Needless to say I have
been a die-core fan of the Doom Patrol ever since the late 80s Grant Morrison “revival”,
so much so I even continued after his run when Rachel Pollack tried to follow
through, before the series ended in the 90s. I even tried the next “reboot” of
the comics but alas, the weirdness and absurd were gone, the DP now having
re-become a standard DC superhero team. When the Marvel cinematic universe was
beginning, and DC also jumped on the bandwagon, I kept saying to my
surroundings that they should do a Doom Patrol film, although it surely would
be watered down and “normalized” for a general audience… and people just said
to me that no one cared about the Doom Patrol anyway.
Fast forward just a
couple of years and behold, a Doom Patrol TV series! As of this “review”, only
the pilot episode was watched, and so one can not judge a series by it’s pilot
(nor by it’s “approx.” half first season episodes for that matter). I can however
say that so far so good as the show’s creators seem to have paid some attention
to detail, especially for us die-core maniacs who lived and breathed by the
Morrison run of the comics. Yes, one has come to grips with a few discrepancies
such as Rita Farr (April Bowlby) and Kay “Crazy Jane” Challis (Diane Guerrero)
being in the team at the same time and some details about a few of our “heroes”’s
origins (but more on that later, so SPOILERS AHEAD!)
Casting-wise, it is a
pretty good choice. Brendan Fraser as Cliff Steele, the hot-head egotistical
race car driver does a rather good job at playing the seemingly 2-dimentional
character (so far), and props to the production team for keeping his vocabulary
intact (I was fearing that a TV series would change Cliff’s colorful language
into something more politically acceptable in today’s asepticized world). Matt Bomer as Larry Trainor was also a
good choice since the character always was a “pretty boy” pilot, and it’s quite
interesting that they chose such a “pleasing to the eye” actor to be completely
covered up in bandages, something my wife thought was very interesting. April
Bowlby looks and plays Rita Farr very well (so far so good!), as I was unsure
she would capture that 50s era “moving pictures” starlet.
Oh and Timothy Dalton as
Niles “The Chief” Caulder, well I do not want to spoil anything if the writers
decided to keep the character in tune with what Grant Morrison did with him in
the comics, but if they do, well Mr Dalton is perfectly cast… and I do mean he
is excellent, but one can never go wrong with such a professional thespian.
I do have trouble with
Diane Guerrero being cast as “Crazy Jane”. First of all, she looks like she is
16 years old – perhaps her character on the TV is an origin story in itself,
which would be at odds with her character (invented by Grant Morrison in his
run of the comics) since Kay Challis started having “super powers” with split
personalities when she was a youth child. Also, “Crazy Jane” should have played
by someone more in the physical frame of Amanda Plummer; sort-of frail-looking
but surprisingly dangerous. Guerrero looks like a sass-talking teenager in a “Scary
Movie” or “White Chicks” sort of film.
Alan Tudyk plays Eric
Morden / Mr Nobody, another Morrison creation in the comics who ends up being
quite a fascinating one. I was quite pleased to know he was cast as the
soon-to-be leader of the “Brotherhood of Dada” (or “The Brotherhood of Nada”
for today’s nihilistic sensibilities), and more so when they kept part of his
origin story somewhat intact/similar to that in the comic books. Let’s hope he’s
as much fun on screen as he was in the comics!
In terms of origin
stories, they have been quite “fideles” to the origins of the comic book
characters. Cliff’s “accident” was indeed that, however in this pilot episode
they seem to imply he did not die on the racetrack but afterwards when
attempting to rebuild his family. However this could be one of Cliff’s numerous
memory failings (also hinted at in the pilot episode), as I do hope it is, for
if his “real” accident was with his family (which to be honest I do not think
he had in the comic books), then that does sort of change his character
somewhat (perhaps written so as to be less of a “a__hole” for the audience).
Larry’s “accident” seems
very close to the comics’ origins, save of course for the extra-marital
affair(s) he is shown as having. Again, perhaps the writers have modified the
character slightly in order to introduce him as “Rebis”, another Morrison creation,
a rather complex character in itself, which would prove quite interesting if
the show does go towards that direction.
Rita’s origin story is
very similar to the comics, except it happened away from the on-location film
set instead of “right there” as it is shown in the pilot episode. This is
however just a very small detail and is more nit-picking than anything else.
I will not pretend that
I did not thoroughly enjoyed myself with this pilot episode. It was quite
pleasing to finally see my favorite superhero team being fleshed out, with
strong ties to the Grant Morrison era of the comic books, and more than a few
nods to boot as well (“… crawls from the wreckage” references Morrison’s first
DP storyarc “Crawling From The Wreckage”, and Cliff telling Kay Challis to “come
in out of the rain” when her painting’s being ruined also references the first
issue of Morrison’s run). I do have reservations especially since they will be
introducing a character called “Cyborg” who, as far as I can tell, has nothing
tod o and no ties whatsoever with the team (perhaps another “plug” for a young
actor to appeal to the target demographic that the show seems to be aiming for),
but as I stated earlier, so far so good! I do hope they continue in this vein
and explore some of the really weird-absurd-off the beaten path concepts the DP
was known for during the late 80s/early 90s comic books.