Written by Jeremy Carver
Directed by Glen Winter
Mr Nobody (to Niles): "I think we're going to do something different this time. You were right in one respect, however. They are quite doomed."
Right, so I originally had no intention of actually reviewing this show but then Titans gave us an episode earlier into it's first season that served as a backdoor pilot and the weeks building up to DC Universe's my not really strong resolve just floundered and I decided to review this show for the next 15 weeks, so there's that.
Opening up with a delightfully snarky commentary from Mr Nobody (Alan Tudyk) himself, this pilot episode spent over half it's time giving us the rundown on our main heroes but not before we found out that Nobody (a former low level henchman) decided that he wanted to be a someday and willingly subjected himself to some rather life changing experiments in order to achieve his goal. He also pops up at the end to tell the Chief (Timothy Dalton) that the gang are doomed, but does it in a rather charming manner.
Now getting back to the gang themselves - first of all, there's Robotman himself. Now played by Brendan Fraser, we're given quite the insight into Clifford Steele's race car driving career, habitual cheating and his fracturing marriage before things took a far more dramatic turn for the worst. He struggled for a long time with his current body but as the episode progressed, he was coming to terms with who he was as he found something of a heroic streak in wanting to save a town from damage that the gang partially attracted to it.
Then there's Negative Man/Larry Trainor, this time around played by Matt Bomer. I'm a big fan of Bomer and he's great casting for this part as Larry seemed to be a voice of reason in this episode too. We got a good looking into his own accident, pilot career and the fact that he was living a double between being a devoted family man and having a secret affair with co-worker, John Bowers (Kyle Clements). The comics haven't massively alluded to what Larry's sexuality is from what I can tell so the show's decision to have him as a gay or bisexual character is an interesting move and nicely handled too.
The only cast member not to be recast from the Titans episode is of course, April Bowlby as Rita Farr/Elastiwoman, whose only folly in the movie business is nicely explored in flashbacks while a day trip to a diner saw her revert to a giant blob. Rita gets some brilliant lines, has a wonderful deadpan delivery on things but her flashbacks also showed her as rather flawed and her powers are the least enviable of the lot.
Come to think of it, none of the members have powers or abilities that are enviable in the slightest, which does seem to be a point to the series. Even Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero) who outwardly appears to the most normal has sixty four different personalities and they're something of a mixed bag. Hammerhead in particular is not someone whose company you'd want to spend a great deal of time around but it'll be interesting to see how the show utilizes the multiple personalities (and powers) of the character as the series progresses.
As for the main threat - the episode did establish that the Chief and Nobody have a history together and the latter having a thing for testing superheroes, but this time he wants to do something different. The bit with the farting donkey made me chuckle, even if it left a rather cryptic message ("the mind is the first") for our heroes to figure out.
- The title sequence is a thing of beauty. Seriously, go check them out on YouTube.
- Although a regular, Jovian Wade's Cyborg did not appear in this one. We'll see him soon though.
- Standout music: Echo & The Bunnyman's People Are Strange seemed appropriate for this show.
- Chronology: 1948 Paraguay for Nobody, 1955 Africa for Rita, 1961 California for Negative Man, 1988 Florida for Robotman but the show is currently set in 2019. Crazy Jane was picked up in the 1970s.
Now this is how you do an opening episode. While it's certainly long-ish, the tone was beautifully captured, you got a strong sense of each of the main characters (though Chief is still a bit too harsh at times) and the breezy way the show hinted at the overall baddie for the series was deftly done. I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I would but I did. Can't wait to see where the rest of the season goes.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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