The Defenders on Netflix

[PussyGalore]

Just started watching this one. It brings together the Netflix versions of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. I believe there are only 8 episodes, which is fine by me. I'm on episode #3 and it's just "meh". It literally took the writers three whole episodes before they made anything exciting happen. It's definitely a slow, tedious burn to begin with. Just keep that in mind if you choose to watch it.

At any rate I don't hate the show but I don't love it either. Sigourney Weaver is good and gives her character a palpable level of malevolence. Unfortunately Jessica Jones is still a drunken, nasty slag. There isn't anything cool or likable about her. She does essentially nothing for the first three episodes and the one time we see her fight she really doesn't fight at all. She punches maybe one guy and then she punches an elevator button, that's it. (The fight choreography for her is atrocious, either that or the actress sucks at taking direction.) As a superhero she's rather pathetic really. So is Iron Fist. And if you're expecting a lot of cool Daredevil action early on don't hold your breath. It's a shame because DD is the coolest part of this premise.

Hopefully the rest of the show will be better.

 

[Overmind One]

Just started watching this one. It brings together the Netflix versions of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. I believe there are only 8 episodes, which is fine by me. I'm on episode #3 and it's just "meh". It literally took the writers three whole episodes before they made anything exciting happen. It's definitely a slow, tedious burn to begin with. Just keep that in mind if you choose to watch it.

At any rate I don't hate the show but I don't love it either. Sigourney Weaver is good and gives her character a palpable level of malevolence. Unfortunately Jessica Jones is still a drunken, nasty slag. There isn't anything cool or likable about her. She does essentially nothing for the first three episodes and the one time we see her fight she really doesn't fight at all. She punches maybe one guy and then she punches an elevator button, that's it. (The fight choreography for her is atrocious, either that or the actress sucks at taking direction.) As a superhero she's rather pathetic really. So is Iron Fist. And if you're expecting a lot of cool Daredevil action early on don't hold your breath. It's a shame because DD is the coolest part of this premise.

Hopefully the rest of the show will be better.

Spinoff popcorn? Not unexpected. Disney is going to milk the Avengers/Marvel until it can't. Netflix is just a sugar daddy these days, paying massive licensing to get exclusive content.

 

[PussyGalore]

Only have three more episodes left and it's not that great. It's not horrible, but it could be much better than it is. Lots of talking. Lots and lots of talking. More talking than fighting. To be honest I'm really tired of hearing each Defender repeatedly state their myopical goal of protecting their own bit of turf, Luke Cage: "I want to save Harlem!". Iron Fist: "I want to protect Kun Lun!" Jessica Jones: "I want to help my client (and drink a quart of rum, and be a bitch, then drink more rum)!" Daredevil: "I want to practice Catholicism without actually practicing Catholicism so I can wring my hands needlessly and pretend I have a profound moral conflict!"

Also, Danny Rand, a.k.a. Iron Fist, has the worlds worst chest tattoo. If I saw this guy coming at me to kick my ass I'd probably lose the fight because I'd be laughing so hard at his douche tatt:

 

[PussyGalore]

Okay, I've only got one episode left and I have to say I'm in no rush to finish. The show simply isn't that good. It's not horrible, but so far the writing has been sub-par. I'll give a more detailed review once I'm done with it.

 

[PussyGalore]

Finished it. Perhaps the biggest (and most vague) spoiler I can give is that it's not that great. It definitely could have been much, much better than it was. The series was 8 episodes but it easily could have been cut down to 6 if not less than that. 4 episodes probably would have been perfect, that way the story would have kept moving. As it is there was wayyy too much extraneous filler in the show. It was obvious they were just writing scenes for minor characters from the four different shows just to include them in it, which was dumb. "Foggy" and "Karen" from Daredevil, who are usually engaging and sympathetic characters, just came across as annoying and tedious. Seriously, they were total Debbie Downers in this show and were completely unnecessary to the story line. They could have been left out and they wouldn't have been missed. In fact they should have been left out.

I won't say how it ends except to mention that it's a Marvel comic book adaptation and it ends pretty much as expected.

 

[PussyGalore]

Okay, some specific spoilers. Don't read if you don't want to know.

Spoiler

Sigourney Weaver ended up being under utilized in this show. She started out great but in the end she really did nothing at all. She could have been very scary as the leader of The Hand, but all she did was talk. We got very little physical action from her and virtually no fighting scenes with other characters. (She manhandles Elektra at one point but it's not really a fight.) I understand that she was trying to avoid getting killed because there was no more "substance" to use to reanimate her if she were to die. But the other Hand members at least got in some fight action at times. Also, they killed her off abruptly and we were cheated out of her having a climactic death fight. That was lame.

Also, when the Defenders blow up the Midtowne building they are basically caught red-handed by the police and are no doubt going to be charged with domestic terrorism. They literally took down a skyscraper so even though, supposedly, no innocent people died in the buildings collapse there still had to be massive amounts of collateral damage. Now keep in mind that they have spent several episodes with the cops in pursuit of them because they escaped custody and with the cops knowing they stole explosives from the police lock up. So, the building is destroyed and the next scene is Foggy, a lawyer, talking to Luke Cage and Michelle Rodriguez at a dinner table where he simply says that there will be no charges and they have been cleared of everything. Um...wtf??? That makes no sense. The cops know they blew up the building. The cops don't have any members of The Hand in custody nor do they even know anything about this shadow organization so the only ones to blame for the destruction and death are the Defenders. The cops also have Stick's body along with the headless body of one member of the Hand that they found with Luke, Matt and Jessica. How did they explain this? They didn't! They literally had a brief scene where one character inexplicably states that there are no criminal charges and everyone is free to go. Ugh!

