Doom Patrol Season 1 Premiere: "Pilot" Review

By Jesse Schedeen

Note: This is a spoiler from the first episode of Doom Patrol. I will focus first on the basic details of the story and save the annotations for the marked section at the end. And Doom Patrol is not the only streaming series dedicated to a group of unsuitable heroes making their debut today – check out our article on Netflix's The Umbrella Academy, which does not contain a spoiler.

Neither Titans nor Young Justice: Aliens may not be enough to convince you to subscribe to the DC Universe streaming application. Understandable. The Titans were wrong foot with many fans of DC thanks to this famous "F *** Batman !!!" clip. And although Outsiders has been in the first half of the season, it's also a series for fans of the animated series.

But now that Doom Patrol has arrived, there is really no excuse for not paying $ 8. This new series has the strongest debut of all DC shows recently. Whether you're a fan of Doom Patrol comics or just love the stories of unsuitable heroes who protect a world that hates and fears them, Doom Patrol has a lot to offer.

Although technically a derivative of the Titans, Doom Patrol does not require any familiarity with this show nor with the comic book source material. Between the partially redesigned distribution and the lack of tangible links with the DCU in the broad sense, this is almost like a different series from the one that was launched at Titans. All you really need to know is that Doom Patrol is DC's answer to the X-Men (and yes, I know him technically, he debuted first). It fills this particular niche in a way that none of Marvel's current X-Men based shows has yet succeeded.

The greatest strength of Doom Patrol is easily his self-awareness and his eagerness to accept the strangeness of these characters. This first episode is told by the character of Alan Tudyk, Eric Morden, a man who borrows a few pages from the game book of Deadpool and becomes very meta, very quickly. His narration immediately helps set the tone and make sure that no matter how dark the pilot's events become (and they become really dark), Doom Patrol maintains a devious and constant sense of humor. And bonus points for giving Tudyk a second chance to shine in the DCU after the powerless sad helpless.

The most notable new addition to this series is Timothy Dalton, who replaces Bruno Bichir at the helm of the team, Niles "The Chief" Caulder. This overhaul is a little shocking at first, simply because Dalton and Bichir have very different accents and ways. But Dalton immediately installs in the role and makes it his own. It has a warm and imposing presence with just a hint of instability and danger. It's a little strange that The Chief is presented as a much less sinister figure than here below that it was at Titans, but this extra layer of subtlety seems to play in favor of the series .

However, Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan are perhaps the MVPs of the series. These two people are collaborating on the difficult task of bringing Robotman to life, Shanahan doing the work of the body and Fraser expressing the character and portraying him in human form during flashbacks. Both are able to extract a wonderful amount of depth and pathos from a character who spends most of his time trapped behind an almost inexpressive metal hull. Fraser's voice alone expresses that mix of awkward bluster marks and existential sadness that defines Cliff Steele. Each main character is convincing, depressing and silly, but Cliff really feels like the heart and soul of the show.

It's a strong distribution all around. April Bowlby continues to impress Rita Farr, a former Hollywood star, just two steps from bankruptcy. Similar to Fraser and Shanahan, Matt Bomer and Matthew Zuk form their own effective team as Larry Trainor / Negative Man, although he does not have enough space to shine in this episode. To complete the group, Diane Guerrero is a solid new addition under the name of Crazy Jane, a teenager with dissociative identity disorder. His scenes with Robotman are among the most entertaining of the pilot.

Warning: the rest of the review contains comments on the first of the Doom Patrol series!

Honestly, with the distribution of the series so strong right off the bat, you have to wonder about the opportunity to add Jovian Wade's Cyborg to the mix of episode 2. Will Cyborg be able to bring something that we do not already have from a character like Robotman? This will be one of the big questions that the series must answer in the future.

Although the series is clearly inspired by comics in general and the influential series of Grant Morrison and Richard Case in particular, I appreciated the changes made to Robotman's original story. The fact that his accident did not happen on the circuit, but in his own car with his family, adds new facets to his tragic past. No doubt this season will fully play Cliff's relationship with his missing daughter.

One of the most impressive aspects of the first is the amount of energy she keeps despite the lightness of her plot. A huge part of the episode is devoted to flashbacks and stories of origin, a material that is probably not even necessary given the basics prepared at Titans. But in the end, it's a show where the characters are more important than the plot. Screenwriters understand the importance of ensuring that viewers are interested in these head balls before testing their courage of superheroes. The pilot contributes a lot to the fact that these characters feel like a caring, even extremely dysfunctional family.

Despite the fact that this series plunges into its own strangeness and drops the F bombs as if they were outmoded, there is a surprisingly serious and innocent story about the family. Doom Patrol has heart, intelligence and tragedy to spare, and it's enough to easily differentiate it from a very cluttered genre.