Well, 'The Defenders' isn't exactly 'The Avengers'... but it's no 'Batman v Superman' either, that's for sure.
Talking about this show is kinda hard, since it has many things that work spectacularly, and more than a few things that fall flat, so... It's list time!
The Bad:
- The Hand are the main villains of this show, and they're... not terrific. They've appeared before in some of the other shows, and they were pretty damn underwhelming in them, so I was already worried about them going into this show. The good news? They're definitely better here than they've been in any of their previous appearances. The bad news? While they're better, they're still not good enough to justify all of that build-up. They're good villains, but they definitely pale in comparison to previous villains of the individual shows, like Kilgrave, and Kingpin, and the Punisher. They don't feel like they're worthy of being THE threat that brings the Defenders together.
- The season is kinda rushed. While all of the previous shows' seasons felt like they could have been a bit shorter, the decision to give THIS show a shortened season was wrong. This show brings all of the various heroes together, including most of the supporting casts of the various shows, so, if ANY show deserves a 13-episode run, it's this one. Many of the side-characters don't have time to go through meaningful arcs, and the members of the Hand could have really benefited from more time to flesh out their motivations and backstory and character arcs. The Hand as a whole needed more time - it has an interesting, extensive mythology that gets hinted at, but barely explored. The second season of this show should have 10 episodes instead of 8.
- Despite being rushed, the early episodes of the show STILL manage to feel very slow-paced. This is one area where this show could have really taken some notes from 'The Avengers' - in that film, the various members of the group were re-introduced by the plot-device of SHIELD, which sent agents to recruit the various Avengers: Natasha was re-introduced as she got a phone call from Phil Coulson, Bruce Banner was re-introduced as Natasha came to recruit him, Tony Stark was re-introduced as Coulson came to recruit him, etc... This allowed the story to re-introduce all of the characters while still maintaining a sense of plot progression. In 'The Defenders', however, there is no such plot device, and therefore the various re-introductions feel very slow. It didn't really bother me personally, because I'm a sucker for character beats, but I can definitely see how it could bore other viewers.
- The finale is decent, but underwhelming. This is something that ALL of the Marvel shows struggle with, and it really bugs me. Out of all the Marvel shows, 'Jessica Jones' had the best season finale BY FAR, and even that one isn't exactly mind-blowing. Maybe I just got spoiled by the consistently-great finales of the Buffyverse? I don't know. I'm not gonna get into the specifics here (cuz spoilers), but I'll say that it's a pretty typical Marvel finale in terms of quality, on par with the finales of 'Daredevil'. Not bad, but not especially impressive either.
- The fight scenes are better than the ones in 'Iron Fist' and 'Jessica Jones', but they're not as good as the ones in 'Daredevil'. There are sometimes too many cuts, which makes it hard to follow the fight scenes. And unlike the Avengers, which have very versatile powers (Thor fights with a magic hammer, Cap has a magic shield, Hulk is into punching, Hawkeye fires arrows, etc...), the Defenders are just 4 people who are really good at punching stuff, and that's not as interesting. The fights are still good, though!
- The show sometimes struggles to combine the different genres of the different heroes. Like the Avengers, the Defenders come from very different genres (Jessica Jones - film noir. Luke Cage - blaxploitation. Iron Fist - Kung Fu movies, sorta. Daredevil - um, he comes from the "Batman rip-off" genre). This is one of the great strengths of all team-up movies, as it's always interesting to watch different genres clashing with each other. The problem here is that there are a few moments in which the genre-melding doesn't really work. Rap songs don't really work as the musical score of a ninja fight, for example. This only happens very few times, though.
