So I sacrificed doing actual productive work to finish season one of Daredevil, and I’m glad I did, because as of right now, Daredevil is my favourite Marvel TV show. The thirteen episodes gave us a great hero/villain dynamic, well fleshed out supporting characters, well paced out tension and incredible fight sequences. So let’s discuss Daredevil season one!
Spoilers follow.
Wilson Fisk is how you do a good Marvel villain. One of the biggest complaints about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the lack of well developed villains with complicated motivations. One of the biggest praises about season one of Daredevil was the main bad guy, Wilson Fisk. The recurring imagery of the rough white surface, from the artwork in his bedroom, to his cell wall was a great way to really showcase the complexity of his character.
Wilson Fisk is presented as one of the most fearful men, however he is also one of the most emotionally vulnerable men as well. He’s intense and murderous, yet wants to be capable of love. He wishes to help create a better city, but in his own perverted way.
And what also made Fisk such a great villain was the parallels he drew with Matt Murdoch himself. Matt also has the plan to help create a better city. Hell’s Kitchen was made even worse after all those bloody aliens came down from the sky, so like Fisk, Murdoch wishes to help create a better city, in his own perverted way.
Murdoch may be a religious man, but he brutally attacks and tortures his way through the episodes, to help his city. Both Murdoch and Fisk have moments of questioning their morality, but in the end accept that they are doing what has to be done.
The great thing about Daredevil was that it wasn’t afraid to get a little brutal. Hell’s Kitchen is a pretty dark and brutal place (if you couldn’t guess by the name), so it’s fitting for the show to fully dive into the dark and brutal stuff that goes on. The fight sequences are some of the best on television right now, I can never get enough of them Daredevil flips.
As for the supporting characters, they too were well developed. There wasn’t one character that pissed me off, when they weren’t supposed to. And I gotta give praise to the showrunners for how they handled Karen Page.
Because you know what I like seeing, no love triangles! I’m sick of Barry/Iris/Eddie love triangle crap on The Flash and Oliver/Felicity/Ray love triangle crap on Arrow. It would have been so easy for Daredevil to just made Karen Page this character that causes all the tension and love triangles. And there may have been romantic hints, but it wasn’t over the top, soap opera annoyance, which was great. Karen Page was no damsel in distress, she was strong, compassionate and smart.
The great thing about Daredevil being only 13 episodes long, was it meant the season was focused without the frills. There weren’t really any filler episodes or anything like that, it had it’s direction and focus and rolled through it throughout the entire season. There was a great build up to the final confrontation between Fisk and Murdoch.
The season finale of Daredevil really hit the climax, showing us that even though Fisk thinks he’s one step ahead of everyone, Daredevil is never too far behind. The reveal of the red suit was really well done. The suit might look a little awkward now, but I’m sure as we see more of Daredevil, it will improve.
And now that Daredevil has wrapped up, I have high hopes for A.K.A Jessica Jones, which will be the next Marvel Netflix show premiering later this year, and all the other shows that follow.
Overall I was really impressed by Daredevil season one, and am glad Marvel aren’t afraid to go outside their normal tone. The incredibly well developed and focused season will nicely pave the way for the future Marvel shows, that will accumulate to the Defenders mini-series woo!
Categories: Comic book tv shows
Girl-On-Comic-Book-World 
The thing with the love triangles is it’s basically cw’s trademarks I’ve gotten used to seeing them on anything the cw puts out. As far as daredevil it’s my favourite marvel show so far and my second favourite comic book show (after arrow). The development of not only Matt and Fisk but of the supporting characters as well was really well done. Awesome showm
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That’s true love triangles are CW’s thing, but they’re so unnecessary! haha
Agreed! All the characters were really well developed, and nothing was rushed, such a good show!
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I thought the Daredevil show was excellent. Great casting, storyline, and it looked stunning. Brilliant!
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Oh the cinematography of the show was so good!
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Its a great looking show, really enjoyed it. Captured the mood and tone of the comic perfectly.
