https://ew.com/recap/doom-patrol-series-premiere/
February 15, 2019 at 07:09 PM EST
BOB MAHONEY/WARNER BROS.
Doom Patrol is a troll of a TV show. Why, you ask? For one, it cast Matt Bomer in a role where we will almost never see his face because he’s mostly just voicing the character of Larry Trainor/Negative Man, and will only appear on screen in flashbacks to before he became covered in bandages. Furthermore, though, the show is refreshingly self-aware and spends a fair bit of time mocking and deconstructing the tropes of the superhero genre. In fact, it starts doing this from the moment it begins.
The pilot begins with a very meta narration from Alan Tudyk, who plays Eric Morden/Mr. Nobody. “Ready for a story about superheroes? Ugh, more TV superheroes, just what the world needs. Be honest, have you hung yourself yet?” sneers Nobody. ”Or, what if I told you this was actually a story about super-zeroes, losers, achingly pathetic metahuman goose eggs? How about it? Ready to feel about better about your own miserable lives for the next hour or so? Follow me. Our story begins, as such stories do, with a visit to Nazi — I’m sorry, Cobbler.” Let me tell you, I died laughing at the Nazis line, because if there’s one thing superhero stories love, it’s Nazis.
As Tudyk’s narration continues, we see his character making his way through the rainy streets of Paraguay in 1948. He talks his way past some guards and meets with a scientist named Von Fuchs, whose experiments offer “certain enhancements for a price.” Morden pays the man and hops in this chamber, and becomes, well, nobody as he repeats the words, “The mind is the limit.” It’s unclear what the significance of those words is yet, but they do come up again at the end of the series premiere.
Honestly, I love the way Doom Patrol starts because it doesn’t waste any time in establishing that this is not Titans. Whereas DC Universe’s inaugural series was dark and brooding from the moment it begins, Doom Patrol is intent on being as insane as possible while taking the piss out of the superhero tropes it embraces.
From there, it’s time to meet the members of the titular superhero team, all of whom have poignantly weird and tragic backstories. So, let’s run down the show’s super-zeroes.
Cliff Steele/Robotman (Brendan Fraser)
QUANTRELL D. COLBERT/WARNER BROS.
Fraser’s Cliff Steele is our entryway into Doom Patrol. When we first meet him in the pilot, he’s a douchey race car driver who’s cheating on his wife with their daughter’s nanny. Little does he know, though, that his wife is sleeping with someone on his pit team. In fact, he finds that out in the middle of a race and ends up crashing. If you’ve read the comics upon which the show is based, you probably expected Cliff’s pre-Robot life to end there. However, the shows tweaks his origin story — and the change it made was my least favorite part of the pilot because it was so clichéd.
When Cliff wakes up in his robot body, Dr. Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton), the leader of the Doom Patrol, initially leads Cliff to believe that this is the aftermath of his race car crash, but that’s not the case. As he gets used to this new sense-less life, he discovers that he was actually involved in a second accident, which resulted in his wife’s death. Yes, the show decided to gift this character with an unnecessary dead wife, which is one of the most clichéd things in the world. Unfortunately, the script doesn’t do anything to subvert this trope either. Although we do find out that Cliff’s daughter is still alive.
Larry Trainor/Negative Man (Matt Bomer)
JACE DOWNS/WARNER BROS
In 1961 California, Larry Trainor was a happily married Air Force pilot, “an American god,” according Nobody’s narration. Of course, tragedy befell him when he took a superpowered rocket out for a test flight. While in the air, his plane was hit by some energy force, which fried the electronics and sent him hurtling back to Earth. The ensuing crash left him burned beyond repair. Oh, and there’s also some energy being living inside of him. So now he lives life covered in bandages like a mummy.
The show added another tweak to Larry’s origin story: We later discover that he’s a closeted gay man who was hooking up with one of the plane workers before the crash. The pilot implies that the shame he felt about that has stayed with him to the present. “The truth is Larry Trainor had felt like a monster long before he ever was one,” Nobody says.
