I remember the excitement when Agents of SHEILD launched, but then I remember the waves of crushing disappointment fans felt when it wasn’t the superhero show they longed for. To be fair I hear that Agents of SHEILD has found its footing, so I may need to binge watch it soon to catch up, but Daredevil was great from the start and mostly to its finish. It had a gripping story of one man trying to make a difference, sure the man is a ninja, but one man none the less. It makes me wonder why they didn’t start with this show in the first place.
I think why Daredevil succeeds while Agents struggled at first is that it is not tied as closely to the movies. Sure there are nods to the films, and comments about some of the Avengers, but for the most part this is a smaller story and not something the events of the movies would affect at all. It is too low level to even hit the Avengers radar. It was refreshing to see a small scale superhero arch from Marvel when everything they have been doing lately was been so cataclysmic. The worse thing that happens if Daredevil fails is the end to a portion of New York. Not the world. Even then it is forced gentrification not annihilation. It is a much more intimate affair.
If I had any qualms about the show, it is that ended on somewhat of a down note for me, and not the rollicking high that it started on. Still good, but not as great as the start. It also reinforced that Marvel has a death (or lack there of) problem. It doesn’t know how or when to pull the trigger, and the less we talk about the new Daredevil outfit the better. Sure it looks a lot like the DC TV costumes, but those really aren’t great templates to work with, but much like the DC shows if they keep the quality up I can live with an ugly Daredevil jumpsuit.
I love what Marvel and Netflix did with this show, and now I am looking forward to AKA Jessica Jones even more. If Marvel can keep their stories contained like they did in Daredevil, we should be in for quite a few treats as they lay out their next few Netflix shows, or at least until “The Man Without Fear” returns.
