THE DEFENDERS

“The only thing stopping New York from becoming a pile of dust is the four of you…”

In the olden days, i.e. about two years ago, I was very, very excited for The Defenders to get their own team up series. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist teaming up on the small screen sounded like an utter delight, especially given the first two shows of the lot, Daredevil and Jessica Jones, both being bloody brilliant. Then the hellishly boring Luke Cage series hit the internet, and my expectations for The Defenders were lowered, and again even more so when Iron Fist was average on the whole at best. So yeah, my expectations for The Defenders have been…turbulent. But now that it’s here, does it hold up to its best predecessors, or not?

Well, in truth, The Defenders is a very solid series. It begins with each of the heroes in their own world, if you will, each on their own quest or following their own lead. Sooner or later though, their worlds collide as The Hand, the villains behind both Daredevil’s series and Iron Fist’s, at last reveal their masterplan, to discover and harness the power of eternal life from beneath New York city, putting millions of people in danger in the process. After realising their individual paths lead to the same goal, The Defenders unite and face the hand head on.

On the whole, it’s a solid plot line and it’s simple enough that, unlike, say the first season of Daredevil, it’s not too overly complicated and once things get going they continue moving at a good pace for the rest of the series. However, one of the series’ biggest problems is its slow start. Whilst the heroes meet in pairs by the end of the second episode, it’s not until the end of the third that the entire team is seen onscreen together. That wouldn’t be a problem if the show had thirteen episodes overall like the solo series do, but it doesn’t. Defenders only has eight episodes, something which both Luke Cage’s series and Iron Fist’s could have used, so having the heroes first team up nearly half way into the series means the first two episodes, even though have good moments, do feel very slow for the majority of the run time.

However, even though they do feel slow, the first few episodes do balance the screen time of the four main characters, and the villainous Hand fairly well. Something I did enjoy the distinct tint to each of the heroes’ scenes. For example, whenever Matt Murdock/Daredevil was centre stage, there always seemed to be a red glow onscreen. Jessica Jones’ was blue, Luke Cage’s was yellow and Iron Fist’s was green. It was a small effect that actually worked quite well, and it helped show the differences in each of the characters’ worlds.

Like I said, a small effect that worked well...

But back to once the series does get going, and yes, it moves at a good pace. There enough fight scenes dropped in here and there that keep things interesting and for the most part, the fight scenes are fun to watch. That being said, there were no singe continuous shot fights scenes like the solo shows have used before, and that’s a real shame. There was more than one opportunity to show one off, especially when all four heroes were onscreen.

This, for example, was an already good fight that would’ve looked even better had it been one continuous shot…

I spoke earlier about the series only having eight episodes. When news first broke about that, it was slightly concerning. But having now seen the series, I have to say it worked quite well. The last couple of solo series have suffered greatly from taking a very simple plot and trying desperately to stretch it over thirteen episodes, when around ten would’ve been fine. The Defenders has a simple story and giving it less episodes allows it to have more focus. Even in the slower episodes. Take the fourth episode for example. The Defenders have just fought their first fight together and are taking refuge in a Chinese Restaurant. Pretty much the whole episode takes place in that restaurant, and it is mostly dialogue with a couple of action scenes. But it still feel important because something is still happening. It’s the first time most of the characters interact with each other and there’s a lot going on in quite a small space. In fact, it’s probably one of my favourite episodes just because it decides to slow down just at the right moment.

The series’ main villain comes in the form of Sigourney Weaver’s Alexandra, the head of The Hand organisation and probably the person who’s been pulling the strings since the first season of Daredevil aired.

Whilst Weaver does a solid job in the role, and does bring a relaxed approached to a villain with a long history, she never quite has the presence when onscreen that Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk or David Tennant’s Kilgrave had. You know she the villain of the series, but she never really does anything to show that to you. Fisk decapitated someone with a car door and Kilgrave, well, Kilgrave was just creepy as hell. They showed you that they weren’t to be messed with, but Weaver’s Alexandra never really does. It feels like she was cast because she’s a big name, not because they had a good character for her. In my opinion it would’ve been better to have Madame Gao as the leader of The Hand.

After all, she’s been built up in both Daredevil’s and Iron Fist’s series, and always has a great presence onscreen.

Back to the Defenders themselves, and for me the ones to watch are still Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones.

When they’re onscreen they give their characters a lot of life and they’re always fun to watch, whether it’s a darker and more brooding scene or a lighter one. While Mike Colter definitely has improved in his role as Luke Cage, unfortunately I can’t say the same about Finn Jones as Iron Fist. In Jones’ case, it still feels like he’s the weakest performer of the group, and some of his delivery isn’t that great. That being said, all four did good jobs in the scenes featuring all of the heroes.

All in all, The Defenders was a good series. It brought the four Marvel heroes of Netflix together at long last and delivered a simple story with some fun fight scenes. Both the writing and the direction was great for the majority of episodes and the dialogue, when in the hands of the right actors, was delivered well. Is it the best of the Marvel Netflix shows, well, for me that’s still Daredevil, but I’ll let you decide. The smaller episode count gave the series the focus it needed and the balance of screen time for the heroes was handled well. However it did take time to get going and the villain didn’t quite live up to expectations. The finale was fun and did a good job in setting up where each of the characters will start their next solo series, even though I still think Iron Fist’s and Luke Cage’s second seasons should become one Heroes for Hire show. They did a good job of setting it up, and the interactions between the two were always fun to watch. So yeah…A good pay off for the solo shows and a solid programme in its own right.