Doom Patrol (2019) s01e05 – Paw Patrol

Is Diane Guerrero’s core identity—“Doctor Harrison,” who’s got ice-blue eyes like she’s from the “Star Trek: TOS” Shatner pilot or maybe someone in X-Men—supposed to be the far and away best performance Guerrero gives on the show or is it unintentional? But also the best character for her to play? Because Dr. Harrison doesn’t play well with the rest of the cast—there’s also no explanation for the lack of aging between the present and the late seventies because no on in “Doom Patrol” ages.

I wonder if there’s a note about that decision. “Doom Patrol” makes a lot of little (and big) decisions and it’d be interesting to know how they reached them. In a good way. Because “Doom Patrol” never feels over-produced. There’s a particularly nice fluidity to this episode, which concludes a two-parter about the end of the world—an all-seeing eye is going to wink everything out of existence with a resolution–if comics accurate—is either Grant Morrison trying to make fun of Alan Moore or so desperately try to rip him off Alan Moore has to say his name or think about him or something.

And if it’s just the show… I mean, it’s from Swamp Thing Annual. Like. Come on.

Back to the compliments. The show just brings Alan Tudyk and Timothy Dalton back without any fanfare—Shoshana Sachi is probably the best writer the show’s got—and beautifully integrates them into the already running plot. See, Tudyk and Dalton can’t just let the world end if they’re going to destroy the world in their rivalry to… be rivals.

Dalton’s really good. He’s not as good with Joivan Wade as one would hope—did they not audition Wade from this episode, they should have—but having him back, as literally shoehorned as it may be, is just what the show needs to kick the character development into gear.

Much better performance from Mark Sheppard but it’s only because Sachi doesn’t goof around with the stupid magic stuff they did last episode. It helps immensely.

Brendan Fraser’s getting a little too one note. Especially with the constant cameos. It’s hard to miss him when he won’t go.

And it’s a bummer we’re not going to get Guerrero’s best performance full-time. The end of the episode even double-downs on what we’re in for.

Finally, nice work on April Bowlby. She’s had iffy material for a while, she’s getting better grounding here.

Like I said, “Doom Patrol” is going to be bumpy. This episode’s a bump up.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e04 – Cult Patrol

No way, Willoughby Kipling (Mark Sheppard) is a real comic book “Doom Patrol” character. Is he a desperate Constantine rip-off in the comic or just in the show? I seriously thought they had to really quick come up with a character when they couldn’t make the Constantine cameo work. Like I thought it was seriously they couldn’t decide whether to let Matt Ryan be on the show.

Same they didn’t push for it.

Sheppard’s a disappointment. He’s not all-bad, he’s just lackluster. The character is buffoonish. So if it’s accurate, it’s “Doom Patrol” writer and character creator Grant Morrison having a piss at Alan Moore and managing to cover himself in his own stream like usual, and if it’s inaccurate, writers Marcus Dalzine and Chris Dingess are just doing a bad job.

Doesn’t really matter because the episode’s still pretty effective and walks back last episode’s walk back of April Bowlby’s agency. She spends this episode disinterested in helping Sheppard stop the apocalypse—involving teen sacrifice Ted Sutherland, who’s pretty good in a role where it doesn’t matter but Sutherland is good, which helps Bowlby because he’s what inspires her to become a hero. She’s got a pretty cool hero moment; it comes with a lot less asterisks than the rest of the team’s heroic displays. Joivan Wade gets a fairly big set piece where he bonds with Sheppard in a fight against a bunch of inter-dimensional cultists trying to get to Sutherland.

It’s appropriately amusing. The show’s hitting a lot of solid character development moments, it’s just also still got some liabilities.

Matt Bomer’s around trying to get his electric spirit under control enough to help with Diane Guerrero and Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan as Robotman go into the alternate dimension. There they face off with these live action Muppet types. Maybe not Muppets, but if Henson Company made a fantasy TV series with live action actors in it in the late eighties. However you’d accurately describe it, it’s a delight.

Fraser and Guerrero are in a funk because Fraser killed a bunch of Nazis last episode and doesn’t feel bad about it. It’s eh. Neither of them are really good enough for it to matter and their cliffhanger is awesome so it’s fine. Better than last episode, not as good as the one before, but better than the pilot for sure. “Doom Patrol”’s rocky.

Glad it’s got a solid effects budget.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e03 – Puppet Patrol

Try as it might, this episode doesn’t lose all the second episode gains over the pilot. It does seemingly revolt against them—facing off team mom April Bowlby with serious superhero Joivan Wade but have it be all about how she’s just too negative and, like, needs to get with the team spirit stuff. Maybe do some cheers. And it’s all they’ve got, Wade and Bowlby, who are pretty much the only reliable actors “Patrol”’s got. Especially after this episode.

They’re stranded in a motel where they can argue and ostensibly character develop—if they’re trying to play up some kind of romantic thing, there are going to be numerous hurdles but it’d be a big swing if they try it (last episode didn’t exactly imply it but there was some passive energy in that department). The rest of the team—Diane Guerrero, Matt Bomer, and Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan as Robotman—is in Paraguay looking for Alan Tudyk, who was last seen there eighty years earlier or so. We saw Tudyk arrive there in flashback—speaking of Tudyk, he’s not narrating this episode; Wade does the opening recap but the narration only made it two episodes.

Wonder what that note from the focus group says.

Anyway.

Robotman and company—Robotman predated Hellboy, right, has there ever been any discussion of their similar personality types—infiltrate Nazi scientist Julian Richings’s superpowers clinic (amusing but not good enough bit part for Alec Mapa as a guy who’s been saving up for some powers and now it’s finally time). There’s some character revelations, some wanton destruction, and a really convenient Dr. Manhattan chamber for Bomer to play around in as he tries to get rid of the electrical being living inside him….