Rita Farr/Elasti-Woman (April Bowlby)
BOB MAHONEY/WARNER BROS.
Rita is a former ’50s movie pictures star who was obsessed with appearances. While shooting a movie in Africa — during which she asked the crew to get rid of a cameraman because he was missing an arm and was thus an “eyesore” — she fell through a wooden dock and into the water. When she emerged, she’d lost control of her body, which started to melt and lose its shape. These days, she spends her time knitting, being brutally honest with her housemates, and trying not to turn into a huge blob of skin.
Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero)
JACE DOWNS/WARNER BROS.
Finally, we have the best character of the series: Crazy Jane, who has 64 different personalities, each with their own special power. Guerrero is bloody fantastic in the role! In the premiere, we meet Jane; the belligerent and antagonistic Hammerhead; the sad Hangman’s Daughter; and another nameless persona who can flame on and grow really tall. Guerrero effortlessly and thrilling moves between those first three personalities, and it’s the most exciting thing about an episode that includes a big blob of skin destroying a quiet little town in Ohio. Speaking of which…
After taking us through everyone’s backstory, the episode finally settles in 2019, which is when Crazy Jane comes to live at Doom Manor. She and Cliff initially get off on the wrong foot, mostly due to Hammerhead, but once things settle down it’s clear that there’s some kind of father-daughter dynamic developing between them.
Dr. Caulder decides to go on a trip to tend to other mysterious occurrences in the world. Of course, the moment he leaves, Jane suggests they all take a trip into town. Even more obviously, that trip takes a disastrous turn, because Rita eventually loses control of her body and turns into the aforementioned giant blob of skin that tears through the streets of the town. Thankfully, Robotman is able to stop her, but the damage has been done by that point.
When Dr. Caulder returns the manor and discovers what happened, he immediately scolds them because their little adventure has drawn some of his enemies to the town, and now they must flee for their lives. Everyone agrees with him except Cliff, who decides to return to the town on his own to defend it. Feeling guilty, the rest of the team eventually join him. As they walk down Main Street, an albino donkey appears in the streets and farts out the words “The mind is the limit.” Meanwhile, Nobody appears to Caulder, who is hanging back in the bus, and creates a vortex in the middle of the street that starts sucking everything into it. In other words, things just got weird.
Overall, I really enjoyed the series premiere of Doom Patrol. It’s a rather dense episode, but I appreciated the fact that it frontloaded everyone’s origin stories because that (hopefully) means we’ll get to the good stuff way quicker than we did on Titans.
********************************************************************************Doom Patrol series premiere recap: Meet the class weirdoes
By Chancellor AgardFebruary 15, 2019 at 07:09 PM EST
BOB MAHONEY/WARNER BROS.
Doom Patrol is a troll of a TV show. Why, you ask? For one, it cast Matt Bomer in a role where we will almost never see his face because he’s mostly just voicing the character of Larry Trainor/Negative Man, and will only appear on screen in flashbacks to before he became covered in bandages. Furthermore, though, the show is refreshingly self-aware and spends a fair bit of time mocking and deconstructing the tropes of the superhero genre. In fact, it starts doing this from the moment it begins.
The pilot begins with a very meta narration from Alan Tudyk, who plays Eric Morden/Mr. Nobody. “Ready for a story about superheroes? Ugh, more TV superheroes, just what the world needs. Be honest, have you hung yourself yet?” sneers Nobody. ”Or, what if I told you this was actually a story about super-zeroes, losers, achingly pathetic metahuman goose eggs? How about it? Ready to feel about better about your own miserable lives for the next hour or so? Follow me. Our story begins, as such stories do, with a visit to Nazi — I’m sorry, Cobbler.” Let me tell you, I died laughing at the Nazis line, because if there’s one thing superhero stories love, it’s Nazis.
As Tudyk’s narration continues, we see his character making his way through the rainy streets of Paraguay in 1948. He talks his way past some guards and meets with a scientist named Von Fuchs, whose experiments offer “certain enhancements for a price.” Morden pays the man and hops in this chamber, and becomes, well, nobody as he repeats the words, “The mind is the limit.” It’s unclear what the significance of those words is yet, but they do come up again at the end of the series premiere.
