Defenders - August 20

Marvel’s ‘Defenders’ got released on the Netflix earlier this week. And-?

And so far reviews are somewhere between ‘fair praise’, ‘damning’, and a cross between the two limits. Basically, ‘Defenders’ was a good show, but kind of rushed, since the first season was only 8 episodes long, and you cannot go too far or too complex with this sort of thing.

Yes, the ‘Gilmore Girls’ revival was only 4 episodes long…but, honestly, most people agree, that this revival wasn’t all that good in itself, and if ASP & husband have another go at it, they have a hard road ahead of them, too.

Longer seasons are not a solution, of course, and ‘Fuller House’ has its own problems, but its’ reviews are more mixed, FYI.

Back to ‘Defenders’. The show does work – as a part of a greater whole, in tandem with the rest of the mini-series, including, yes, ‘Punisher’, whose first season is coming some time in the future, and all the others, including ‘Iron Fist’. People still did not warm-up to the Flower Knight in this incarnation, but you know, give them time – Ser Tyrell is not going anywhere, you know? So let us just enjoy the show – and the audience/viewers, in general, did.

What else? Well, the plot was not that complex, and the villains did not appear to be up to speed with the heroes, not even Alexandra, (played by Sigourney Weaver, BTW). Electra/Black Sky appeared to be the ‘Big Bad’ at the end, and there were dragon bones, so yes, there were some issues in integrating NYC with the Orient – something that caused problems with ‘Iron Fist’, but now there was an added challenge of much more characters appearing in fewer episodes – just 8, to be more precise. Yes, everyone got a piece of screen time, Misty Knight even got set up to be potentially a superhero known as the ‘Bionic Woman’ – just kidding, but she does end up with a bionic/cybernetic arm in the comics, and she gets to be both a hero and a villain there too… where were we?

‘Defenders’ tried to do too much in too little time, that’s what. Hence why the story feels incomplete, (in a bad way), rushed and not quite satisfactory. Yes, the future seasons of the other shows, (including ‘Punisher’) will fill the gaps and move the plot forwards, and this is actually impressive: this little corner of Marvel (MCU?) has, at last, created an interconnected… ‘mini-verse’ (for the lack of a better term), one that works – the rest of Marvel is not as good, although FOX and X-men and the associated mutants seem to be heading in this direction too, (especially the X-men movies and co).

No, seriously, they do – and very smoothly too, from one ‘universe’ to another, but ‘Defenders’ aren’t a part of it, they belong to a different corner of Marvel and are here to stay. You may like them, you may dislike them, but ‘Defenders’ got staying power, and unless you replace Rand with Jake Paul (or someone like that), stop complaining about him! ‘Iron Fist’ is here to stay as well.