Doomed from the start?
What do you get when you cross robotic Brendan Fraser, a walking nuclear reactor, the human psychological kaleidoscope, and The Blob’s female cousin?
The cast of DC’s latest streaming show Doom Patrol, that’s who!
Over the last weekend, I sat down and watched the pilot episode of the show, and now I’m giving you my first impressions.
Straight off the bat, this show is out there, even by comic book adaptation standards. So, allow me to attempt to recount the plot of the first episode, or what I fully understood.
Stop me when it gets too confusing.
In 1948, a former Nazi scientist who escaped to Paraguay after Hitler decided to repaint his bunker walls a nice shade of grey matter and blood- runs an experiment on third-rate supervillain Eric Morden (played by the excellent Alan Tudyk) resulting in Morden becoming the dimension-hopping, fourth-wall-breaking narrator Mr. Nobody.
Everyone still here? Okay then.
The show then jumps into 1980’s Florida to watch cars drive in a circle for a bit as we meet our first member of the Doom Patrol – race car driver Cliff Steele. We also get to marvel at just how good it is to see Brendan Fraser on our screens again. This is put to a stop by a semi-wide trailer as Cliff is killed and wakes up to find he’s been put in a rusty tin man body by the mysterious wheelchair-bound Dr. Niles Caulder who looks suspiciously like Timothy Dalton.
Now, with Timothy Dalton and Brendan Fraser as co-stars I know what you’re thinking;
All we need is Steve Martin and we’ve got ourselves a Loony Tunes: Back in Action reunion! And I’d have to agree with you, gold star.
However, before you get any funny ideas about a Bugs Bunny cameo, these two actors are the closest this show gets to Looney Tunes. It’s revealed that Cliff’s not the only one that Niles has rescued as we meet the entire team, accompanied by flashbacks showing their origin stories.
Eventually, we get past the origin stories and the episode’s inciting incident happens, which I’m not going to spoil, and Mr. Nobody appears to liven up the episode and tease for more exciting things to come, culminating in an entire town being sucked into a black hole.
Now the all-important question… Am I going to watch more?
What was that? Sorry, I was too busy binging the entire first season in a weekend.
…
We’ll pencil in a yes.
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Have a great day,
-Rohan