Ribbons wrote:I've read a few lukewarm reviews that at the very least indicate season 2 of Daredevil doesn't open as strong as its first
I enjoyed season 2 quite a bit but it didn't feel as good as season 1. I got a little tired of Daredevil and Elektra teaming up and doing the same thing over and over again. To be honest, I would have been happy just watching the Punisher. Any episodes that had the Punisher were just so engaging and interesting. Can he get his own show? Seriously good stuff any time he was in an episode.
Todd Spangler wrote:
Turns out that as a crime-fighting quartet, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist together may be weaker than they are as solo vigilantes.
“Marvel’s The Defenders,” featuring the street-hero characters, was the least-watched Netflix Marvel original series premiere in the U.S. as measured over the first 30 days of viewership, according to an analysis by Jumpshot, a marketing-analytics firm.
For the comparison, Jumpshot created an index benchmarking each of the Netflix Marvel series against the top-viewed of the bunch, which was “Daredevil” season 2 in March 2016. Following its Aug. 18 premiere, “The Defenders” clocked in with just 17% of the viewership that “Daredevil” season two received in the first 30 days. The study looked at Netflix U.S. subs who watched at least one episode of each series.
Compared with “The Defenders,” the previous premieres of “Iron Fist,” “Luke Cage” and “Jessica Jones” performed relatively equally in the first 30 days, accounting for 28%, 27% and 26% of “Daredevil” season 2’s viewership, respectively. In addition to being the least-viewed of the group, “The Defenders” also had the largest week-over-week drop in viewership, declining by 67%, 48% and 41%, respectively, over the 30-day period, per Jumpshot.
Netflix doesn’t release viewing data, leaving industry players to rely on estimates from third parties. But execs from the streaming-video company have routinely questioned the validity of attempts to gauge consumption on its global platform.
Moreover, Netflix evaluates the full performance of its content on its VOD service over a longer span than just 30 days. But the initial consumption of a series is often a good indicator of its long-term performance, and it’s worth noting that “The Defenders” showed a significant drop in viewers in the first month on the service.
The eight-episode miniseries “Marvel’s The Defenders” tells the story of Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones), who reluctantly band together to save New York City from criminal mastermind Alexandra Reid (Sigourney Weaver).
Why did “The Defenders” mashup get a colder shoulder than its predecessor series? One explanation may be that each of the individual street heroes appeals to different kinds of viewers, at least among Netflix members who had never watched content tagged as in the “superhero” genre before.
According to a Netflix news release, one-eighth of the viewers for the Marvel street-hero series were new to the comic-book genre. Among this group of newbies, “Daredevil” viewers gravitate toward storylines featuring antiheroes and moral ambiguity; “Jessica Jones” attracted those attuned to “sharp humor and dark crime”; “Luke Cage” watchers tended to prefer stories about “dangerous worlds and complex consequences”; and “Iron Fist” drew in fans of coming-of-age tales.
For the data on Netflix originals, Jumpshot looked at the viewing behavior and activity of the company’s U.S. members. The San Francisco-based company analyzes anonymized click-stream data from a panel of more than 100 million internet consumers, amounting to some 160 billion individual data points per month. The data excludes viewing that occurs on connected-TV platforms or Netflix mobile apps, but Jumpshot says its benchmark analysis reflects aggregate viewing on the platform.
I don't have any thoughts about Joanne Whaley, but I'm glad to hear they're finally tackling the "Born Again" storyline. There's no way it'll be as fucked up as Frank Miller's version (I highly doubt that Karen Page becomes a crackwhore for example), but maybe that's not the worst thing.
Holy shit Season 2 is really good!! Maybe a little long - probably could have tightened it down to 10 episodes, but that's a minor quibble for me.
Pros
- Born Again is referenced throughout the season - from plot points to imagery lifted from the pages. I haven't read it in over 25 years and still recognized images from the comic. Will be digging it out soon.
-D'onofrio IS the Kingpin! He looks so much like the comic character that it's frightening.
- Fights! This show has really great fight scenes for a series.
Cons
-D'onofrio's voice. It sounded as if D'onofrio was constantly trying to speak in a lower tone of voice than he was actually capable of.
-Deborah Woll. I liked her in her flashback episode. That was an episode that I thought was going to be lame but turned out to be great. But she has a limited use of mannerisms and quirks that she relies on (if she did another little hyperventilating gasp one more time I was going to do my own primal scream) and I saw them all already when she was on True Blood.