Honestly, I love the way Doom Patrol starts because it doesn’t waste any time in establishing that this is not Titans. Whereas DC Universe’s inaugural series was dark and brooding from the moment it begins, Doom Patrol is intent on being as insane as possible while taking the piss out of the superhero tropes it embraces.
From there, it’s time to meet the members of the titular superhero team, all of whom have poignantly weird and tragic backstories. So, let’s run down the show’s super-zeroes.
Cliff Steele/Robotman (Brendan Fraser)
QUANTRELL D. COLBERT/WARNER BROS.
Fraser’s Cliff Steele is our entryway into Doom Patrol. When we first meet him in the pilot, he’s a douchey race car driver who’s cheating on his wife with their daughter’s nanny. Little does he know, though, that his wife is sleeping with someone on his pit team. In fact, he finds that out in the middle of a race and ends up crashing. If you’ve read the comics upon which the show is based, you probably expected Cliff’s pre-Robot life to end there. However, the shows tweaks his origin story — and the change it made was my least favorite part of the pilot because it was so clichéd.
When Cliff wakes up in his robot body, Dr. Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton), the leader of the Doom Patrol, initially leads Cliff to believe that this is the aftermath of his race car crash, but that’s not the case. As he gets used to this new sense-less life, he discovers that he was actually involved in a second accident, which resulted in his wife’s death. Yes, the show decided to gift this character with an unnecessary dead wife, which is one of the most clichéd things in the world. Unfortunately, the script doesn’t do anything to subvert this trope either. Although we do find out that Cliff’s daughter is still alive.
Larry Trainor/Negative Man (Matt Bomer)
JACE DOWNS/WARNER BROS
In 1961 California, Larry Trainor was a happily married Air Force pilot, “an American god,” according Nobody’s narration. Of course, tragedy befell him when he took a superpowered rocket out for a test flight. While in the air, his plane was hit by some energy force, which fried the electronics and sent him hurtling back to Earth. The ensuing crash left him burned beyond repair. Oh, and there’s also some energy being living inside of him. So now he lives life covered in bandages like a mummy.
The show added another tweak to Larry’s origin story: We later discover that he’s a closeted gay man who was hooking up with one of the plane workers before the crash. The pilot implies that the shame he felt about that has stayed with him to the present. “The truth is Larry Trainor had felt like a monster long before he ever was one,” Nobody says.
Rita Farr/Elasti-Woman (April Bowlby)
BOB MAHONEY/WARNER BROS.
Rita is a former ’50s movie pictures star who was obsessed with appearances. While shooting a movie in Africa — during which she asked the crew to get rid of a cameraman because he was missing an arm and was thus an “eyesore” — she fell through a wooden dock and into the water. When she emerged, she’d lost control of her body, which started to melt and lose its shape. These days, she spends her time knitting, being brutally honest with her housemates, and trying not to turn into a huge blob of skin.
Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero)
JACE DOWNS/WARNER BROS.
Finally, we have the best character of the series: Crazy Jane, who has 64 different personalities, each with their own special power. Guerrero is bloody fantastic in the role! In the premiere, we meet Jane; the belligerent and antagonistic Hammerhead; the sad Hangman’s Daughter; and another nameless persona who can flame on and grow really tall. Guerrero effortlessly and thrilling moves between those first three personalities, and it’s the most exciting thing about an episode that includes a big blob of skin destroying a quiet little town in Ohio. Speaking of which…
After taking us through everyone’s backstory, the episode finally settles in 2019, which is when Crazy Jane comes to live at Doom Manor. She and Cliff initially get off on the wrong foot, mostly due to Hammerhead, but once things settle down it’s clear that there’s some kind of father-daughter dynamic developing between them.
Dr. Caulder decides to go on a trip to tend to other mysterious occurrences in the world. Of course, the moment he leaves, Jane suggests they all take a trip into town. Even more obviously, that trip takes a disastrous turn, because Rita eventually loses control of her body and turns into the aforementioned giant blob of skin that tears through the streets of the town. Thankfully, Robotman is able to stop her, but the damage has been done by that point.
