Daredevil: Born Again

Streaming

**Decent, but just not as good as the original Netflix series** **Season 1: 4/10** Season 1 of Born Again is kind of a mess, and you can understand why when you look at the behind-the-scenes. They tried to make it a soft reboot at first, getting rid of all the characters you love and making it PG-13 and "watered down". Thankfully, they decided this was really stupid halfway through production and decided to re-hire the people that made the Netflix series to fix it. Well, it was a little too late. Most of season had already been shot and what we got was an awkwardly cut version that tried to fix its major issues. You can immediately tell which parts were made by Disney and which were made by the OG crew. The Disney versions are shot poorly and look flat, like that one episode where Matt stops a bank heist that's straight out of a saturday morning cartoon (Disney), versus the last episode that had a much more gritty and serious tone (Netflix). This season comes up with awful reasons for why Foggy and Karen aren't in it, then immediately replaces their characters with two others that do the same thing but are as interesting as a cardboard box... The main villain of the season, Muse, is also a swing and a miss. He has all this build-up and no payoff, and by the end of the season you forget he was even there. **Season 2: 7/10** A massive uplift from the first season, there's such a huge difference in quality now that the Netflix crew have creative control. That said... It still feels off. A big reason is that it's reeling from the stupid decisions made in season 1. Foggy not being here hurts the show a lot. Kingpin being back *again* is honestly a little tiring at this point, we could have used a new villain. It doesn't help that a lot of this season's story is just "current events!!!!". Fisk is Trump. The police are ICE, get it? Minorities are being captured and put in camps, do you get it? The protestors are holding signs saying "NO KINGS", do you get it yet? While the writing is WAY better than season 1, it still has some issues. Kingpin can get away with anything that fits the plot, like killing a doctor in the middle of the hospital with no consequences, or a cop shooting another cop in the head in front of everyone else. A lot of other characters feels like they're just going through the motions, and their story arcs are repeats of what they already went through. Also, this season weirdly tries to be more "comic book"-like than the previous ones for some reason. They treat Kingpin like he's Hulk on steroids with how ridiculously strong he is versus how he was in the Netflix series. He sends people flying with a single punch. The violence feels a lot less real and more gratitious. It's so over the top. It's great that they managed to recover this much from the trainwreck of season 1, but it's still not as good as seasons 1 & 3 of the Netflix series. I'm not excited for season 3 if it's just going to be more of Daredevil vs Fisk, because after a combined 5 seasons I really think this needs to start going somewhere else.

"Daredevil Born Again" is what you might expect, plus a little that isn't. Yes, this series is better written than your usual tacky, superhero fare. There's a sense, in spite of the silly costumes, that the characters are real people, with all the complication, contradiction and baggage, that comes along for the ride. So, thus far this series is off to a decent start. What's not so good is the slow creep thread of woke-ism. I would have though by now the US entertainment industry had inflicted enough pain upon itself and its viewers, to know better. Other more positive aspects include acting that's above average and overstated but still exciting, fight scenes. Shame there's not more of the latter. Its supposed to be an action series. UPDATE: I'm into the third episode and sadly, they are "still" too busy playing social justice warrior to actually play warrior. I'm not taking this further, its intelligently written but its also preachy and frankly, boring. In summary, a series that's a little better than your usual superhero fare. Story line, characterisations and acting, are above average. That said, its too busy playing "woke warrior" to actually get on with the job of being exciting and entertaining. As of episode three, a solid pass from me.