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2 hours ago, Matt D said:

That seems wildly unreasonable given the pacing of the previous shows.

The pacing of the previous shows, the good ones anyway, was to come out strong and then kinda lose their momentum late because they didn't have enough story to fill 13 episodes.

20 minutes into JESSICA JONES, the show had already established a clear, strong take on the character and her world, showed how she uses her powers to work a case, started working the Hope Slotman case which will eventually spin off into the main conflict of the series, and teased Kilgrave.

20 minutes into DAREDEVIL, there had already been a genuine Daredevil action scene, the Matt/Foggy dynamic was pretty clearly established, and Karen Page had already been arrested for murder, had Matt and Foggy take on her case, and been the victim of an attempted murder.

It's true not much happens in the first 20 of LUKE CAGE...but it's also probably not a coincidence that it was easily the worst of show of the bunch until this one came along.  That said, one thing LC did have going for it in those twenty minutes was a strong sense of place.  Between Pop's barbershop and Cottonmouth's club, and the suggested histories contained therein, they felt like places where interesting stories COULD eventually happen (even if they so rarely did, in the end).

The first 20 of IRON FIST feature what could, at best, generously be described a mild tussle with some security guards surrounded by Danny meandering through generic locales while revealing little of interest about his character, or anyone else's.

The first 20 minutes of an the 1st episode are the first act of the first act.  And if you can't come up with a good first act, odds are, you don't have a good show.

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Did you? I honestly can't remember him having enough sustained dialogue to really judge.

It did occur to me that he's not yet entirely comfortable hiding his accent, which might detract from the rest of the performance. And also the dialogue is terrible, but somehow the rest are managing.

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Ugh, this show is a chore to get through.  I've only got a couple eps left, but I don't think I'll make it.  I don't hate it as much as some of the reviews suggested I would, but it feels really generic.  Bad scripting (dialogue), by-the-numbers plotting, dull action sequences, and a general lack of superhero fun.

Part of the problem is the interesting part of Iron Fist's origin story is K'un-L'un.  The Meachum revenge/Rand Enterprises subplot has always been treated as a footnote in the comics, something to get through as fast as possible to set up the status quo.  Focusing on it makes some sense for an origin story, but there's really nothing original to that part of the story and the series' take on it is really familiar and cliched.  I feel like I've seen this story a couple dozen times before in the setup for various action shows and movies.  To me, it's a fair misstep to downplay K'un-L'un in favor of soap opera intrigue revolving around the Meachums (imo, it's an ever larger misstep when the plot gets moving and the show goes full-on Dallas with seemingly all the characters trying to gaslight the others).

No one asked me, of course, but if I were pitching Iron Fist's origin story as a series, I'd set the show in K'un-L'un and focus on Rand's training and assimilation into K'un-L'un society.  You could do IF's origin as a Game of Thrones knock-off without busting the budget and it would solve some of the show's issues, esp. lack of a compelling villain.  The Steel Serpent/Thunderer stuff from the comics kinda lends itself to a GoT riff.  

Sweet Jesus, I have it on now and even the action sequences are dull.  

Finn Jones is ok as the lead, but nothing remarkable.  I feel like there were better choices out there, though maybe not someone who looked the part as well.  Jones' performance doesn't do much to dispel my pre-watch joke that the producers mistook him and his beard for Danny Masterson.

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7 hours ago, EVA said:

The pacing of the previous shows, the good ones anyway, was to come out strong and then kinda lose their momentum late because they didn't have enough story to fill 13 episodes.

20 minutes into JESSICA JONES, the show had already established a clear, strong take on the character and her world, showed how she uses her powers to work a case, started working the Hope Slotman case which will eventually spin off into the main conflict of the series, and teased Kilgrave.

20 minutes into DAREDEVIL, there had already been a genuine Daredevil action scene, the Matt/Foggy dynamic was pretty clearly established, and Karen Page had already been arrested for murder, had Matt and Foggy take on her case, and been the victim of an attempted murder.

