Doom Patrol

"Look, we all want to find the Chief. To find the Chief we gotta go through Mr. Nobody. And I think we can all agree, if we don't get our sh*t together, right here, right now, Mr. Nobody is gonna f*ck us! He's gonna f*ck us in our brains, he's gonna f*ck us in our hearts, he's gonna f*ck us in our souls! Now, I don't know what kind of freaky sh*t that your souls are into, and I don't want to judge, but I want to keep my soul unf*cked!"


The niche superhero group Doom Patrol is not on anybody's radar. I didn't know myself about them until a year ago. Even those who do know them only know them because they're affiliated with DC's Teen Titans (Teen Titan Beast Boy was formerly in the Doom Patrol).

To cut to the chase, DC's streaming service has adapted the comic-book team, and it's absolutely incredible. Season 3 of the popular animated series ‘Young Justice’ on the same exclusive platform is also incredible, but that's another subject.

Doom Patrol is kind of like an R-rated counterpart to the Guardians of Galaxy, it's that classic and loveable trope/formula about outcasts coming together and growing beyond their pain. That kind of off-the-wall authenticity. Also, it's wacky. It's definitely the best live-action superhero show, but then again, I'm not big on those shows. The Marvel Netflix series are otherwise fine, aside from being poorly-paced, bloated with filler, and somewhat pretentious. The Arrowverse (Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl) are shows mostly accessible to comic fans, with so much cheese that it smothers everything else including the oh-so captivating drama and undermines its wish to be taken seriously. Also, their low-budget sometimes contrasts with their ambition, unfortunately. This knows what it wants to be and balances tone well, going from the surreal situations the characters find themselves in. There's a giant cockroach, robot nazis, a donkey portal, etc. But there's also the underlying emotions of the cast. And our characters go through the present together reflecting on horrific parts of their past that led them to this path. It's about having fun with the strangeness, but also about moving forward, about healing. The show does a good job at balancing out those two goals, there is a sufficient transition between the humor and the seriousness. A lesser show would seem extremely tonally inconsistent. It's also quite metafictional and it does that well too. The characters are all outcasts (the comic introduced one of the first transgender superheroes in the early 90s), and the show is about their identities. I'm continually reminded of how unlikely it is for such a show to exist, with its many surreal elements. This is especially true considering the absurdity of the series and how the Doom Patrol are obscure, even in comics. Back to the characters;

They are a group of superheroes that don't want to be superheroes. Including;

• Rita Farr, a former actor now suffering from an affliction that allows her elasticity but also turns her into a giant blob of flesh if she doesn't concentrate on her form.
• Robotman, a former racecar driver, now just a brain in a robot suit.
• Negative Man, a former closeted radioactive pilot with another entity living inside him.
• Crazy Jane, a DID sufferer with 64 different personalities and a power for each different personality.
• Cyborg, the classic famous DC superhero.
• and The Chief, the 'leader' and a Good Samaritan who brought these people together to help them. He's kidnapped by Mr. Nobody, the villain, kickstarting the plot.
• There's also an ally in Danny, a sentient genderqueer teleporting street.

All of these characters are absurd and complex. Except for Danny, who doesn't really do much character-wise, but they're still really cool! It being streaming service-exclusive makes sense, and works to its advantage. The show is very sweary, and it works for these characters, a benefit of avoiding tv censors by being made for a streaming service (that is a big component, private streaming service means minimal censorship and more creative power).

The actors are all great, and perform well in the series' many emotional scenes. Alan Tudyk is both hilarious and threatening as the all-powerful Mr. Nobody. Also, the show features Timothy Dalton as the Chief and (punished) Brendan Fraser as Robotman. These characters have survived tragedy and are not "normal", but they slowly come to terms with their new existence.

The show is about healing and coping, which means it does have a lot of angst. It depends individually on whether the viewer will get tired of that or continue to be moved.

(Also the opening sequence is the right mix of abstract and literal in its imagery. You have a melting hand, a skull, a brain being put into a suit as its robot eyes light up, etc. Great like a lot of openings. It's like life itself is being reborn.)