Poindexter was....interesting. I loved the Bullseye bits, but the whole mental illness aspect got old quickly for me. It'll be interesting to see what he's like in the future.
Achievement Unlocked: TOTAL DOMINATION (Win a Werewolf Game without losing a single player on your team)
I finally got around to watching the third (and final) season of Daredevil. It was fantastic. The fact that it drew heavily from what is probably the character's best story arc in the comics certainly helps, but it was incredibly well-made regardless. The fight scenes remain brutal and peerless among the other Marvel-Netflix shows, and this is perhaps the first time watching one where I didn't get the sense that it struggled from weird pacing issues. Even the series I've enjoyed, like Daredevil S1, Jessica Jones S1, and The Punisher typically start strong out of the gate and them limp to the finish, like they ran out of plot somewhere in the middle and had to drag things along. "Born Again" is perfectly paced, each episode delivering entertainment and tension and moving the story forward in a logical way, leading to a climax that's both nerve-wracking and satisfying. It explores the religious underpinnings unique to the character in a surprisingly thoughtful way, and in providing Bullseye as a foil, does the good-evil dichotomy in a far more nuanced and believable manner than the ham-fisted conflict between Daredevil and The Punisher in season 2. I even appreciated the constant callbacks to earlier episodes, like psychopathic FBI agent Poindexter's failed attempts at empathy ("That sounds really hard") to the recurring imagery of plastic tarp, which plays a role here similar to that of oranges in the Godfather films. It's disappointing that the show was cancelled immediately afterward, but it couldn't have ended better. Even if you've never seen a minute of Daredevil, you could (and should) watch season 3.
i just finally got started watching this show, now that it's moved from Netflix to Disney+ and it seems like the character is being re-introduced to the MCU. 3 episodes in and really liking it. i appreciate the brutality of this show, that hallway fight in Ep 2 reminded me of the hammer scene in Oldboy.
and now i understand why Disney+ had to add age restrictions when they brought these shows over from Netflix.
i'll be trying to watch all the Marvel Netflix shows in order (so Jessica Jones, Defenders, Luke Cage etc). i've heard some are better than others but it looks like i'll have my work cut out for me.
TheBaxter wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:16 pm
i just finally got started watching this show, now that it's moved from Netflix to Disney+ and it seems like the character is being re-introduced to the MCU. 3 episodes in and really liking it. i appreciate the brutality of this show, that hallway fight in Ep 2 reminded me of the hammer scene in Oldboy.
and now i understand why Disney+ had to add age restrictions when they brought these shows over from Netflix.
i'll be trying to watch all the Marvel Netflix shows in order (so Jessica Jones, Defenders, Luke Cage etc). i've heard some are better than others but it looks like i'll have my work cut out for me.
TheBaxter wrote: ↑Wed Feb 15, 2023 3:29 pm
yeah, i'm not really looking forward to that stretch between DD S2 and JJ S2. but if i don't watch em then, i never will.
TheBaxter wrote: ↑Wed Feb 15, 2023 3:29 pm
yeah, i'm not really looking forward to that stretch between DD S2 and JJ S2. but if i don't watch em then, i never will.
Any progress?
made it through Luke Cage S1 so far. enjoyed that one more than i expected, and basically everything has been good so far (if i knew Daredevil had so many ninjas, i would have watched it years ago).
i've taken a break since then to get caught up on other shows (Interview with the Vampire, Mayfair Witches, and now Picard S3). next up is Iron Fist S1, which i've heard is the low point, so i guess i've been putting it off for a bit.
I would say the low point is actually season 2 of Iron Fist, so you have that to look forward to. Season 2 of The Punisher is also terrible, but the first season does some interesting things with a problematic character.
No spoilers, but you may need to watch season 2 of Luke Cage with subtitles.
i liked Iron Fist S1. i especially liked how Faramir got Boromir'd, then pulled off a Gandalf the White only to end up getting Denethor'd. i'm a sucker for the Kung Fu action, and the Drunken Master homage was pretty cool, so there was were some cool fights and i enjoyed that. the casually racist trope of the white kid taken in by mystic Asians and trained in martial arts (Kung Fu, Karate Kid, Kill Bill, Batman Begins, etc) is tough to overlook but it is what it is.
Defenders will be next and that one looks promising. maybe i'll finally find out whether Rosario Dawson's character ever amounts to anything.