As for the ending, they had a huge skyscraper collapse on Daredevil and Elektra who were in a very deep hole beneath it. Of course they're going to survive it somehow (along with Madame Gao no doubt) despite there being no possible way for them to make it. And what do we see as one of the last scenes but Daredevil lying in a bed in a convent being attended by a nun/nurse. So basically he's still alive, but that's too be expected. What is irksome is that it's wholly unbelievable, even by comic book standards. At this point there's no tension or worry about this character dying during any combat with a villain because he can magically survive having a skyscraper dropped on his head. -- And don't even get me going about Elektra. At the end her motivations were completely stupid and made no sense. She wanted to live but chose to stay to fight Matt when in reality she could have easily gotten away to live for another day to fight him. And God knows we'll see more of her when DD returns for another season. She's obviously one of those super villain enemies that can't ever be killed. Lame, just lame.

 

[PussyGalore]

Just found out that the different scenes with the superheroes were supposed to be "color coded" to fit their style. I have no idea what this means as I didn't notice anything like that. Maybe I just missed it but it doesn't matter as the story itself wasn't that good so who cares.

 

[Tripler]

Find it very slow also . Watched 4 eps so far .

 

[PussyGalore]

Find it very slow also . Watched 4 eps so far .

Let us know what you think when you're done watching the series. I'm curious to know.

 

[Lord Ba'al]

I just started watching this today. It did start very slow. Episode 3 is where it starts. Must say I'm liking this better than the Jessica Jones show I watched, that wasn't very interesting at all. I didn't watch the Luke Cage show. (yet) Also haven't watched the Iron Fist show. (yet) Did see Daredevil and I quite liked that. This show feels a lot like Daredevil, hopefully that'll be a good thing. Halfway through episode 5 now.

 

[PussyGalore]

I just started watching this today. It did start very slow. Episode 3 is where it starts. Must say I'm liking this better than the Jessica Jones show I watched, that wasn't very interesting at all. I didn't watch the Luke Cage show. (yet) Also haven't watched the Iron Fist show. (yet) Did see Daredevil and I quite liked that. This show feels a lot like Daredevil, hopefully that'll be a good thing. Halfway through episode 5 now.

Daredevil was great. The other shows suck by comparison. The Defenders is just "meh".

BTW, your 12-page critique of this series is due in the morning. Remember, it accounts for 70% of your grade for the semester.

 

[Lord Ba'al]

Daredevil was great. The other shows suck by comparison. The Defenders is just "meh".

BTW, your 12-page critique of this series is due in the morning. Remember, it accounts for 70% of your grade for the semester.

I guess I had some time on my hands. Here ya go.

 

[PussyGalore]

I guess I had some time on my hands. Here ya go.

Your critique was rather padded and stretched to fit the requirements, but I guess it will suffice to fulfill the course requirements. Needless to say I'm quite relieved as I didn't want to experience another desperate attempt by you to get a passing grade. That incident last semester where you wore a low-cut blouse and threw yourself at me in an attempt to parlay sexual favors into course credit was embarrassing and disturbing for both of us. Marilyn Monroe you are not.

BTW, have you finished watching the whole series or do you still have some episodes to watch? I don't want to get too deep into spoilers if you haven't seen it all yet.

 

[Lord Ba'al]

Your critique was rather padded and stretched to fit the requirements, but I guess it will suffice to fulfill the course requirements. Needless to say I'm quite relieved as I didn't want to experience another desperate attempt by you to get a passing grade. That incident last semester where you wore a low-cut blouse and threw yourself at me in an attempt to parlay sexual favors into course credit was embarrassing and disturbing for both of us. Marilyn Monroe you are not.

BTW, have you finished watching the whole series or do you still have some episodes to watch? I don't want to get too deep into spoilers if you haven't seen it all yet.

That incident had nothing to do with grades! It was simply a case of misinterpreting the signals you appeared to continuously be giving off. Don't think I haven't noticed you ogling me over and over again when you thought no one was looking. Eventually I decided to give it a go and then you shot me down like I was nothing. It was quite a hurtful experience. I assumed later that you were still struggling with internal conflicts and felt embarrassed because you hadn't quite come to the point of being able to abandon that closet yet.

I watched 8 episodes and I think that was the whole thing because after that Netflix tried to force me to watch The Expanse again.

 

[PussyGalore]

Yes, The Defenders is only 8 episodes. Some people (me) think that 8 episodes is too many. There was a lot of filler material that slowed down the already uninteresting story. It's a shame because the series could have been a lot of fun. Instead we got a lot of hand-wringing nonsense over nothing and a climactic fight scene that lead basically nowhere. I would go more in depth but don't have the energy to bother with spoiler tags at this point. Suffice to say it was ultimately a let down.

 

[PussyGalore]

Forgot to mention that supposedly "Misty" becomes some sort of superhero later on in the series. I'm not a comic book geek (because I have a life and am cool, popular and incredibly sexy) but from what I gather she comes into play later on. I don't know if this will happen in any of the Netflix shows though.

 

[Lord Ba'al]

I'm up for more Misty.

 

[PussyGalore]