It’s Bomer’s episode. He gets all the flashbacks, covering him being terrible to both lover (Kyle Clements) and suffering wife (Julie McNiven). Bomer’s not good. The material’s not good, but Bomer’s also not good. He exceeds the range required for muffled Invisible Man guy. Not so with the dramatic. It’s not well-written, it’s not well-directed, but Bomer also can’t do it.

The character—not taking the more asshole moves in the flashback into account—gets empathy, but Bomer’s performance doesn’t get the requisite sympathy. He’s just not good enough.

If you’re good with Nazi jokes… there’s a great puppet show?

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e02 – Donkey Patrol

So presumably someone at Warner Bros. watched the “Doom Patrol” pilot and thought it lacked a certain something. Whoever realized what it needed was Jovian Wade’s Cyborg deserves a bonus. Who even thought to ask if the character was available given the Justice League movie.

And it’s not like Wade’s great—he’s fine and amiable—or even a particularly likable character—he’s mostly a dick to everyone he meets—it’s just he’s got the exact right chemistry for what “Doom Patrol: The Show” needs. Wade also brings with him Phil Morris, who’s really good as his slightly shady dad who’s manipulating him—Wade learns during this episode—into his crimefighting career. Morris has big plans for Wade, who’s going to make it to the Justice League in five years.

Not the movie presumably.

Morris is great.

Also great this episode is April Bowlby, who is definitely able to pick up and carry the show just like I figured she’d need to do. The comedy just works better with Wade throwing a different kind of wrench in things. Also doing his part is Matthew Bomer, who has a great comedic sequence this episode when he tries to leave town only his electro-alien inhabitant says no.

Again, unclear if it’s really Bomer under the mask, but I at least saw some lips moving this time. There’s no way it’s not looped in though. He’s got to be muffled.

So if the new guy’s just what the show needs, if Bowlby and Bomer are doing all that heavy lifting, how are Brendan Fraser (voicing Robotman while Riley Shanahan does all the physical acting) and last episode’s de facto lead Diane Guerrero. Well…

Guerrero starts the episode really strong.

Then goes into a coma or something. She’s not talking. Once she starts talking again… it’s not great. It’s not terrible, but you do wonder who else they tested. As for Fraser and Shanahan? It’s almost like writers Neil Reynolds and Shoshana Sachi only wanted to give Robotman and Guerrero so much. There’s a big effects sequence when the rest of the Patrol go into a goat’s belly—just watch it—but maybe making the Robotman helmet move is really costly.

Shanahan’s physical performance is better here. Fraser’s just playing potty-mouth Fred Flintstone though.

Wait!

He didn’t play Fred Flintstone! Wow.

Okay. Well. He’s doing a rehearsal for it.

There are some really well-directed sequences—Dermott Downs—and some surprisingly great music—Kevin Kiner and Clint Mansell—so even with Alan Tudyk’s narration still being cheap “Rocky & Bullwinkle” and with some optics about Bomer’s closest sixties homosexuality, “Doom Patrol” is on the rise.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e01

Alan Tudyk is “Doom Patrol”’s red herring. So far, anyway. He’s in the prologue, which has him getting powers from a Nazi scientist in the forties, and then he narrates. There’s always narration. Some of it’s good, some of it’s bad. When it’s good, when Tudyk’s not being to snide, it nears Jean Shepherd. When it’s bad, it’s like bad “Rocky & Bullwinkle.” Jeremy Carver’s script has a handful of easy jokes in the action, but most of them are on Tudyk in the narration. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.

Tudyk’s also got the job of introducing the cast. First, there’s Brendan Fraser, who’s not going to be long in the show—at least in front of cameras—he gets into a major race car wreck (he’s a race car driver) and dies. Weird millionaire very much in the sixties sense when rich people could have boring mansions Timothy Dalton resurrects Fraser from his brain. It’s a whole Robocop homage sequence, which also introduces some of the other cast in background, principally April Bowlby. Bowlby’s probably going to be the make or break on “Doom Patrol.” If she’s good, she’s going to be able to hold up a lot of it.

She was a racist, elitist fifties movie star who somehow got zapped with magic and loses control of her body. Like it melts, but while expanding. Blobs out, really. Presumably by the present day—oh, other thing, none of the “Doom Patrol” members age apparently, hopefully I remember that bit later. Anyway, presumably by the present day she’s not such a hideous human being on the inside. Lots of dry wit from Bowlby.

Then there’s Matt Bomer, who spends the present wrapped up in Invisible Man garb, and apparently is possessed with an energy monster from space. Not clear what the energy monster does but cause trouble. Bomer’s all burnt up because his plane crashed back in the sixties, though it’s unclear exactly what happened after the crash. There’s also a hidden gay life subplot, which… plays weird. So far. Like, the character development’s all fake because Carver’s being so manipulative with the reveals but… whatever. It’s fine. Bomer’s good—is he actually under all those bandages, because Fraser peaces out to let Riley Shanahan do the Robotman stuff, and they have to loop Bomer’s dialogue anyway.

The last member of the team is the newest one, Diane Guerrero. She was at the mansion before Fraser got there, meaning she’s like seventy or so. At least sixty.

Guerrero’s like thirty-two. A young looking thirty-two because she’s playing a punk.

I mean, she and Fraser—once he’s the Robotman—are cute enough but the show’s internal logic is less a “trust us” and more a “who’ll notice,” which isn’t reassuring.

Excellent special effects—like, surprisingly good—and okay direction from Glen Winter help. It’s all setup this episode so who knows what the actual show will bring…

Definitely some Alan Tudyk.