I was going to wait a wee bit longer, maybe another month, since my brother's viewing parties are every other weekend, but with the news that came out a week and a half ago, I couldn't wait any longer.
DC Universe's reboot of Swamp Thing has, in the minds of WarnerMedia suits, died stillborn, before it had a chance to well, take root.
How could these beancounting morons not see gold here, with "Aquaman" director James Wan on board as a producer? Word is that WarnerMedia, the end result of Time Warner's merger with AT&T, wants more family friendly programming, and, due to the graphic horror and coarse language, in their minds, Swamp Thing doesn't meet their standards. Idiots. Who are they catering to? Conservative families in the Bible Belt?
Ok, enough venting.
Wan, comics veteran Mark Verheiden, and their team reimagined the classic 1971 short story by Len Wein & Berni Wrightson, updating the tale to the present day with modern tech. Alec Holland's tragic story is told in an hour long summation, if you will, in the series opener. Contrary to comics canon, Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed) is a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control, though I suspect her nefarious father will turn up before all is said & done, unless that was left on the cutting room floor after WarnerMedia cut the episode order from 13 to 10.
There are also elements of Alan Moore's 1980's revamp, giving Swamp Thing elemental powers, and Verheiden, who helped develop this series, added mental telepathy, creating a scene in the 2nd episode that will invoke memories of Moore's work, and, for older fans, some of Michael Fleischer's more gruesome moments in his run on The Spectre in the 70's.
Each episode is an hour, instead of the half-hour format of the 1990-3 series that has been airing on Me-TV and Heroes & Icons of late. The supporting cast includes 80's icon Jennifer Beals, and Tim Russ (ex-Star Trek: Voyager) turned up in the opener.
Here's a trailer:
Enjoy it while it lasts. HBO & CW have both passed. The latter would've insisted on cleaning up the language.
Rating: A.
4 comments:
The reason why Swamp Thing (and Titans and any other project in the pipeline) got the plug pulled was due to the DC streaming service bleeding cash! DC was hoping to be their own version of Netflix but failed. People can only subscribe to so many services and they have to choose carefully what content they want for the money and DC was trying to hoard all of its material on its service. Big mistake! Youtube has YT Premium (formerly, YT RED) which is also being dismantled (after it announced its most popular series, Cobra Kai was going to be renewed for a third season and offered for free with commercials). YT only really has one watchable show (and CK is AWESOME! I highly recommend it) and and the rest of the content is not worth 10 bucks a month.
If that's true, why doesn't WarnerMedia come right out and say they're losing money on DCU? "Re-evaluating" is only leading to more speculation.
My guess is they don't want to admit failure and upset shareholders, et al.
I was right. They are idiots.
Post a Comment