TV Review: "The Defenders" - Season 1

Scene from The Defenders
The premise was a bit of a novelty: The Defenders would be the TV response to The Avengers, featuring a close-knit group of heroes that have built up reputations in their own series. The deal with Netflix was exciting enough when Daredevil premiered a few years back, but now everyone has joined together and many have formed their opinions on who the best is. With a truncated season, their conjoined season packs in the best and worst tendencies of all their shows into an eight episode run that is fun, but ultimately a bit anticlimactic when considering how much better some of them are on their own. Together, they are fine, but the story that they've been building to is a bit underwhelming.
The general rule of thumb regarding The Defenders is that their ultimate baddie was always going to be The Hand. They were a rogue villain group that began appearing in Daredevil's much maligned second season and has been sprinkling hints as to their menacing potential ever since. Considering that Iron Fist - their other most maligned season so far - was responsible for building more of The Defender's back story, it's a bit tough to suggest that The Hand is on par with anything in Marvel Cinematic Universe's first phase of films. They're dull and mostly play onto an action film level of menace, which is hand to hand combat. It's what made Daredevil so great early on, but each subsequent series has had a more conflicting relationship with action scenes, let alone that they're a bit redundant as the sole form of defense.
It's what makes the first moments of this series a bit disappointing. Following Iron Fist's finale where he crashes overseas, Iron Fist is now fighting in a sewer. Only, the camera gives little clues as to who he is or why any of this matters. The first episode in fact is more dedicated to establishing everyone's status as reluctant heroes. Considering that they all fight the streets of New York, it's weird that there needs to be so much time getting the band together. Even then, it services as a decent primer for those too squeamish at this point to dive into five seasons spanning 65 episodes of TV to understand the core principles of this show. For everyone else, it dampens down the series' already short run with exposition that takes up almost half of the show's run. 
It's ironic then that the show has the same feel as the others. It runs a little too long and pushes more interesting supporting players to the side. To add more irony, the most interesting moments come in a diner when the gang becomes acquainted with each other. There's joy in Jessica Jones' snark, playful fan service in Luke Cage degrading Iron Fist's privilege, and an odd deal with Daredevil being unconvincing in his blindness and desire to hide identity. Even Stick has plenty of fun as the group's mentor. However, the assembly isn't necessarily that interesting the longer that things go on. With exception to an episode three fight scene, most of their combat sequences are a bit dull. The only thing with any realm of emotional stakes comes in what is a misleading death scene where Daredevil tries to win back Elektra: his ex-girlfriend who has been manipulated by The Hand to fight for evil.
It's all good stuff for a general series, but is a bit underwhelming as "The Avengers of TV shows." There needs to be more tightness and personality to these characters to make that work. They need to have a more direct and exciting mission which, in fairness, they attempt by cutting the episodes down from 13.  Still, no Defender stands out for too long and some feel underused despite developing potential on their own series (see: Luke Cage). For a small group, it seems a bit disappointing that their own real skills involve punching people. It's fine since they're all street-level heroes, but it lacks appeal for a grandiose series like this where even having a more stylized approach to strategy could've done something. Still, it's a firm reminder that those Defenders with great shows (notably Jessica Jones) work in any format while others need a little work done.
Still, the one relief hopefully is that this is the end of The Hand. They were the villains of the past few seasons, and they weren't even the most interesting part of those years. It's truly ironic that the villains that fans remember (Luke Cage's Cottonmouth, Daredevil's Kingpin, Jessica Jones' Killgrave) don't factor at all into the plot. Instead, it's faceless ninjas wanting to do hand to hand combat. There's some mysticism in store, but Daredevil's second season already showed how limiting that is in appeal. If this franchise plans to continue down this line, odds are that it will implode and stop becoming interesting. If it continues to explore villains with wider appeal, then maybe things will be getting somewhere. 
Still, it's exciting to see where things go from here. The final episode, finally borrowing a note from the MCU, shows a teaser for the upcoming The Punisher series: which was one of two bright spots in Daredevil's additions in the second season (the other being Elektra, who is enjoyable here). While it may be redundant to have yet another hero who fights crime with his bare hands, Jon Bernthal's aggressive delusions may end up helping the show have some appeal. One can only hope that whenever The Defenders produces another season that they have a villain more interesting than The Hand, and have their characters worked out better. It would be great to see Luke Cage get a more interesting role in the future since he was awesome on his show. If The Defenders does nothing else, it proves that these characters can coexist peacefully, but not always successfully.


Overall Rating: 3 out of 5

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