Trash TV Guru : “Doom Patrol” Season One, Episode Six – “Doom Patrol Patrol”

How far the DC Universe original streaming series Doom Patrol has come — as well as how fast it’s come to be at this high-water creative mark — is best judged by episode six, curiously (but, as it turns out, accurately) entitled “Doom Patrol Patrol,” the installment that deviates furthest from the show’s comic book roots, taking only inspiration and some telling visual cues (specifically relating to Diane Guerrero’s “Crazy” Jane confronting the demons of her past) from its four-color progenitor, but no specific plot points or lines of dialogue, as has been the case every week up until now.

Not that there isn’t plenty on offer to appeal to even the funnybook’s longest-tenured fans : when a part of the team goes to investigate the apparently-retired superhero trio known as the Doom Patrol at the urging of the villainous Mr. Nobody, we get to meet Steve Dayton/Mento (played with suave and dangerous charm by Will Kemp), Arani Desai/Celsius (Jasmie Kaur), and Rhea Jones/Lodestone (Lesa Wilson), as well as their minder, Joshua Clay/Tempest (Alimi Ballard), an assemblage torn right from the newsprint pages — but never in this precise combination, to say nothing of in this precise fashion. They should, by rights, all be retired — they did their adventuring way back in the 1950s, after all — and yet they’re not. In fact, they don’t appear to have aged a day, and they’re busily training the next generation of metahumans.

Or are they?

April Bowlby’s Rita Farr has been inching her way toward the foreground in recent stories, and this week she’s the “showcase” character in writer Tamra Becher-Wilkinson’s script, her past coming into sharper relief by means of flashback scenes while she’s concurrently called upon to literally save the day in the present, to well and truly play the “hero” for the first time. She’s been prepping for the job and proves to be up to it, but how she arrives at this point is rooted firmly in, is even a reaction to, earlier-life traumas, not all of which are spelled out plain as day. There’s still plenty of mystery, in other words, undercutting this character, and that mystery only deepens here — which is also the case with Jane, Matt Bomer/Matthew Zuk’s Larry Trainor, and perhaps most especially Timothy Dalton’s “Chief” Niles Caulder, who again makes an extended “appearance” in non-corporeal form. It all sounds more confusing than it actually is, trust me.

Truth be told, “showrunner” Jeremy Carver and this episode’s director, Chris Manley, play things pretty straight with this one, and it works : there’s a strong argument to be made for this being the show’s most workmanlike outing to date, but that should in no way be construed as a “mark” against it, as the horror movie atmospherics of “Doom Patrol Manor” work in stark contrast to the more “upbeat” subplot involving a bargain struck between Brendan Fraser/Riley Shanhan’s Cliff Steele and Joivan Wade’s Vic Stone that sees Cybog and his father, Silas (Phil Morris) start to bury the hatchet and Robotman take some tentative steps toward re-connecting with his estranged daughter — by means of cyber-stalking her? It should be creepy, I suppose, but it’s anything but.

So, yeah, plenty to unpack here — and plenty to admire, even if you’re new to this franchise and the numerous “Easter Eggs” on hand fly right past you. By turns unsettling and heartwarming, cringe-worthy and gut-bustingly funny, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is (say it with me now) probably the best episode yet.

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This review, as well as all others around these parts, is “brought to you” by my Patreon page, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics. Lately, it’s been a lot of politics. Your support there not only allows me to keep things going, it also ensures a steady supply of free content both here and at my fourcolorapocalypse comics site. I’m grateful for every penny I can wring out of you, needless to say, and do my level best to make sure you get plenty of value for your money, so please take a moment to check it out and consider joining up.

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Trash TV Guru : “Doom Patrol” Season One, Episode Five – “Paw Patrol”

The fifth episode of the DC Universe original streaming series Doom Patrol is many things — the conclusion of the “Cult Of The Unwritten Book” two-parter, the return of Alan Tudyk’s Mr. Nobody and Timothy Dalton’s “Chief” Niles Caulder (well, sort of, and only temporarily — but he comes in for more screen time than in any installment to date), a wild and inventive departure from its Grant Morrison/Richard Case “source material” — but first, foremost, and always, it is Jane‘s story.

