We are huge fans of the Daredevil story lines previously told through Disney’s collaboration with Netflix, so when we heard that they were bringing back not only the characters, but the world that they inhabited in those series, we were excited to see where it would take us in Daredevil born again.
As always, our reviews break down the series by the categories of Story, Acting, and Overall. So let’s jump on into it.
Story 7/10
The show had some serious rewrites after it filmed the majority of the series, and you can feel that energy through the season. The biggest changes of course occurred during the first episode and the last episode with new footage peppered within certain episodes to allow a through line in the series. The show starts off set the year before the events of the series and Matt, Karen, and Foggy are celebrating at Josie’s bar.
Their festivities are cut short, however, when their client calls them to alert them that they are in danger and that someone is coming for them. Daredevil dashed off into the night to save their client, however, it was a trap which Daredevil learns too late and immediately tries to double back to stop the assault upon Rosie’s bar. In the process, Foggy passes away and Daredevil is pushed too far and attempts to murder Bullseye.
This trauma and tragedy pushes Matt Murdock too far and causes him to hang up the cowl and try to live a life more adjacent to what Foggy would have accomplished if he had not passed away.
On the other side of the coin, we have Wilson Fisk straight off the events of Echo recovering from the psychological warping that she did to him at the end of the series. While he had left his empire unattended, Vanessa picked up the reins. After soul searching though, Fisk is back and he wants to save his City and no one’s going to stop him.
It’s a really good setup that allows the characters to go face to face, setting off the events early with them meeting at a diner and explaining what they expect from their deal that they made. However, I feel that the peace that exists between the two does also help contribute to the fact that it takes a long time for us to get the Daredevil back in a Daredevil series. I don’t mind the journey that we took to get to the place that we are, because the original cut of the series it took longer for us to get Daredevil, but it’s still frustrating that you have to wait so long for the superhero to finally show up.
Acting 10/10
Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio born to play the roles of Daredevil and Kingpin, and once again bring a level of skill and passion to this project that makes us realize that the series wouldn’t be successful or have lasted so long if anyone else helmed those characters.
It’s great to see returning characters from the series like Josie (Susan Varon), Foggy (Elden Henson), Karen (Deborah Ann Woll), and Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), but they do not stay for long, allowing us in the series to focus on newcomers like BB Urich played by Genneya Walton, Healther Glenn played by Margarita Levieva, and Kingpin’s new staff Buck Cashman played by Arty Froushan, Daniel Blake played by Michael Gandolfini, and Sheila Rivera played by Zabryna Guevara.
Specifically James Gandolfini’s son Michael Gandolfini does an amazing job playing a young political aid, corrupted by his desires and in part by proximity to Fisk. On the other hand, Zabryna Guevara plays an aide who appears to ultimately want to be doing good, but a crisis of morals fights her desire to be on the winning side.
Lastly, are two returning villains bullseye, played by Wilson Bethel, and Vanessa, played by Ayelet Zurer. The two do an amazing job bringing their characters back to the screen and pulling more from them in a way that is engaging and world building.
Overall 8.75/10
The series itself feels very different than the prior shows of Daredevil that were run on the Netflix series. While some of the effects and changes to the design is solid, and the actors do a wonderful job throughout the entire series, they just don’t seem to be able to capture that energy of the original series. This isn’t specifically bad, but it can go a long way to alienate large fans of the original series.
Additionally, the way the series ends off, it could not have been possibly if this was a one-season show. There’s no conclusion, you’re left sitting at the crux of a much larger problem to work on, and it’s a little bit frustrating for the first season finale to conclude like that.
Conner’s Final Thoughts
The film style for the series was very unique with a lot of shots between scenes showing street level footage of people living their lives in New York. While I can understand how that would lend itself to a street level hero series, we do spend too much of the season spent in the mayor’s Mansion and office, as well as Matt Murdock’s penthouse. The street level scenes do seem to pull you from the series and a lot of them really do feel like their stock footage that was taken from another film company.
They don’t even match the levels of lighting and exposure from the rest of the series, which could be fixed in post but wasn’t. Occasionally in the scenes they’ve over imposed little references that match facts within the world of Marvel, but that even can be even further jarring to see an ad for a Marvel’s universe thing like Rogers the Musical, especially when you can tell that it was edited into the scene.
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