By Valerie Franklin, Mitch Huttema, and Alex Rake (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: May 20, 2015
Where some have compared the rise in weekly rapid-response television watching to the heyday of serialized fiction, the debut of shows from corporate-sponsored streaming models have brought about something closer to the anticipated midnight novel release: will you go through it all at once, delaying sleep, shoving aside classes and work; will you choose sanity and watch an episode or two a night, reacting with outsized fear at the slightest mention of a spoiler, speaking of characters as if they were people you knew in real life; or will you explain that television, as a form particularly dependent on advertising, can never truly be art, annoying everyone?
The television world is also feeling the effects of American film productions’ currently insatiable desire for more live-action versions of superhero properties. While the A-list of heroes receive two-and-a-half hours every three months, Netflix, the CW, and CBS are sending characters with slightly less-recognizable names and potentially more idiosyncratic appeal full-season orders. Three writers for The Cascade decided to sit down and hash out the finer points of the most popular of these so far: Daredevil, which was show-run by Steven DeKnight, of Starz’s trio of gruesome Spartacus series, and had its first two episodes written by Joss Whedon acolyte Drew Goddard.
Alex Rake: Daredevil’s a show! What did you think about Daredevil the show?
Valerie Franklin: Totally addictive. I watched the whole series in two days, which is not healthy, especially around final exams.
AR: It was cool, but also just okay.
Mitch Huttema: Let’s start with [Wilson] Fisk.
AR: I thought it was the funnest way they’ve ever done the character.
VF: I thought Fisk was great. He was absolutely, you know, evil and twisted, but he also had this child-like thing going on, where he was so devoted to his girlfriend and so devoted to …
AR: … his mom.
VF: Yeah, his mom maybe more than his girlfriend. It was really interesting to see that tenderness in someone who was so twisted and violent.
AR: He was physically a big baby [gesticulates].
VF: I think we all loved Foggy Nelson in terms of comic relief.
MH: Though he was always so run-down and just, like, greasy.
VF: He reminds me so much of some people I went to high school with. I thought he was great … but I have to bring up the character of Karen Page. It just didn’t work for me at all. I was saying to Mitch earlier that I feel like her character was written by committee.
AR: Yeah.
VF: Like, there was one person writing her who wanted her to be this strong, feminist character who can hold her own against the guys, and then there was another person who was writing her who was like, “We need a damsel in distress who is going to be in the centre of a love triangle!”
MH: But then it dissipated.
AR: I think they formed a friendship.
MH: There was so much sexual tension.
AR: Yeah, but isn’t that how it goes sometimes?
MH: I did find her really stereotypical. Always getting rescued out of dark alleys. Always on the phone with nobody answering.
VF: Comic books in general have this long history of sexism, and that’s just something the industry, the genre has to deal with and has to fight. And I mean, gradually we’re beginning to see people moving out of this and getting stronger characters that aren’t relegated to the damsel-in-distress role, but at the same time, you also have these things hanging over them, this kind of expectation that that is the role of the woman. I just really want to see new things happen. I hope that doesn’t happen with A.K.A. Jessica Jones [and other upcoming Netflix / Marvel shows].
What about the villains? I loved the character of [James] Wesley, I thought he was good, but the other villains. I kind of had a problem with the way it had Nobu, Madame Gao, and the Ranskahov brothers. They’re all just these terrible, stereotypical, kind of racist things, like the Russian gangster brothers who are escaped from prison, and … I just don’t know if that worked for me.
AR: And they refer to them as “the Russians.”
MH: Everybody was exactly who you’d assume their stereotypes would be. Like the Japanese samurai guy [Nobu], give me a break.
VF: Okay, Ben Urich? Coming from kind of a journalistic background, all three of us — they’re working on this big case, they’re building evidence for it throughout the entire series, and then Ben Urich is murdered and it’s never published. That drove me crazy.
AR: It’s the reality of journalistic corruption. [Begins eating celery stick.]
VF: Okay, I think I’m ready to talk about Daredevil’s costume. What the fuck was up with that?
AR: I’m all for corniness with superheroes. I don’t feel like that’s a bad thing in a superhero movie; it’s okay to be corny.
VF: I was really surprised to see how high review aggregate sites had this show.
AR: Well, as an action show, the fight scenes are brilliant.
VF: I loved the fight scenes — sorry Mitch, I can see this is hurting you.
MH: The scene in the second episode, where there’s a four-minute long-take fight …
AR: You hated it? It keeps going! It keeps going! That’s the effect of it.
MH: Maybe we should summarize what we thought of the show?
VF: I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who is looking for a really high-quality, tightly written TV show. But if you want a fun, kind of fluffy action TV show, then yeah.
MH: I mean, we spoiled some of it now …
AR: No, we didn’t reveal that Wilson Fisk is Daredevil’s mom yet.
MH: Do you want to give the show a number rating?
AR: If I give a number, I’ll disagree with it tomorrow. It’s better than the Daredevil movie though.
