Doom Patrol seasons 1-3 review: One of the most compelling superhero shows ever created!

4/5

Story: A mad scientist named Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton) recruits a few individuals who possess superhuman abilities, but who are incapable of controlling these abilities. When an omnipotent being called Mr Nobody (Alan Tudyk) threatens to warp reality, the reluctant superheroes must find a way to set aside their differences, and overcome their inner turmoil to save the world.

In the second season, the ‘heroes’ present a more unified front in their efforts to overcome new threats. However, they have become disillusioned with their leader Niles after some of his dark secrets are revealed. And in the third season, the team requires the aid of one of these secrets to rescue them from a dire predicament as new threats loom on the horizon.

Review: When Doom Patrol premiered on the now obsolete DC Universe streaming, there was very little fanfare surrounding its release. Another DC Universe series, Titans, carried all the hype. This was nothing out of the ordinary as Titans as a franchise has been far more popular and successful as comic books and television adaptations over the years. But now that both Doom Patrol and Titans have completed three seasons there is a wide margin in terms of quality. Despite showing much promise in the early parts of each season, Titans fizzle out towards the finale. Doom Patrol was initially a spin-off to the Titans, but it was later confirmed that they exist in separate universes. And Doom Patrol has successfully managed to deliver quality content for three seasons consistently.

Fans of the famous Marvel heroes, the X-Men, will find a few similarities it shares with the Doom Patrol. This is partly because Stan Lee is alleged to have copied the X-Men from DC’s Doom Patrol. While the X-Men went on to rival some of the heavyweights such as Batman and Spider-Man in terms of comic book sales, Doom Patrol went into relative obscurity. The Doom Patrol’s lack of mainstream popularity has also factored into why the TV series is lesser-known. But the TV series, to its credit, has brought these forgotten misfits to a new audience, albeit to a niche section of the superhero fandom. To describe the series in one word would be ‘bizarre’ but in a good way. Despite featuring some of the most surreal storylines, such as a dimension inside a donkey or when a giant cockroach kisses a giant rat, or when Flex Mentallo (Devan Chandler Long) accidentally flexes the wrong muscles to create involuntary orgasms for everyone in a square mile radius, the series at its core is a character-driven narrative.

Each of its lead characters has thoroughly fleshed-out arcs that serve as a subtext to several themes such as trauma, loss, and existentialism. Brendan Fraiser as Cliff Steele/Robotman is a foul-mouthed yet endearing character whose brain was the only part of his body that survived in a high-speed racing crash. Matt Bomer’s soft-spoken Larry Trainor/Negative Man is another tragic character who is traumatised by his condition after being hit by a cosmic force while on a test flight for NASA, and April Bowlby’s Rita Farr/Elasti-Girl, a once prominent actress who is confined to the walls of the Doom Patrol mansion as she is unable to control her shapeshifting ability. But the star of the show is Diane Guerrero’s Crazy Jane and her 64 different personalities. Guerrero’s performance is easily one of the best on television today. It’s almost criminal that she hasn’t yet been nominated for a major award. The manner in which she shifts between each of Jane’s personalities is effortless, and that would be an understatement. Whereas the outstanding Alan Tudyk as Mr Nobody is quite simply spelling binding, and former James Bond, Timothy Dalton, captures the morally grey and the emotionally conflicted Niles Caulder to perfection. Some of the younger members of the group such as Abi Monterey’s Dorothy Spinner and Joivan Wade’s Victor Stone/Cyborg (a character played by Ray Fisher in Zack Snyder's Justice League) are also compelling characters that are pivotal to the overall narrative.

The second season follows a slightly different format where there is no primary villain like Mr Nobody from the get-go, but slowly builds up to one as each of the characters comes to terms with the secrets surrounding Niles. However, the series does not stop embracing the weird yet compelling sensibilities of the comics. The third season features a ‘relatively’ straightforward narrative. Michelle Gomez’s portrayal of the villainous Madame Rouge is a revelation, and it also introduces other supervillains such as the Brain and his loyal sidekick Monsieur Mallah, the superintelligent talking gorilla. A version of the Brain and Monsieur Mallah was last seen in the critically acclaimed animated series Young Justice.

Doom Patrol stands on its own as a faithful adaptation of the source material, but what sets it apart from other recent superhero TV shows is the fact that showrunner Jeremy Carver is seemingly given complete creative control over the project. This has enabled the show to break free from any metaphorical constraints which may have held back TV shows such as WandaVision.

Verdict: Underneath all the absurdity and the bizarreness, this DC TV series offers well-written stories, compelling characters, and excellent production value. It is undoubtedly the most criminally underrated superhero TV show since Marvel’s FX TV series Legion.