Doom Patrol is finally to be available for streaming in the UK, via the Amazon Prime sub-subscription service StarzPlay. So, after raving so hard about The Pilot at launch on DCUniverse (and then watching it all again on Blu-Ray), it was time to do the season review.
Anthologies are, by their very nature, a mixed bag, but Love, Death & Robots often feels like it’s an utterly random hodgepodge of stories and tones thrown together with no cohesive themes. To give you an idea, the first half opens with a solid 18-rated, by-the-numbers gore, and pseudo-sexy cyberpunk then skips to a charming little comedy about three robots taking a tour through the post-apocalypse, follows up with the way too long and far too exploitative Naked Woman Running In Terror sequence. It’s then on to a charming story of space farmers defending a homestead with mechs, tries to be serious with an 80s inspired Vampires vs Cats, hits another high note with a highly evocative social comedy about hyper-intelligent Yogurt and tails off with the double act of The Opening Of Aliens: Let’s Have Sex In Space, and Steampunk: Mystic Asia With Rich Europeans Being Terrible.
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DC Universe launches its second home-produced TV series with 15 episodes of the long-standing, but a relatively unknown, group of characters known as the Doom Patrol. Started in the 60s, by writers Arnold Drake, Bob Haney, and artist Bruno Premiani, showrunner Jeremy Carver has stuck with the various comic series’ concept of having “The World’s Strangest Heroes” being a tale of trauma and alienation. Rather than the questions of moral right or wrong asked by its predecessor, Titans, the opening episode focuses on introducing each character to the audience through a series of heavy punches to the heart, face, and soul. What could have been a simple run-through of “the gathering of the forces of good” is an assortment of kicks to the groin, executed so as to leave no joy unsullied and no heart sting unrazored.
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Trash or Treasure 