It's true not much happens in the first 20 of LUKE CAGE...but it's also probably not a coincidence that it was easily the worst of show of the bunch until this one came along.  That said, one thing LC did have going for it in those twenty minutes was a strong sense of place.  Between Pop's barbershop and Cottonmouth's club, and the suggested histories contained therein, they felt like places where interesting stories COULD eventually happen (even if they so rarely did, in the end).

The first 20 of IRON FIST feature what could, at best, generously be described a mild tussle with some security guards surrounded by Danny meandering through generic locales while revealing little of interest about his character, or anyone else's.

The first 20 minutes of an the 1st episode are the first act of the first act.  And if you can't come up with a good first act, odds are, you don't have a good show.

It's not entirely unreasonable but these things are marathons, not sprints. It's the general nature of binge-watch shows. That said, there is a sense that I'm watching this because I'm supposed to. I've read enough mediocre comics over the years just to keep up with the broader plot of the universe. Not bad ones, not even necessarily ones I paid for, but mediocre ones. This feels kind of like that. Still, I'm finding ways to like the thing so far.

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This is easily my second favorite Netflix/Marvel show, behind Jessica Jones. I still maintain my hatred of Daredevil and how everyone puts it on a pedestal. I was more invested in Danny and Colleen's relationship and how that developed over the season, and Jessica/Kilgrave, than I was anything else in the Marvel Netflix Universe. I'll put it this way. At the very end of the season for Iron Fist, I was left wanting more. I hadn't experienced that since the last episode of Jessica Jones. That's when you know you have a good show, when the viewer is left wanting more after spending 2 days binge watching the show.

The fight scenes were lackluster, especially for a show that's about a guy who's trained in kung-fu and is love interest teaches it (CHIKARA???), but do I really care? No, not really. It held my interest through all the episodes, and provided a handful of twists I didn't see coming.

I'm a little disappointed we didn't get an after credits teaser for The Defenders or anything, though.

 

1. Jessica Jones

2. Iron Fist

3. Luke Cage

4. Daredevil

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Just finished the last four episodes of Iron Fist.

Spoiler

 

Overall I thought it was decent, but its easily the weakest of the netflix shows. Its the first of the series I can't really call good or say it had any particularly strong arcs during the season.

I thought Finn Jones did ok with what he had to work, but what he worked with wasn't much. The general idea behind Danny's anger, hurt, and confusion was understandable, but it felt like they overemphasized them. It made him look way too dumb half the time, and they didn't give the character near enough charm or badass moments to make up for it. Jones himself lacked the charisma to make up for the shortcomings. Doing practically nothing with K'un-lun and Danny's rise to Iron Fist was simply asinine.

I thought the Meachum siblings were among the better characters. Nothing ever felt too off with their character arcs and they were interesting enough. Same with Colleen. Harold and Bakuto were ok villains, but got way too much play time and importance when Madame Gao is right there being the most interesting and cool character in the show. That said, Gao's allegiance in this one made no sense. As far as I can recall she was not a member the Hand in Daredevil so I'm not sure why they made such a big change other than a lazy connection to Daredevil and build into to Defenders. The Hand didn't feel great here in general with the lack of undead super ninjas.

The decision to waste two characters from the Brubaker/Fraction Iron Fist run was complete idiocy. The other Weapons aren't even usually away from their cities, and the other character could have easily made up a good arc for a second season.

I don't think the action was terrible, but it wasn't really anything near what it should have been for martial arts based character either. The final battle was particularly shitty.

Honestly, it feels like whoever was in control of this season had no real idea how to handle stories of martial arts & mysticism.

 

 

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We made it through episode 5 last night and I'm still enjoying it. I think the key is not to see Danny as the main character. I kind of love everyone (from businesspeople to lawyers to dojo teachers to ninjas who just want to distribute heroin, dammit) getting exasperated by this well-meaning, socially maladjusted manchild messing up all of their stuff.