The Good:
- This show fixes Danny Rand (The "Iron Fist")! Like most people, I really disliked the character of Danny Rand in his own show. He really reminded me of Connor from 'Angel' - he was like a weird combination of a bratty teenager and a stoic warrior, and these two traits just CAN'T exist at the same time without being annoying (If you're so stoic and professional, then why are you constantly throwing tantrums and acting like an idiot? And if you're just a kid, then why are you being so pretentious and ultra-serious?). This show, however, calls out all of Danny's annoying flaws (Almost every single character in this show roasts Danny for being an idiot at least once, and it is SO SATISFYING. It's like when Faith punches Connor in 'Orpheus'), and gives Danny a logical character arc that fixes most of those flaws. It's not an immediate change, but by the end of the show I actually LIKED Danny a little, and that's something that I never thought possible before. He's still my least favorite Defender, but he went through a BIG improvement here.
- The character interactions are fantastic! Like in 'The Avengers', the best thing about this show is just watching these characters interact with each other. While their fighting styles are boringly similar, their personalities are completely different, and it's a joy to watch them bounce off of each other. Jessica and her pragmatic cynicism, Matt and his idealistic obsessiveness, Luke and his experienced decency, Danny and his young naivete... They play off each other just as well as the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy do. Jessica and Matt are especially great - they're like Iron Man and Captain America, total opposites, always butting heads. I'd totally watch a civil war between them.
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- This show has Elodie Yung in it.
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What can I say? I have a weakness for evil, psychotic women. Speaking of...
- This show has Sigourney freakin' Weaver in it.
And her performance is every bit as awesome as you'd expect. Come to think of it... The entire cast gives great performances. Even Finn Jones is better than in 'Iron Fist', and the rest are all fantastic. Even the flat, one-note minor villains are played by great actors - actors who manage to show depths that the script only hints at.
- Visually, this show is just brilliant, especially in its use of color. I don't think I've ever seen a show that emphasized the visual symbolism of colors so much. It's incredibly geeky, and I love it. The music is great too. I've complained about a couple of misplaced rap songs, but other than that it's all perfect - the orchestral score is solid, and the songs are fantastic.
- One of the great challenges of all team-up stories is the attempt to give all the main character equal amounts of screen-time and importance. Even 'The Avengers' struggled with this, as Thor and Cap definitely paled in comparison to Iron Man and Hulk in it. This is one area where 'The Defenders' excels more than all of the other team-ups - Matt, Jessica, Luke Danny all get equal amounts of screen-time and importance. I'm not gonna check it factually, but it definitely FEELS like the showrunners counted the minutes of screentime that the 4 protagonists had, to make sure that they were equal.
- Character arcs are the soul of storytelling, and this show made sure to give our 4 protagonists full, satisfying character arcs. Seems like an obvious thing, but many stories mess up this part...
- Just a little detail, but I love it - in order to "jump" from the genre of one Defender to another's, this show uses these cool transitions that really remind me of the "seizure transitions" from 'Angel'. Those transitions used to annoy me in 'Angel', because they felt pointlessly pretentious, but in here they have a very obvious point - to ease the transition from one genre to another, and help the whole thing feel more cohesive. So, instead of being annoying, it comes off as cool. I love it.
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- One of my main problems with Daredevil has always been that he's essentially a really obvious Batman rip-off (The show specifically feels like a rip-off of the Dark Knight trilogy), and this show fixes that - because I've never seen Christian Bale's Batman in a team-up before. It makes Daredevil feel more fresh and interesting than he ever has before. And while it's true that Batman took part in 'Justice League' team-ups before, this is very different - The Justice League feels like a group of GODS, whereas the Defenders are just street-level vigilantes, just like Daredevil. The dynamic is completely different, and it helps Daredevil feel a lot less cliched.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend watching it, for any fan of superhero stories. And you should know - this show is definitely the least dark and least serious of all the Marvel Netflix shows, so if that bothered you about the previous shows, you might still wanna give this one a try. It still has plenty of dark and serious moments, of course, but out of all the Marvel Netflix shows - this one is the closest to the lighthearted, fun tone of the Marvel films. Crossovers are fun, after all.
Let's say that this is a... 8/10. In comparison to the other Marvel Netflix shows:
Daredevil: 8/10
Jessica Jones: 9.5/10
Luke Cage: 7/10
Iron Fist: 5/10
The Defenders: 8/10