Diane Guerrero’s “Crazy” Jane is the heart and soul of this one, as we get the most detailed look yet into her troubled and mysterious past and tantalizing hints that, as bad as what we see is, what we don’t yet know is surely even worse. The puzzle of what the “Paw Patrol” title is all about is eventually solved here, but the puzzle that is Jane — well, that’s going to take considerably more “unpacking” to resolve. That ism assuming it’s even possible to do so.

From her 1970s punk rock days to her stay in a particularly sadistic psychiatric facility to the origins of her powers to her first meeting with The Chief, this is a journey  through Jane’s past — but it’s a past in flux, one that’s changing on the fly. Mr. Nobody and Caulder have forged an alliance to stop The Decreator, you see, and it involves some serious chronological fuckery — in fact, this is the most “timey-wimey” story to appear on TV screens since the most self-indulgent period of Steven Moffat’s tenure on Doctor Who, but fortunately it’s far less annoying.

That’s probably because Doom Patrol head honcho Jeremy Carver hasn’t been entrenched in his position long enough to develop any excesses yet, and is still committed to story and character development over and above putting his “signature” on his work, methinks. Certainly he’s giving his writers a fair amount of freedom — Shoshana Sachi, who scripted this episode, takes things in a remarkably different direction than long-time fans of the comic will be expecting here, incorporating a persona and plotline for Jane loosely based on the most recent iteration of the comic by Gerard Way and Nick Derington into the proceedings, but in service of an entirely new and novel resolution to a story almost three decades old. I’ll refrain from specifics and “spoilers,” let’s just say that to stop a cult, sometimes you need to start a cult.

For fans of the other characters, rest assured — they’ve all got plenty to do here, too. April Bowlby’s Rita Farr shows a hitherto-unseen maternal streak, Matt Bomer/Matthew Zuk’s Larry Trainor gains some new perspective on how to resolve his shared-body standoff with the so-called “Negative Spirit,” Joivan Wade’s Cyborg learns the limits of his leadership abilities and his own techno-physical form, and Brendan Fraser/Riley Shanahan’s Cliff Steele exhibits some real vulnerability when he believes his — hell, all of our — days are numbered. Director Larry Teng gets some grade-A performances from his guest cast, as well, with Mark Sheppard turning it supremely pitch-perfect work as rogue occultist Willoughby Kipling and Ted Sutherland wringing a hell of a lot of emotion out of limited screen time as literal “Word Made Flesh” Elliot Patterson. This is a show with amazingly strong scripting and cinematic direction, but it’s the acting that really has been selling things so far, bringing all the goods home.

My one criticism, and it’s a slight one, is that the cliffhanger is maybe a bit too multi-faceted and may even be a case of the show biting off more than it can chew, but the series hasn’t missed a beat yet and has, in fact, more than exceeded expectations every step of the way — so I wouldn’t bet against Carver, his cast, his writers, and his directors pulling off everything that’s foreshadowed in the final few minutes here. Plus, Curtis Armstrong’s Ezekiel the Cockroach gets to make another appearance. What’s not to love?

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We close things up with the customary quick reminder that this review, as well as all others around these parts, is “brought to you” by my Patreon page, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics. Lately, it’s been a lot of politics. Your support there not only keeps things going, it also ensures a steady stream of free content both here and at my fourcolorapocalypse comics page. So what are you waiting for? Join up already! Please?

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Trash TV Guru : “Doom Patrol” Season One, Episode Four – “Cult Patrol”

Goddamn. I mean, seriously.

