Please, understand before we get started, that I do somewhat like the show. I understand why people do like it, but for me, a season and a half later I still struggle to be invested.
Right from off, when I heard Cyborg was going to be a regular cast to the show; I was excited, ecstatic, and genuinely couldn’t wait for the first season to air, but this obviously changed as time went on.
Let’s start with the blatantly obvious here, in so many episodes now he’s barely done an ounce of the action. All that technology and all he does is whine, can’t control his emotions, or even his suit for that matter.
Now let’s talk about the suit, why is it so bad? It looks like one of those T-shirts that pop up from Wish as an advertisement on Facebook, and yes this season it looks worse. Especially in the scenes with his new somehow, intimate relationship. I know the scar on his arm contains something deeper there, so I still hold out hope his actual suit is beneath prosthetic skin.
The only moment he’s had in the show that has had me invested in his character at any point was season 1 with his father, and even then it lasted an episode then focused on something completely different. Another problem with the show that I will get to later.
Don’t get me wrong, Joivan Wade plays the character surprisingly well, but we are still set to really see the potential Cyborg has a character within this show.
Moving onto the next part about the story. Actually, stories. At times it feels like the stories are just completely mashed together. Sometimes there are 5 or 6 different mini arks holding the episode together. It’s easy to get lost as to what is going on.
When the show does hit a serious point, a seriously good storyline, with the entire Doom Patrol coming together, it happens for one episode then forgotten about the next. It’s hard to stay interested in a show that can’t have an ark and stick with it.
I know the show is about having fun, being over-the-top, and just pure madness at the best of times. Trust me, I like that. The same way I like the Umbrella Academy.
The Doom Patrol is supposed to be a team that fights together, but they’re still so dysfunctional that they still can’t team up together properly. How many episodes/seasons is it going to take before they start working together, and fight together to “save the world”?
This leads me into the next bit, the action. There’s such a lack of it, it baffles me to really believe this is a superhero/comic show. This season alone, the best thing we’ve seen is Cliff batter a mouse. I’m not over-exaggerating either with that. It’s so poor.
I’ve been begging for Vic to go full control, and fight, but we just rarely see it. Whenever we do see it, he’s likely blowing himself up.
We have had so much backstory to the characters now, it’s time to actually see them come together and fight side by side, and not constantly splitting off into mini-groups all of the time which defeats the purpose of a team-up/crossover style show.
I get at time’s it needs to be like that when they split up, but it doesn’t need to be like that in what seemingly looks like every single episode right now. Even Vic isn’t with them and barely has been all season thus far.
It feels like there’s no end game, no growth to the characters at all. Not one of them has had any form of upgrades to their suits/powers. We know Niles has the capabilities, as does Vic through his father and STAR Labs, but we keep getting slight teases with nothing coming of it.
We know Cliff is completely different in the comics and has different sets of skills to what we see here. I’m not asking for every member to have upgraded to themselves, but at least one of the characters so we know this type of thing can be done, which we know it can.
I’m not saying Doom Patrol is a bad show because it’s not. And I will continue to watch it every week like I always do, but it needs an injection of something to really make it stand out. Most people I talk to prefer Umbrella Academy, and it shouldn’t be the case with one of the most popular brands behind them in DC.
I know most people like the show, hence the reason why it’s an unpopular opinion of mine. I’d like to see someone counter what I’ve said here, to make me understand if I’m just seeing everything in the wrong light.
