The first episode for the DC/Warner’s streaming service program Doom Patrol was posted officially to YouTube. I meant to check it out because I heard it was relatively good. However, the pilot was only posted for a brief looksee time, apparently, so I missed my chance. Fair enough. However, I saw a scene posted there. The show does seem like it’s funnier than the woe begotten looking Titans. (They also really seem to play up the similarities to the X-Men, which fair enough, because both comics started basically simultaneously back in the ‘60s).
Or I should say, meant to be funnier. First, because Titan’s strenuously attempts to be grim make it look hilarious, and second, because what the producers of Doom Patrol think is funny. If you guess it involved, like Titan’s grimness, pushing the proverbial envelope, then you’re correct, sir. The scene I watched involved them running into the superpowered body builder Flex Metallo, who apparently activates his numerous powers by, well, flexing.
So he’s attempting to teleport the Patrol somewhere, I guess, and he flexes. But then all the people (and there are a lot) in the David Lynchian satirically ‘idyllic’ small town square they are in, and the Patrol themselves, start convulsing. Then the strains of the old pop song (because that’s what we do now) “All By Myself” starting booming on the soundtrack, and we eventually realize that Flex has flexed incorrectly and so everyone in the vicinity is having an outrageous orgasm. It’s funny. Get it? Oh, except for Robot Man, because he’s a guy’s personality trapped in an old-fashioned robot body, so he can’t have an orgasm. But he doesn’t want to be left out so he loudly pretends to have an orgasm too. It’s funny. Get it?
Also, there’s a lot of swearing, including liberal use of the F bomb, because the show is on a streaming service, bitches, and they can swear. And have a hundred people have a comical orgasm. Take that, squares!
I have this phrase I use called “falling in love with the crayon box.” Originally it was used to describe guys who fell in love with the digital tools, primarily CGI, that allowed them to basically put anything up on the screen. However, some fall in love with the tools to the detriment of their movies. They are, as I saw, like kids who get the jumbo crayon box with 200 colors decide they have to use every color for every picture, because, you know, they have all these crayons.
My primary example is George Lucas, and one major way he ruined his Star Wars prequel films was by falling in love with the crayon box. Those films have a lot of problems, including the rather bewildering yet amusing fact that Lucas clearly understands Star Wars less than pretty much anyone else in the country. Except, arguably, the people currently making Star Wars movies, I guess.
Anyway, the problem we’re discussing today is Lucas’ Thanos-level unhealthy love for the possibilities CGI affords. (I refer to the comic book Thanos, by the way, who kills off half the universe not for environmental concerns but because he’s literally in love with Death, who in the comics is a personified cosmic being.)
One of several crippling issues with the prequel films is that there is no narrative drive to them. This is in large part because, nearly every time there’s a scene change, we get a minute or two-long establishing shot of the new locale, often on another planet. These are always gorgeous, but they don’t serve the film as a whole. Quite the opposite, in fact. They break up the action over and over again, so that we in the audience can gawk at the artistic wizardry with which they are wrought.
Ironically, I think they are meant to make the movies more immersive by dint of the detail they bring to these locations. But again, in actuality they just stop the action which then has to restart cold and thus jar the viewer out of the movie every five or ten minutes. It’s like how the ‘special editions’ of the original films ruin those too, because every time you’re focused on the plot and the beloved characters, an intrusive new special effect appears and pulls you out of the movie.
Say what you will about James Cameron. As much as he loves the crayon box too, he never lets his passion for it overwhelm the tempo of his movies. He might emphasize gobsmacking visuals over things like characterization or dense plotting, but that’s a creative decision. And let’s admit it, it’s one that has made his last several movies astounding global successes. Avatar is about the visuals. Lucas thinks that’s what Star Wars is about, too. It’s just that he’s dreadfully, fatally wrong.
Anyway, back to the Doom Patrol. Like Titans in its way, it’s kind of awful because in their own way they fell in love with the crayon box. Only with them, it’s not the crayon box of an unlimited visual palette, it’s the crayon box of unlimited content freedom. Look at all the crayons! Explicit Sex! Explicit Violence! Swearing! Crudeness and lewdness of every variety! Take that, squares!
Now, unlike the Star Wars prequels, which were awful because Lucas fundamentally misunderstands the appeal of a pre-existing property, Doom Patrol is a new thing (at least in terms of being a TV show). Therefore you could argue that as with Avatar, the emphasis on the crayon box is a creative decision. Fair enough. Yet even if I don’t think I’d overlike Avatar, the fact is I get who its meant to appeal too. It’s no mystery because it’s like billions of people who want different things from their entertainment than I do. Look at the bones, man! By which I mean, look at the box office numbers. Cameron knew exactly what he wanted, and what his audience wanted, and he was right.
As with Avatar, Doom Patrol doesn’t have any responsibility to appeal to me, or to any other viewer or segment of viewers. However, who is it meant to appeal to? Cameron’s work appeals to billions of people. As I watch the utterly juvenile antics meant to be ‘mature’ and (yawn) ‘transgressive,’ I just sit there wondering, who is this made for? Which exact tens of millions of people, which the DC streaming service will need if it is to survive, are going to be so inspired by this sort of thing that they will pony up the minimum of $75 a year to watch this and Titans and Swamp Thing?
Yes, there is a large—although by no means Netflix or Amazon Prime-sized—backlog of older content, much of it great (the Bruce Timm animated universe, primarily). Yet surely the shiny new content is meant to be the most enticing subscription inducement. And this is what they think will drive the numbers they require? I don’t get it.
