Ben Who?

Daredevil Season 1

With the success of their films, Marvel Studios has recently gone to a medium where their rival DC Entertainment has been for a few years now…television. Back in 2013 Marvel released a TV series based around minor characters in their cinematic universe aptly named Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show has had mild success, but has struggled to really find a true following. So Marvel, with full intent on powering forward, decided to try their hand at television again, but this time they decided to base a series around a popular character from their books and put it on the hottest ‘network’ right now. Though he already has a movie, Marvel thought the best to place this character should on the small screen for now with a 13 episode stint that debuted on Netflix. From the producer and one of the writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Daredevil premiered on April 10^th of this year.

After a horrible childhood accident that left him blind, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox Stardust) has grown up in one of the roughest neighborhoods in New York City, Hell’s Kitchen. Now a lawyer, Murdock has made it his life’s mission to clean up The Kitchen anyway he can. However if going through the legal system isn’t enough, Murdock has taken it upon himself to seek justice in the form of a masked vigilante. What Murdock doesn’t realize is that in order to take back Hell’s Kitchen from all the corrupt people that live there, Murdock must first deal with the ‘man behind the curtain’. Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio The Judge) is a very powerful man that also wants to bring Hell’s Kitchen out of the gutter, but in a different way. After seeing what Fisk’s idea consists of, Murdock sets out to stop Fisk at any cost.

What do you get when you mix an underrated Marvel comic book character and the essence of Batman Begins? This show, Daredevil. The first season of the Man Without Fear was amazing on every level that makes a great comic book show and/or movie. The origin was handled well, the acting was superb, and the feel of the show was dead-on. I couldn’t be any more pleased with the first season of this show; it exceeded my expectations…greatly.

Charlie Cox personifies everything that Murdock should be onscreen. I am very pleased by the way Cox handled the blind aspect of Murdock’s character by not making it overly obvious the character was blind, but still reminding us that he was. Cox also counter balanced that with his physical acting very well. I also loved Rosario Dawson’s (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) character Claire. Dawson plays the reluctant nurse who patches up Murdock on occasion. It’s the reluctance and ultimately the surrender to help Murdock that had me liking her because she gives this vibe that “I know I should help, but I also know that I shouldn’t…”  Of course there is D’Onofrio. D’Onofrio’s Fisk is an amazing piece of acting. Fisk is portrayed here as ideally the same person as Murdock. Fisk wants to fix what he feels is wrong, but on a different level than Murdock. D’Onofrio also does a masterful job at giving Fisk feelings and almost giving a ‘child-like’ personification of Fisk. This Fisk isn’t the one from the books and is definitely not the one from the 2003 film. In some ways D’Onofrio almost does the impossible and makes Fisk relatable and nearly gets the audience to sympathize with Fisk.

Creator Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) and producer Steven S. DeKnight (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) have basically found a way to extend Batman Begins into a television series. Goddard and DeKnight were able to create a dark and morally grey origin story that was based on Frank Miller’s (Sin City) graphic novel The Man Without Fear. I think that the dark tone and action styles used in the first season really helped people forget about the 2003 film. Though based in the same world as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the producers and writers were able to make this show as realistic as possible. They don’t delve too far or at all into what has happened in the MCU and because of that the show is able to keep it’s realism for the time being.

I’m very excited for season two which will debut next year, assuming around April or May. This show is everything that Daredevil should be. Though I have defended Ben Affleck for his portrayal of Murdock (can’t blame the guy for crappy writing), I strongly believe that Cox embodied the character and made it his own. Just a fair warning, as amazing has this show is and it is related to the MCU, this show is not for kids. This show can become graphically violent at times, along with some harsh language. I learned that the hard way. 

The Verdict: Worth Your Time