When Dr. Caulder returns the manor and discovers what happened, he immediately scolds them because their little adventure has drawn some of his enemies to the town, and now they must flee for their lives. Everyone agrees with him except Cliff, who decides to return to the town on his own to defend it. Feeling guilty, the rest of the team eventually join him. As they walk down Main Street, an albino donkey appears in the streets and farts out the words “The mind is the limit.” Meanwhile, Nobody appears to Caulder, who is hanging back in the bus, and creates a vortex in the middle of the street that starts sucking everything into it. In other words, things just got weird.
Overall, I really enjoyed the series premiere of Doom Patrol. It’s a rather dense episode, but I appreciated the fact that it frontloaded everyone’s origin stories because that (hopefully) means we’ll get to the good stuff way quicker than we did on Titans.
from Entertainment Weekly:
https://ew.com/recap/doom-patrol-season-1-episode-2/
February 22, 2019 at 06:17 PM EST
BOB MAHONEY/WARNER BROS.
After watching the second episode of Doom Patrol, I’m thoroughly convinced that DC Universe should’ve launched the series with a two-hour premiere, because “Donkey Patrol” is essentially the second part of the pilot. Airing these two hours back-to-back would’ve helped the premiere feel like it told a complete story. But what we got instead works. “Donkey Patrol” is strong enough follow-up that I’m excited to see where the rest of the series goes, despite a few problems.
Picking up exactly where last week’s episode left off, this installment finds the Doom Patrol trying to avoid getting sucked into the giant hole that opened up in the middle of Calverton, Ohio, as Nobody gleefully narrates the mayhem he caused. Of course, Nobody’s primary target is the Chief, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he abducts him and drags him into the vortex. Jane, channeling one of her more daring personalities, dives in after him right before the hole closes, which causes her new surrogate dad Cliff tons of anguish.
With the apparent loss of the Chief and Jane, the rest of the Doom Patrol aren’t feeling too heroic. “This is what the world looks like when we try to live in it,” says a defeated Larry, who decides to run away instead of trying to fix what happened. Rita opts to return to Doom Manor because it’s trash day. So, Cliff is left on his own in the middle of what used to be Calverton. Thankfully, he won’t be alone for too long.
Detroit’s hoodie-wearing hero Cyborg, a.k.a. Victor Stone, hears about the chaos in Calverton and decides to check it out because (A) he knows the Chief and is concerned, and (B) he’s striving for independence from his father, Silas Stone, played by Phil Morris (Smallville’s Martian Manhunter). Silas has big dreams for his son. While Vic enjoys being a superhero and even has some fun when he takes down a mugger, his dad has a very specific goal in mind: He wants Vic to join the Justice League. It’s clear that Victor isn’t entirely sure if he’s on the same page, but he’s going along with it anyway.
I’ll be honest: When Doom Patrol was announced, I was confused as to why Cyborg was among the list of characters and not on Titans. Like, Doom Patrol already has one robot hero in Cliff, a.k.a. Robotman. Does it really another one? Funnily enough, that question is baked into how the show introduces Cyborg, because he clashes with Robotman the moment they meet. “Oh, Cyborg, the guy who nobody asked to be here,” Cliff says when Cyborg shows up in what used to be Calverton and successfully catches the donkey Cliff was chasing. In a surprising move, the donkey vomits Jane back up.
While Cliff and Victor deal with Jane, Larry and Rita try to avoid getting involved in any of this. In fact, Larry heads to the bus station intent on getting as far away from people as possible because he’s worried about the energy being inside his body. Unfortunately for him, the aforementioned energy doesn’t want to leave and knocks Larry out each time he tries to board a bus; it’s one of several funny sequences in the episode. Eventually, Larry gives up and returns to Doom Manor, and he and Rita agree to just avoid the chaos.
