I’ve been waiting for a show about Marvel’s blind lawyer superhero lawyer for, like, 20 years. So, of course, I binged on the new Daredevil show on Netflix as soon as I could. I wasn’t the only one here at Kotaku who felt that way. You know what? We loved it.
Daredevil’s a different beast when compared to the other adaptations based on Marvel’s characters. It’s co-produced with Netflix, with no network executives making creative decisions that could screw things up. And, like many other streaming series, all the episodes are available at once. So Kirk Hamilton, Mike Fahey and myself all inhaled 13 episodes of Daredevil as quickly as possible and then got together to talk about the stuff that jazzed us or bummed us out. Click the magnifying glass icon at the top left of the chatroom screenshots to expand them. There are, of course, plot details discussed below for the whole first season so don’t read any further if you don’t want to be spoiled.
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17 responses to “What We Loved (And Didn’t Love) About The Daredevil TV Show”
I really enjoyed the series but two things annoyed me about it. The way the series would do some of the fight scenes off camera bugged me. The other thing that really annoyed me was when
Karen killed Wesley. It was honestly a really dumb way to kill off that character.They didn’t do much off-scene. The fights in this show were way better than we had any right to expect TV show fights to be. Not just good for TV, but flat out good for American cinema.
They were a bit annoyingly flashy sometimes, a character that we’ve already established is wounded and exhausted should not be picking a back flip as his next attack, but overall I was super impressed. Pretty decent choreography, too, and they didn’t just steal it from foreign movies unlike a lot of TV shows (Arrow, for example) .
They even made their lives more difficult than they needed to, with some long camera takes. That hallway fight, for example… doing 3 long takes for 1 fight like that? Crazy.
Edit: So I just read an interview with the choreographer and apparently that hallway fight really was one take. Which is unbelievable, especially since there were at least 2 moments where the camera is turning 180 and they easily could have slipped in a camera cut as it passed a wall.
http://observer.com/2015/04/daredevil-stunt-coordinator-on-designing-a-one-shot-fight-scene-for-a-blind-hero/
Apparently that was only one long take… and the stunt coordinator is now working on the Deadpool movie.
http://www.tv.com/news/marvel-daredevil-hallway-fight-scene-one-shot-video-netflix-142929599473/
Yeah, I just edited my comment to mention that. Unbelievable. Fight scenes have almost never been given that kind of respect by American production crews.
Great news about Deadpool. I’m looking forward to a film, if that’s what he can do with TV.
I enjoyed the show a lot, but I didn’t like Fisk. Near the end he came more in line with what I expected of him, but every time he came on screen I just thought of the serial killer from Identity.
One thing I really liked was that they had a few instances of characters deducing things without getting it entirely right. Correct enough to keep things moving in the right direction but not so flawlessly correct that it felt like they were being given the answers.
A good example is when the Russian figures out Fisk is trying to kill him. He continued to think Daredevil was involved and thus drew an incorrect link between Fisk and Daredevil. It didn’t really impact anything but I felt like it helped the characters feel more real.Also I thought Foggy initially being more concerned that Matt had lied to him about being blind than him being a vigilante was good. It was a more personal reaction than you normally see during these moments in shows like this.
I liked the way they brawled too. There was none of that ‘he’s a superhero so he can KO people in one punch’ stuff. He had his powers and they made it the impossible possible, but they didn’t lazily make that boost every aspect of his fighting prowess. Even if it was just a guard he had to actually do something in order to knock him out. The bit early on in the hallway where everybody just keeps getting up and he’s basically just surviving by reacting really quickly was great.
He obviously wasn’t going to die in any of these fights but it actually felt like he was taking damage when he was hit. Sometimes he’d get back up and be a bit too effective, but it wasn’t like a Batman or Spider-man fight sequence where once the knife wound only matters until the end of the scene, at which point the hero catches their breath and the knife wound that almost lost them the fight miraculously turns into just a blood stain and a hole in their costume.
[Edit: Admittedly I’m not a huge Daredevil fan, so it’s easy for me to not notice any little things that may have been wrong.
Also as a side note, this show really makes me want a Netflix Punisher series.]
Oh god yes, tap Garth Ennis to get involved with a Netflix Punisher series.
I liked it but man vincent d’onofio (spelling?) Phoned in one of the worst acting jobs in years. He couldn’t do his voice while raising it and his chinese sounded so terrible that i can’t believe they didnt reshoot or overdub it
I like Vincent D’Onofrio but for some reason, his portrayal of Fisk was just ‘breathy overacting.’ I don’t even speak Mandarin (I think it’s Mandarin?), but it sounded exactly like someone reading phonetic syllables from an off-screen cue sheet. I mean, even made-up languages like Valyrian sound convincing enough on TV if the actors practise their lines.
His Mandarin wasn’t great, but he had a similarly odd English delivery. I assumed it was mostly down to his choice of character trait.
I’m halfway to agreeing with you about his acting, though. I don’t think it was phoned in, per se, but it was certainly an unusual performance. I never quite decided if I liked it or not. I did appreciate that it wasn’t just a stereotypical bad guy performance, though.
I’m sorry, but listening to Vincent D’Onofrio mangle his Mandarin lines is almost too painful to bear. It sounds far too staccato and unnatural, and given that Mrs Gao clearly speaks English far better than his Chinese, I find it hard to imagine that she would tolerate his Mandarin beyond letting him say “ni hao” to her.
I liked it too but felt that some scenes were way too dark, lighting wise. Also, If you’re a blind vigilante that likes to beat up guys with guns, wouldn’t breaking the lights, or cutting the building’s power be a legitimate tactic to use? It wouldn’t matter to you, being blind.
I suppose there’s the audience to think about… And I already just whinged about the darkness of some scenes… Carry on. That is all.
I didn’t like the fact that they called him ‘The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen’ so late in the series. Every time someone said ‘The Man in Black,’ I kept thinking of The Princess Bride; the fact that his costume is a spitting image of Westley’s in the movie, certainly didn’t help.
I’m about half way through and I’m not thrilled with Fiske. At first I thought his whispery voice and odd demeanour may have been a clever reversal of the traditional crime boss type dude, and I thought it was building up to something … but it looks as if he’s just kinda weird and not very threatening.
I… didn’t like the costume (the red one).
I loved the rest of the show though… absolutely loved it.
I really disagree with everyone calling D’Onofrio’s acting bad, and his portrayal of the character ‘not menacing’. He is similar to the original Leatherface – a big, calculating brute with the temper of a baby. The awkwardness helps to reveal his duality – he wouldn’t be this successful criminal with this hot temper without that weirdness driving him to such extremes (ie the car door and the table flip).
I loved the show, and D’Onofrio was my favourite part.
Yes, so glad someone else thought this.
I thought it was brilliant, having one of the richest and most powerful men be so awkward and scared of the public. It shows he’s spent his whole life in isolation terrified of his own monstrosity and helps explain how he is able to take lives so easily.
It’s better written and acted than any evil person I’ve seen in a long time, where they might usually have a scene talking about their human side but then go back to straight up evil, he is a perfect mix of scared child and horrifying executioner and they matched perfectly
For those with a deep hankering for more Daredevil the movie is also up on Netflix.
There is also a Doctor Who movie (“An Adventure in Space and Time”) in the “Dramas based on Real Life” category. I suppose it probably has more truth to it than the average election promise…
I’m at middle of the show, and I don’t get the hype. Terrible acting so far, not to mention horrible cliches all over the place. Special award to foggy tbh.