'Salright.

I-do-declare

Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol is one of my favourite comics ever, so I might be being a bit harsh on this. The bits which they translate to the screen, they generally translate pretty well: the episode about the Underground is very well done (and has great sound!); Danny the Street is the Danny the Street we know and love, if a little more Twitter-fied than they were back in the 90s. But there's a fair amount of strange detail that's been lost, too, and the things which replace it just don't have the same flavour as the comics. The series is very much focused on the characters' emotional arcs, and while the growing relationship between Cliff and Crazy Jane gave the comics a lot of their emotional power, it wasn't done at the expense of taming the stories' wilder elements. This show tries hard, but (as of the first season, at least) it lacks the atmosphere of creepy absurdity which the comic did so well. Instead of a supervillain who's the ghost of a mirror, we're given a farting donkey. Instead of dead bodies kept in line with Victorian fairytales, we have a deadly swarm of butts-with-teeth. Instead of the campy, anarchic mastermind who assembled the League of Dada we have a stock villain who occasionally breaks the fourth wall to say things like "Nyer, come and get me, Doom Patrol."

But! It's Doom Patrol. For each disappointment there's something to keep you watching. I liked Rita's character a lot, Animal Vegetable Mineral Man gets a look-in, and they managed to include the Hero of the Beach without getting sued. There's a lot to like - I just wish it was a bit more than it is.

score 7/10

I-do-declare 13 May 2019

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4849213/