Cliff and Victor takes turns questioning Jane about what she saw when she went through the hole, but it’s all for naught because none of Jane’s personalities are being quite forthcoming. In fact, this week they meet a new one, Baby Doll, who is a big fan of Cyborg but afraid of Cliff. So, Cliff leaves Victor alone with her and goes to check out the Chief’s laboratory, where he watches recordings of the Chief’s meetings with Jane. In them, Jane explains the concept of the Underground, which is where all her personalities reside, and some of them are deeper than others. Oh, and some, like Katie, don’t like being questioned — which is something Cyborg learns upstairs when Jane becomes the Human Torch-like Katie and attacks him. Luckily, Cyborg is able to lock Jane in a room with Cliff’s help.
Eventually, Larry and Rita are forced to get involved with the current crisis when Cyborg discovers that the donkey’s mouth is actually a door to somewhere. Needing someone to go inside and take a look, the two dudes ask Rita to do it. At first she protests (“I’m a Golden Globe nominee!”), but then she gives in, goes into her blob form, and allows the men to feed her eye through a funnel and into the donkey. Of course, this leads to all three of them getting sucked into another dimension, where they find the rest of the town of Calverton and Nobody’s omniscient narration.
Nobody proceeds to trap Rita, Larry, and Victor in various memories as a way of torturing them. Most of this feels somewhat pointless, but there is one interesting development: Nobody forces Victor to revisit the night his mother died in a lab accident he caused. However, Victor says this doesn’t bother him because every person he saves is his way of fulfilling a pledge to his mother. “What an origin story! Too bad it’s a load of donkey sh—,” proclaims Nobody, adding that Victor has programming, not memories. At first, it’s easy to ignore this statement, but when the trio return to the real world (Larry’s energy being helps them escape and restores Calverton and its citizens to their place), Victor has a confrontation with his father, who insists that his son return to Detroit because “every person we save is fulfilling a pledge to your mom.” The implication is that Victor’s memories of his mother may have been planted by Silas, which would be quite dark and could change my mind about whether or not there’s a reason to keep Cyborg around.
As the episode ends, Cyborg ignores his father’s wishes and decides to stay at Doom Manor to help the team find Dr. Caulder. At the same time, Larry decides that he needs to work on his relationship with the energy being inside him, and lets him out so they can establish some rules.
All in all, this episode did a good job of building on the premiere. My hope, though, is that this is the last time we have to see the team go through the whole “Should we become a superhero team?” thing. At this point, we’ve all seen shows like this and know that’s where the story is heading. It would be in Doom Patrol’s best interest to accept them as a team now so we can get to the weird and good stuff.
Doom Patrol recap: The only way is through the donkey
By Chancellor AgardFebruary 22, 2019 at 06:17 PM EST
BOB MAHONEY/WARNER BROS.
After watching the second episode of Doom Patrol, I’m thoroughly convinced that DC Universe should’ve launched the series with a two-hour premiere, because “Donkey Patrol” is essentially the second part of the pilot. Airing these two hours back-to-back would’ve helped the premiere feel like it told a complete story. But what we got instead works. “Donkey Patrol” is strong enough follow-up that I’m excited to see where the rest of the series goes, despite a few problems.
Picking up exactly where last week’s episode left off, this installment finds the Doom Patrol trying to avoid getting sucked into the giant hole that opened up in the middle of Calverton, Ohio, as Nobody gleefully narrates the mayhem he caused. Of course, Nobody’s primary target is the Chief, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he abducts him and drags him into the vortex. Jane, channeling one of her more daring personalities, dives in after him right before the hole closes, which causes her new surrogate dad Cliff tons of anguish.
With the apparent loss of the Chief and Jane, the rest of the Doom Patrol aren’t feeling too heroic. “This is what the world looks like when we try to live in it,” says a defeated Larry, who decides to run away instead of trying to fix what happened. Rita opts to return to Doom Manor because it’s trash day. So, Cliff is left on his own in the middle of what used to be Calverton. Thankfully, he won’t be alone for too long.
