Column

Serialised Storytelling July

Published

10 years ago

July 6, 2016

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Daredevil and Preacher: Looking For Redemption?

♦In his latest column, Tripwire’s Contributing TV writer HUGH DAVID talks about two recent TV shows that are based on comics material: Daredevil, whose second season finished in the spring, and Preacher, which is currently in its first season…

One of the odd things about streaming content is that some of us no longer participate in the immediate conversation that PR and marketing drum out when a show is released, and fans lap up. Giving things time to get out from under the first reactions is often a good thing, however, allowing one to cast a clearer eye unfogged by the desire for more of that which you love over the product. So it is that I finally got around to finishing DAREDEVIL Season 2 last month, after two false starts in March and April. Frankly, I found it dragged despite all the action and incident, and that two of my favourite characters on the page were better acted than written, thrilling me in fits and starts rather than in the continual manner of the first season. It was good to have the courtroom scenes, but they kept stopping for soap operatics instead of trusting that the case itself and the performances in court of our heroes would keep the audience interested. It also kept shoehorning in throwbacks to the first season that in the scheme of this season amounted to not a lot by season’s end.

All in all, despite the great cast and location work, and some good direction and choreography here and there, it felt less like a successful second arc built carefully on the first and more like a reactive series just happening week to week, like an older network-style show. It felt as if the new showrunners lacked the understanding of the potential inherent in the Netflix binge format for building suspense right to the end that thus provides great dramatic weight to whatever final confrontation wraps things up. Either that or they didn’t trust that one of the reasons the first season found an audience was precisely because of that fat-free but meaty substance Year 1 was made up of; certainly this season seemed to respond to some of the criticisms levelled at the first year by other critics and fans, but the showrunners should have had faith and trusted in their own storytelling instincts rather than cater to the vocal online crowd.

(The show also contained one of the worst examples I’ve seen lately of the obvious re-use of a location/set despite redressing. It was so brazenly obvious you would think this was an L.A. backlot shoot for an 80s weekly network show…)

On the other hand, a nice surprise has been the AMC-commissioned, Seth Rogen/Evan Gold/Sam Catlin-adapted TV version of 90s Vertigo comics sensation PREACHER. Airing in the U.K. the day after its U.S. airing thanks to Amazon Prime, we’re now seen sufficient episodes that the wonderful feelings engendered by the surprisingly excellent pilot have been tempered by the shortcomings now visible. One of DC/Vertigo’s most-talked about series of the era, Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon/Glen Fabry/Hollingsworth/Rambo’s crime/horror-comedy/western remains beloved by many to this day. I loved it at the time, but went off it massively when older (as I did with ALL Ennis’ stuff), barring one single volume that I still think encapsulates its themes and narrative drive better than the entire series. However the pilot is surprisingly superb, tonally perfect yet adding a heart and soul Ennis and Dillon as outsiders couldn’t possibly feel for outlaws of the American heartland. There’s a lot less (sub)urban sneering at the “rubes” than I expected given who the showrunners are and their comedic background, a lovely globalised touch that expands on the original premise and gives the pilot a spine of narrative suspense, fine casting and good visuals & sound effects/track choices.
It’s no BANSHEE, but it takes cues from both that and TRUE DETECTIVE as well as the comic. It has something of the populist touch Marvel Studios have brought to the MCU, albeit here applied to lovers of on-screen gore and off-kilter comedy. The actors are pretty much all perfectly cast, and handle everything thrown at them well. Yet as the season has worn on so has the patience of many of us who know the source material, as it seems that due to budgetary reasons (keeping the story to a fixed set of locations and characters for the duration of the first season) this season isn’t going to even get to the end of the first “book” of the original series. While I can understand this, especially given the uncertainty of the network going in as to whether this particular production team would strike gold, it’s a shame that, now that a second season has been announced and confirmed, this first one will always feel like a solid weekly entertainment that dragged its feet with regard to the greater story arc. Hopefully S2 will move with greater speed and purpose, getting us out of small-town rural America on the road with Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy.