“Ready for a story about super heroes? Ugh, more TV superheroes, just what the world needs. Be honest, have you hung yourself yet? Or what if I told you this was actually a story about super zeroes, losers, achingly pathetic meta-human goose eggs. How about it? Ready to feel better about your own miserable lives for the next hour or so? Follow me.”
The first season of Titans has been such a success that they not only got a second season (which is currently airing), but they also successfully introduced your next favourite dysfunctional team of heroes, which you rather would send to therapy before you let them help you with anything. They may not be perfect for saving the world, but they sure will give you a great time over 15 episodes.
Personally, I prefer Marvel over DC, but that never stops me from giving their productions a chance. I have a feeling that DC should focus more on the dark broken characters, of which they have quite a lot. It worked for Titans and it sure works for Doom Patrol.
Doom Patrol follows a group of metahumans which, because of their unique powers, become outcasts until The Chief offers them a home and a family. Everything is going perfectly fine, until one day Chief is not returning from one of his travels and they must face the world in order to find him.
The show is narrated by Eric Morden (played by Alan Tudyk). He was part of the Brotherhood of Evil until he was replaced by an intelligent Gorilla. After his girlfriend left him and told him that he will always be a Nobody, he travels to Paraguay in 1948 where he took part in an experimental treatment by an Ex-Nazi and became a metahuman who calls himself Mr. Nobody.
The show is different and it is filled with sarcasm and lets the F bomb drop more times than you possibly can count. The disturbing part is that they are actually not called the Doom Patrol nor do they have any team name. The actual Doom Patrol was active in the 50s and faced against the Brotherhood of Evil and Mr. Nobody, which caused them to go insane and being trapped in their own minds.
In short, it is amazingly fun to watch. Between being extremely entertaining, Doom Patrol has interesting and deep characters of which they all get a fair share of screen time to be equally explored.
Doom Patrol balances two major topics, which in my opinion are the reason for the series success. As previously mentioned, this show explores each character in detail. Each one of them is struggling with their current and past selves and the missed chances for a living a happy life.
Niles Caulder or The Chief (played by Timothy Dalton, best known for portraying James Bond once) is an experimental doctor and pioneer when it comes to medical science. He makes it his priority to search the world for those metahumans of which he believes are in need of a safe place. It is later revealed that he is the founder and lead researcher of the Bureau of Oddities, a government organisation dedicated to research metahumans, which was founded before the first World War.
While we see what Chief has been up to before he found everyone and what his real connection to Mr. Nobody is, you may think that he is a selfless man putting other before himself. However, the shocking revelation comes at the end when he confesses that he was looking to become immortal and that the people he took in have been unknowingly a part of his search, vendetta, and plan, which is the reason why they all still alive and looking young but around 100 years old.
Rita Farr (played by April Bowlby, best known as Candy in Two and a Half Man) aka Elastic-Girl, was a Hollywood star in the 50s until she was exposed to a toxic gas which changed her cellular structure. Gertrude Cramp, which is her real name, can stretch her body and deform it as she pleases, but mostly loses control over it when she feels emotionally unstable.
Rita is the poster example for narcissism. All she is interested in is her beauty and that people love her and her work. It does not come as a surprise that her “power” is turning into a massive slimy form of which she is ashamed of. Holding her form means accepting herself otherwise her body starts to deform.
Crazy Jane (played by Diane Guerrero) has developed 64 different personalities as a result of being sexually abused by her father since she was a little child called Kay Challis. Each of these personalities has a metahuman power of their own. When one of them is on the surface, taking over Kay’s body, the rest impatiently wait for their turn at the place deep in Kay’s psyche, called the Underground.
Jane is the most complex character because the poor girl has a lot going on in her life, inside and outside. While feeling alone and being permanent;y aggressive, which is a form of self-protection, her personalities could not be more different. We get to know Baby Doll, Driver 8, Flaming Katy (pyrokinetic), Flit (teleporter), Hammerhead (super-strength), Karen (able to cast love spells), and Silver Tongue (her words become silver font blades). I have a feeling that we have not seen the half of what she is actually capable of…
Victor Stone (played by Joivan Wade) aka Cyborg was severely insured after an accident he caused and could only be saved by his father who cybernetic enhanced his son, with technology he invented for S.T.A.R. Labs.
What I personally like about this version of Cyborg is that he feels more emotionally unstable as the one in the Justice League movie. He is in a constant fight with himself to put his new abilities to use while adjusting to who he has become and realising that he will lose his humanity eventually. On top of this, he has to deal with a helicopter father who has not been entirely honest with him.
Cliff Steele (played on set by Riley Shanahan, voiced by Brendan Fraser) aka Robotman, is a former race car driver who got into a car accident in which his wife died and made his daughter an orphan. The Chief was able to save his brain and place it into a robot.
Without his consent, his brain was put into a robot and he was expected to be thankful for it. He did not ask for being a freak show which only puts him in misery and gives him an eternity to think about what he has done. The wish to be reunited with his daughter is the reason why he tries to hold his new group of friends together and why he feels overprotective when it comes to Jane.
Larry Trainor (played on set by Matthew Zuk, voiced by Matt Bomer) is a former Air Force pilot who crashed his plane after being exposed to a mysterious Negative Spirit. Only because of this spirit Larry was able to survive the crash. Because his body was burned beyond recognition, he only leaves his room after bandaging his whole body like a mummy. He, or more the Spirit living inside him, is called Negative Man. It is a yet undiscovered form of energy which is highly radioactive.
Larry was a prisoner of the Bureau of Oddities for a long time after his accident when the Negative Spirit was discovered in him, but he has felt displaced long before all that. Having a loving wife and two sons, he is missing something. This becomes the most significant character development of the show. In flashbacks we see Larry falling in love with a man and he is afraid of losing everything and everyone and being judged by society so he denies himself. This inner fight is causing him to live in a prison of his own and not accepting either himself or the Spirit. Ironically, the forced relationship to the Spirit is what helps him finding peace with his past and finally moving forward.
Be prepared for being emotionally attacked in a beautiful way. While still looking for Chief, they cross paths with Danny the Street, who is a street with its own consciousness which can teleport itself everywhere with the only purpose to bring happiness to those who decided to stay. In that episode, you can see Larry trying to accept himself for the first time. In my opinion, Larry’s story is a beautiful representation of the LGBTQ+ community.
So that you will not feel completely depressed after binge watching the show, you get a hell of lot “what the hell” scenes, which are completely bonkers. Like a rat, called Admiral Whiskers whose mother was killed by Cliff. Side note, Cliff does not even know about it as it was an accident while sitting behind the wheel of the Patrol’s bus. Then there’s Ezekiel the coackroach who is deeply religious and believes he is meant to do something big. At the end, they both team up with Mr. Nobody and what follows is some really weird stuff.
And here I was thinking nothing could top a donkey with another dimension in his stomach, a unicorn oracle, and a beard eating bounty hunter. This even makes the dimension between the white space in a comic look normal.