It’s no secret that I’m a tremendous fan — nay, admirer — of Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s justly-legendary run on the Doom Patrol comic book, but if you put a gun to my head (and some readers over the years have been, I’m sure, tempted to do just that) and forced me to name a favorite single storyline from their era, I’d probably have to say the one colloquially known as “The Cult Of The Unwritten Book,” so-called because that’s the name of the villains they go up against, a suitably freakish bunch of nihilists who are waiting for the flesh of a certain unwitting sap to literally finish writing itself, given that it’s been manifesting a tattooed “unholy scripture” upon its own surface, in the form of arcane symbols, for quite some time now. Once this unwritten book is, in fact, written, the cult’s intention is to read it and, in so doing, summon forth The Decreator, a shadow of the Big Bang itself tasked with undoing that which its counterpart once did. Fuck the end of the world — The Decreator’s out to wipe out all of existence.

In the comics, the team is joined by “de-frocked” Templar Knight/freelance occult detective Willoughby Kipling — think John Constantine only not cool (Morrison had, in fact, originally wanted to use Constantine for the story, but DC editorial put the kibosh on it as his involvement would run counter to some things taking place concurrently within his own series) — and after a harrowing visit to the cult’s home turf of Nurnheim, a shadow realm that exists within a snow globe, the combined forces of “The World’s Strangest Heroes” and the world’s most annoying magician result, not so much in stopping the destruction of all things, but in slowing it down to the point where nobody can really be bothered to notice what’s happening.

I never never could have imagined, way back in 1990, that I’d ever see this utterly bizarre, mystifying, and singular tale adapted into a big-budget TV production, and yet, here in 2019 —in a world that, I humbly submit, is probably every bit as weird as Nurnheim itself — it’s actually happened. It’s called “Cult Patrol.”  And it’s not just “good,” it’s sensational.

A few liberties with the so-called “source material” have been taken by “showrunner” Jeremy Carver and his script writers, Marcus Dalzine and Chris Dingess — Kipling (magnificently brought to life by actor Mark Sheppard) and Timothy Dalton’s Chief are old acquaintances, the “recipient” of the unwritten book is a Salt Lake City teen named Elliot Patterson (Ted Sutherland), while the actual leader of the cult turns out to be none other than his own mother (Lilli Birdsell) — but a good number of scenes are lifted directly from the page, and those that aren’t offer intriguing new takes on this old story (that, in fairness, most viewers have probably never read anyway) that make it unpredictable all over again while fitting in with the various ongoing “story arcs” of the series as a whole. In short, though, the basics are intact, and when Brendan Fraser/Riley Shanahan’s Cliff Steele and Diane Guerrero’s “Crazy” Jane (who spends most of this episode in her defensive-to-the-point-of-offensive Hammerhead persona) end up in an astonishingly well-realized version of Nurnheim, shit — I was over the moon.

Who knows? I might have loved this story too much, and for too long, to write anything approaching an “objective” review here.

Still, if director Stefan Pleszczynski had screwed anything up, I’d be the first to object, and he doesn’t. The performances of the cast are strong, with April Bowlby really coming into her own as Rita Farr, Joivan Wade playing his de facto leader role as Cyborg to a proverbial “T,” and Matt Bomer/Matthew Zuk’s recently-developed “what the fuck?” persona for Larry Trainor all meriting special mention — Cliff and Jane may be the heart of this particular episode, but it’s not like everyone else is just given “filler” material to pad out the runtime. Everything’s essential, everything’s part of a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

My one gripe — and it’s a small one — is that when The Decreator makes its appearance, “Chicken Little was right” is a lot better line to announce its arrival than “Maybe I should have gone with A Hard Day’s Night.” That’s seriously all I’ve got though — other than that, this is some seriously flawless television. We’ll see how part two shakes out next week, but top marks for all involved so far.

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This review, as well as all others around these parts, is “brought to you” by my Patreon page, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics. Lately, a lot of politics. Your support there not only helps to keep it as a going concern, but also ensures a steady supply of free content both here and at my fourcolorapocalypse comics site. Joining up is cheap, and I make sure you get plenty to read for your money.