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21 hours ago, Matt D said:

It's not entirely unreasonable but these things are marathons, not sprints. It's the general nature of binge-watch shows. 

I think "writing for the binge" is, much like "writing for the trade" in comics, mostly a terrible thing.  It seems to invite either a lot of laziness in scripting and/or artificially dragging out the story to fit the episode order, so you end up with shows like IRON FIST where there's no sense of urgency or stakes and almost nothing of real interest happens in the first episode because they just take for granted that people will just let it roll on to the next one and the next one until they finally get to the point.

And I know a lot of people do that, but for me, there is simply TOO MUCH TV out there for me to waste my time waiting on a show like IF to get to the point.  I'm not going to invest hours into a show just on the hope that it eventually gets good, especially not when I can just scroll over on My List and give another new (to me) genre show a shot, like THE MAGICIANS or THE EXPANSE, or catch up on fresh episodes of shows I know are great like HALT AND CATCH FIRE or RECTIFY.

Regardless of whether you're intending your show to be watched weekly or in large chunks on a binge model, I really don't think it's too much to ask for a show's 1st episode to do a good job of establishing things like character, the world, conflict, stakes, etc.  Your first episode is your thesis statement.  It should tell me exactly what your show is about and why I should care enough to come back for more.  The Jessica Jones and Daredevil shows, which were produced by the same studio to serve the same binge master as this one, did fantastic jobs of that.  The JJ "pilot" is probably one of the best of the last 5 years.

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Ended up finishing the season.  Ok, imo, the show has a lot of problems, but the fatal flaw for me is how dull, dull, dull the show is.  

Seriously, 13 eps of Finn Jones sitting on the couch watching Donnie Yen movies would have entertained me more.

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It's weird.  I liked it enough to start reading the Immortal Iron Fist. Reading the comic afterwards makes me like the show less. But, if I'd read the comic first, I feel like I may have enjoyed the show more because stuff like Davos and Bride of Nine Spiders would've popped me.

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4 minutes ago, steve said:

It's weird.  I liked it enough to start reading the Immortal Iron Fist. Reading the comic afterwards makes me like the show less. But, if I'd read the comic first, I feel like I may have enjoyed the show more because stuff like Davos and Bride of Nine Spiders would've popped me.

No, you'd be yelling at the screen that they're squandering an Immortal Weapon.

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I'm enjoying Iron Fist, warts and all. I just finished ep 5. I think one of the things that's jarring is that these shows are about the "street level" heroes and  Danny is rich with lots of story about that world. It's going to eventually work in the group dynamic, given that one of the points of Power Man and Iron Fist was that they're best friends and total opposites. In Defenders I'm sure that Danny being this type of character is going to balance the characters.

It's also totally paced for binge watching, which is what it is, but it hasn't been good for this show.

I just want them to establish that Ward had a previous heroin problem cause no one just decides to try heroin cause they're drunk, out of Zoloft, and mad at Dad.

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RE: Madam Gao

 

Since I'm not a comic reader but it doesn't look like she has a big comic background in FAQ's, I'm wondering about Gao.  Is it that she knows so much because she's old and mystical and connected with the hand or is it possible she maybe an empath since she seems to know the exact buttons to push with everyone.  Or dare I say... is she a dragon?

RE:  Ward, they do address it

 

Ward has been popping pain pills the whole time.  They do address it later on that Joy's been aware he's been taking the pills more than he probably needs too but Joy never calls him on it because he never got too fucked up to do his job.

 

 

 

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Just finished Iron Fist and I enjoyed it more than both seasons of Daredevil and Luke Cage. Daredevil and Luke Cage felt like chores to finish while Iron Fist was enjoyable enough to get through in a couple days. It had its flaws (dialogue and fight scenes) and had less high points but it at least didn't seem to meander as much.

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