I think I might be the only one who believes Iron Fist was an improvement in this one over his own series. (Not by a huge amount, mind you, but aside from a couple moments of stupidity, he acquitted himself well enough.)

Now for the flaws. And the worst were the fight sequences. This was probably the second most anticipated feature for fans, and they blew it pretty bad. It was almost IF S1 levels of poor fight choreography. They also seemed to forget the various characters' power levels, which in ensemble shows like this is a particularly frustrating mistake to me. The series opens up with a fight sequence, and the writing was on the wall right then because I couldn't tell what was happening most of the time. A shame--that would've been a great reintroduction to Iron Fist, which could've gone a long way to smoothing over fans' antipathy toward him after his own poorly put together series.

The rest gets into spoiler territory, so it's tag time:

Spoiler

I loved Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra, but dear God, what a wasted villain she was. Killed off in only the sixth episode for no particularly compelling reason, just to let an ax-crazy Elecktra take over as the main antagonist. I mean, it was a cool twist in a show that was otherwise becoming painfully formulaic--but that's it. The change in supervillain might've not been so bad except Elecktra's character and motivations were so poorly mapped out in these last few episodes. She loves Matthew so much she wants him to die with her? What?

Also, the Japanese-speaking guy (I never even caught his name) was by far the least interesting finger of the Hand. They definitely could've developed him more. And Madam Gao was criminally underused toward the end--all along, I'd been thinking that her being around and messing about in Daredevil and Iron Fist was leading up to some dramatic crescendo in The Defenders, but nope. She just does her usual bit of cryptic speaking, the occasional Force push, then gets away to fight again another day. I really do love her as a villain--I just wish the showrunners would actually use her!

Finally, that ending was one of the most disingenuous bits of writing I've seen on a TV show in a long time. Daredevil S3 was announced some six months prior to this show's release, and they're really going to go on and on as if the viewer would believe for a second that they actually killed off Matt Murdock? It was borderline insulting and did not add to the dramatic tension at all. Sure it does for the characters, and maybe it'll make one hell of an opening to DD S3, but it was such a half-assed lackluster end to this series.

For all the talk of bloat in some of the other Marvel Netflix seasons, I feel like they could've made this one longer. I don't mind the heroes taking two whole episodes to meet up because I found their individual storylines after their respective seasons engaging enough. But I felt like by the time we were getting to the meat of the conflict, the series was already half-over. They needed more episodes to flesh out the characters and especially the villains, their motivations, the supporting characters and friends of our heroes. I really wanted more, and I felt like eight episodes made this into a rush job. Ten or twelve would've been better.

 

Yes I feel that Wocky would be the biggest Iron Fist fan here. Honourable, for a long time quite chaste, few material possessions, and a floor sleeper who honours his mother and father in his words and thoughts daily.

 

I binged the entire series last Friday and Saturday and found it be a "C+." It's an above average TV series crossover, but a step down from MCU proper films.

I don't feel there was that signature moment when the Defenders come together and just kickass. Nor did they call themselves the Defenders.

And "The Black Sky" was over hyped, especially when...

Spoiler

Daredevil alone can match up with the Black Sky/Elektra.

Additionally, I really didn't feel the stakes or that NYC was truly endangered; i.e. the evil plot at hand will ultimately destroy NYC. Sigourney Weaver has great commanding presence on the show, but she's not given much to do other than threaten others and give vague expositions. She's no Kingpin.

As for the inconsistency of Jessica Jones' power, I feel she holding back on her punches because of the memory of killing Luke Cage's girlfriend.

Danny Rand/Iron Fist is slightly an improvement in Defenders from his own series, and therefore still has a long way to go. Dude still only has...

Spoiler

one glowing fist. Unlike that black & white footage of the other Iron Fist.

In short, the characters and expositions talk a very big game, but the show really didn't deliver.

 

I just realized on 2nd watch, that the boy in jail purposely told Luke to get his mom lottery tickets, so he'd find the Midland Circle receipts.

On first watch, I stupidly assumed Luke found it in the mom's apartment by accident.

 

You.... didn't read the body language from the kid?

 

Not on first watch. Too busy focusing on Luke trying to be a good role model.

On 2nd watch I also laughed at how Sigourney looked at Luke in the Chinese restaurant

That was pretty funny.



Also it took Matt to be in his Daredevil costume and help Jessica save Trish, for Alexandra and Madame Gao to realize Daredevil was involved?

It seems the Japanese guy and possibly the African guy (already captured) already realized this.

Who the hell did Alexandra and Madame Gao think the fourth guy who attacked them at Midland Circle and the Chinese restaurant was? It's pretty funny.

 

oh ok, I found it pretty heavy handed like "what clue will those lottery tickets yield?"

 

There's other stuff I missed the first go round.

Like when Danny and Colleen are in the car waiting for Luke to get Claire.

I knew Colleen was jealous of Danny making these new friends, but I didn't realize the extent of her jealousy until I saw her facial expression.

 

It's too bad Hoggarth wasn't one of the characters to be put in safety at the police station.

Her presence would have united the Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Iron Fist supporting casts.

Which is probably WHY they didn't put her there.