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See, you and I can agree. Excellent deduction on a great series. Based of the tailor, I first went into this show with a cynical mind. I then noticed that Daredevil was Mr. Slater from Boardwalk Empire whom I feel is a perfect choice for the character. From that point on, I was hooked and agree 100%, this is the best true to the comic DC live action series thus far. A great treadmill watch. To bad we will have to wait years for season 2. We can only hope the other Defenders independent series well fare just as well.
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Haha, yeah it was a really well done show. Ahh I forgot that it will probably be a while before we see season 2 because it’s on Netflix 😦 At least we have all those other Marvel Netflix shows to keep us entertained until then
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Yeah, and don’t forget to tune in to the CW’s DC comics VIXEN Animated Series which will Tie-In With ARROW & FLASH.
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Sorry, Marvel/DC comic.
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I really enjoyed the show too, although the momentum started to wane in the last few episodes I thought. I wasn’t sure about the surprise moment in episode 12, and I was a little underwhelmed by how little control Fisk ultimately seemed to have in the finale.
All of which said, it doesn’t stop me from thinking this is the best comic inspired show I’ve ever seen and just a great show in general; the cast were all excellent (I particularly loved D’Onfario) and the plot was often smart and surprising. Plus, y’know, the Hand!
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I think because of the Netflix format of the show there were a lot of slower moments, but yeah overall it was really great. As for the finale, he still escaped even after being arrested, because he has that many connections. Though yeah, D’Onfario was great! So intense.
And yeah how good were all the easter eggs!
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You know how some actors are just born to play certain characters? Vincent D’onofrio was born to play Wilson Fisk. It’s like Christopher Reeve and Superman. Accept no substitutions. D’onofrio is a terrific actor and physically it’s hard to imagine another human anywhere on the planet who could carry off the look so perfectly. That the show alrady has a Law and Order vibe to it just makes it that much better. 🙂
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He definitely had the presence to pull off the character, any time he was in a scene, his physicality coupled with all his intense speeches really made him such a intimidating villain!
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This is unrelated but I just tripped across your site and I gotta say that you do some damn good reviews. Keep it up, nerd!
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Haha welcome and thanks so much!
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The limited episode formats allow for tighter less drawn out stories. So there will be less episodes than if this were on the cw or network tv, but tighter stories. Unrelated, i see McLaren left the wonder woman project. That character is gonna be such a headache for the dccu, not in team movies but in a stand-alone.
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Urgh so annoyed she left the project, I was hoping for a more smooth production of that film because it’s the one I’m most worried about
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I think that a decent wonder woman movie is possible but thats about it. I just don’t think that a great wonder woman movie is gonna happen, it’s just so difficult.
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Yeah I’ve definitely lowered my expectations, but I’m still somewhat optimistic, hopefully her character is good in BvS
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I’m only two episodes in so far, and it’s so good. The hall fight scene is so well choreographed, and with the whole thing done in one shot, it makes it all the more intense. If the rest of the series is at least that good, it’s a good sign for Marvel’s other Netflix shows coming up.
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Oh how good was it! All the fight scenes are amazing, there’s so much goodness waiting to come, overall it’s the best Marvel show in my opinion
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I’m hopeful that Daredevil may be the first modern superhero show that I could actually watch. Despite what friends say, shows like Arrow and Smallville are made for teenagers.
I don’t want to watch Dawsons Creek or Beverly Hills 90210 with capes, when there are much better stories in the source material.
The thing is, whenever I see a comic book based show, I immediately write it off as something that is really not made for me. Those shows are made for people teenagers and people who don’t read comics.
Daredevil might be the first show to do something different by actually appealing to adults rather than kids. Thanks for your opinions on the show, have not watched it yet, but am hopeful it will be watchable rather than cringe worthy.
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Oh then you’ll definitely love Daredevil, not really cringe-worthy at all, definitely the most ‘adult’ cbm tv show we’ve had. Especially because it’s Netflix format, we get longer episodes, shorter seasons, so the story is tight, without the silly filler stuff
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