cadillac20

Marvel and Disney seem to have this habit of creating things and setting them up to be parts of a whole. Sometimes that's great, like when we get a good movie that is leading in to something bigger. Often times, it's not, like when they create something that comes across like it's the first act of a trilogy. This feels like the latter. There's a lot to like here. It's a great dramatic story with excellent acting. There are some good ideas. When we get action, it's decent to great. It's parts of what we really like about Daredevil. But, unfortunately, that's what it is: parts. Not a whole. Netflix handled that very well, giving us a very well rounded Daredevil series that, for the most part, gave you everything you could want out of a Daredevil series. Unfortunately, it does not seem like we were meant to get that from the Disney+ series.

The start is decent. We get a traumatic event, a little bit of Daredevil action, and some of the great things we also got from the Netflix series. But this isn't fresh stuff anymore. We're no longer wowed by a tease of comic book characters or sporadic bits of action. For a series called Daredevil, he's barely here. Might as well have called it Matt Murdoc: Born Again. While that part of the series is great, they develop both Fisk and Murdoc really well in their separate conflicts, it's not enough. The original show was able to balance this all very well and build up to something that actually delivered. Here, it's all build up with very little delivery. The show, instead of putting all of it's focus on a core storyline to the end, has little bits and pieces that aren't nearly as interesting as it wants to think they are. There's some courtroom drama, a story revolving around a serial killer, and a whole bunch of characters who, it seems, need to get almost equal time.

I'll reiterate that we're past these shows being all drama and no play. It's fine if your show is meant to be that way. She-Hulk sold itself as a courtroom comedy. WandVision showed that it was going to be some magical, reality bending sci-fi thing. Daredevil has always sold itself off as being as much about it's hero's vigilante actions as it's more dramatic elements. Without the Daredevil in Daredevil, it feels like it's only meeting the audience halfway. And with the way things are left off, it's clear this season was always meant to be something of a tease for what's to come after, whether it's the planned new Punisher one-shot or future seasons of Daredevil. It was especially disappointing that all the build up led to a fairly weak finale that barely gave us what we wanted the entire time spent watching this. It's a major letdown for such an anticipated return.

Anyone who hasn't seen it, I'd just wait until more seasons come out to see if it's actually worth investing in. As it is, I can't recommend this first season.