Detroit’s hoodie-wearing hero Cyborg, a.k.a. Victor Stone, hears about the chaos in Calverton and decides to check it out because (A) he knows the Chief and is concerned, and (B) he’s striving for independence from his father, Silas Stone, played by Phil Morris (Smallville’s Martian Manhunter). Silas has big dreams for his son. While Vic enjoys being a superhero and even has some fun when he takes down a mugger, his dad has a very specific goal in mind: He wants Vic to join the Justice League. It’s clear that Victor isn’t entirely sure if he’s on the same page, but he’s going along with it anyway.
I’ll be honest: When Doom Patrol was announced, I was confused as to why Cyborg was among the list of characters and not on Titans. Like, Doom Patrol already has one robot hero in Cliff, a.k.a. Robotman. Does it really another one? Funnily enough, that question is baked into how the show introduces Cyborg, because he clashes with Robotman the moment they meet. “Oh, Cyborg, the guy who nobody asked to be here,” Cliff says when Cyborg shows up in what used to be Calverton and successfully catches the donkey Cliff was chasing. In a surprising move, the donkey vomits Jane back up.
While Cliff and Victor deal with Jane, Larry and Rita try to avoid getting involved in any of this. In fact, Larry heads to the bus station intent on getting as far away from people as possible because he’s worried about the energy being inside his body. Unfortunately for him, the aforementioned energy doesn’t want to leave and knocks Larry out each time he tries to board a bus; it’s one of several funny sequences in the episode. Eventually, Larry gives up and returns to Doom Manor, and he and Rita agree to just avoid the chaos.
Cliff and Victor takes turns questioning Jane about what she saw when she went through the hole, but it’s all for naught because none of Jane’s personalities are being quite forthcoming. In fact, this week they meet a new one, Baby Doll, who is a big fan of Cyborg but afraid of Cliff. So, Cliff leaves Victor alone with her and goes to check out the Chief’s laboratory, where he watches recordings of the Chief’s meetings with Jane. In them, Jane explains the concept of the Underground, which is where all her personalities reside, and some of them are deeper than others. Oh, and some, like Katie, don’t like being questioned — which is something Cyborg learns upstairs when Jane becomes the Human Torch-like Katie and attacks him. Luckily, Cyborg is able to lock Jane in a room with Cliff’s help.
Eventually, Larry and Rita are forced to get involved with the current crisis when Cyborg discovers that the donkey’s mouth is actually a door to somewhere. Needing someone to go inside and take a look, the two dudes ask Rita to do it. At first she protests (“I’m a Golden Globe nominee!”), but then she gives in, goes into her blob form, and allows the men to feed her eye through a funnel and into the donkey. Of course, this leads to all three of them getting sucked into another dimension, where they find the rest of the town of Calverton and Nobody’s omniscient narration.
Nobody proceeds to trap Rita, Larry, and Victor in various memories as a way of torturing them. Most of this feels somewhat pointless, but there is one interesting development: Nobody forces Victor to revisit the night his mother died in a lab accident he caused. However, Victor says this doesn’t bother him because every person he saves is his way of fulfilling a pledge to his mother. “What an origin story! Too bad it’s a load of donkey sh—,” proclaims Nobody, adding that Victor has programming, not memories. At first, it’s easy to ignore this statement, but when the trio return to the real world (Larry’s energy being helps them escape and restores Calverton and its citizens to their place), Victor has a confrontation with his father, who insists that his son return to Detroit because “every person we save is fulfilling a pledge to your mom.” The implication is that Victor’s memories of his mother may have been planted by Silas, which would be quite dark and could change my mind about whether or not there’s a reason to keep Cyborg around.
As the episode ends, Cyborg ignores his father’s wishes and decides to stay at Doom Manor to help the team find Dr. Caulder. At the same time, Larry decides that he needs to work on his relationship with the energy being inside him, and lets him out so they can establish some rules.
All in all, this episode did a good job of building on the premiere. My hope, though, is that this is the last time we have to see the team go through the whole “Should we become a superhero team?” thing. At this point, we’ve all seen shows like this and know that’s where the story is heading. It would be in Doom Patrol’s best interest to accept them as a team now so we can get to the weird and good stuff.
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