Spoilers ahead: DOOM PATROL TV series (pilot episode)

Doom Patrol (TV series) – Pilot Episode

 

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.