Daredevil

On Friday Netflix released season 1 of Daredevil. For those of you who don't know the character, Daredevil is a blind superhero whose day job is defense attorney Matt Murdock. So you have two major openings for story telling: bad guy ass kicker and courtroom drama.

Being the first episode, they have to catch the audience's attention and cram a lot into an hour to do so. So it opens with a quick origin story before the opening credits. He loses his vision in the same chemical spill that spawn the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (not mentioned in the show). The question remaining whether the chemicals gave him super hearing or if we're still going with just learning to use hearing better because he's blind. The next scene explains tangentially that he learned to fight because his father's a boxer. Not that he uses many boxing moves. Then we need an action sequence to grab the audience's attention. So our masked hero busts up a kidnapping for a sex slave ring. Then we see Matt and his friend Foggy getting the offices for their brand new law firm. They're getting a place cheap, because the neighborhood is rebuilding from the damage done in The Avengers. Rather than have a few episodes setting up the formula for the show their first case walks them into organized crime. But the show does focus primarily on the legal aspect of his life. For the little we see Daredevil he's not scanning the room from a single ping like Ben Affleck. And while he is a great fighter, he's still human. He does take out 4 thugs early on, but the professional hit man proves to be a struggle that he clearly takes it's toll. This makes Daredevil less like Batman and more like the strictly human detective/vigilantes that dominated the comic books before super powers became the norm.

The show ends with a montage showing first all the people Murdock was unable to save for the one cute girl that he managed to rescue and then the extent of the empire that he has to face.

All in all, I think we have a winner here. Daredevil is a more effective TV series than movie franchise. I don't think it'll reach the level of appreciation I have for Gotham or The Flash, but I think I'll like it.

Episode 2 is starting now with Daredevil starting off unconscious in a dumpster. I'm really liking him as merely a human with fighting skills.



Marvel has to get Spiderman back. Spidey is a total crossover whore and this show takes place in his primary stomping grounds.



Note: Marvel Studios got the rights Daredevil back after whichever studio had them let the rights lapse when they couldn't summon the support to make another bad movie.