Oh, here’s a link :https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

 

 

Trash TV Guru : “Doom Patrol” Season One, Episode Three – “Puppet Patrol”

Three episodes in, the DC Universe streaming television series Doom Patrol is proving to be a genuine amalgamation : yeah, the Grant Morrison/Richard Case era of the comic is still the primary “source material,” but more and more the Arnold Drake/Bruno Premiani influence is being felt, and there’s plenty here that’s altogether new, as well, making this show that rarest of rare things : one where you literally never know what’s going to happen.

The most recent installment, “Puppet Patrol,” is probably the farthest “step out of the nest” yet — for both the characters in Tamara Becher and Tom Farrell’s razor-sharp script, and for the program in a more general, thematic sense. With Timothy Dalton’s Chief missing and a localized search proving fruitless (there’s a surreal and hilarious scene centered around Diane Guerrero’s “Crazy” Jane kicking off the episode that drives this point home with some bloody laughs), a rummage through his lab unearths clues that lead to Paraguay, where we — but, it should be noted, not the characters themselves — know that the de facto team’s equally de facto leader first encountered the now-villainous Mr. Nobody. The real baddie, though, is “ex”-Nazi commandant/mad scientist Strumbanfuhrer Van Fuchs (played by the great Julian Richings), who created Nobody and has been running a super-powers-for-sale tourist trap loosely modeled on Chile’s notorious Colonia Dignidad ever since. So, yeah, our erstwhile heroes have to head south — but how to get there?

With Cyborg (Joivan Wade) stepping into the role of lead strategist largely because nobody else wants the gig, attempts to land the services of a S.T.A.R. Labs private jet courtesy of his farther Silas Stone (Phil Morris) prove fruitless, and so it’s down to their literal “short bus” to do the job — which, needless to say, it’s not up to. The team ends up stranded somewhere well shy of Paraguay, at a roadside motel (where they watch George Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead), but when Jane reveals a previously unseen persona known as Flit, with the also- previously unseen power to teleport, she, Matt Bomer/Matthew Zuk’s Larry Trainor, and Brendan Fraser/Riley Shanahan’s Cliff Steele end up pretty much exactly where they wanted to be after all — I say pretty much, because first they have to catch a bus to Nazi-land with an overly-enthusiastic tourist named Steve (Alec Mapa), who’s going there for “The Full Nobody.” What does that mean? Probably more or less exactly what you’re guessing it does.

This leaves Cyborg and Rita Farr (April Bowlby) back at the ranch for some well-executed “character bonding” scenes, and by day’s end, lo and behold, Silas comes through with that jet after all, but by the time the “remainers” meet up with their teammates, a lot has happened. Roll call :

A puppet show tells the whole story about Von Fuchs and his life-long quest to create ubermenschen (in addition to dropping some juicy hints about Niles Caluder’s own past); Larry (who’s the featured character in the “flashback scenes” this time out) unsuccessfully tries to separate himself from the “Negative Spirit” by means of one of the compound’s crazy-ass mechanical devices; Cliff takes a good, hard look inside himself — and takes it out on Von Fuchs’ hive-mind (in the strictest sense of that term) Bavarian teen hit squad when he goes absolutely, and frighteningly, apeshit; a confrontation with Von Fuchs himself, kept alive in a steampunk technological monstrosity, reveals that Jane may not be who we think she is but, even more crucially, not who she thinks she is; and Steve — well, we haven’t seen the last of good ol’ Steve. Not by a long shot. And he’s absolutely ecstatic about that.

Veteran director Rachel Talalay definitely brings a cinematic look and feel to the proceedings here, but “showrunner” Jeremy Carver has established a tone that carries through in everything so far, one that is revealing itself to be among the most singular and unique in television in a good long while. It’s perfectly fair and entirely accurate to say that each episode of this show has been better than the one before it — and considering how strong it started right out of the gate, that’s very high praise indeed.  Bring on part four’s “Cult Patrol,” then — I’m absolutely hooked.

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Just enough time to remind you, dear reader, that as of about a month ago I now have a Patreon page, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics. Your support there not only keeps is going, but also ensures a steady stream of continued free stuff here and at my fourcolorapocalype comics site. Joining up is cheap, you get plenty of content for your money, and your support is, of course, greatly appreciated.

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