[user104658]

Originally Posted by Chewy

I've given it time now, I think the show is okay, if they do a season 2, they need to really up their game, hopefully Danny will be better in the Defenders.

There's easy potential for them to "fix" the character TBH - just have the events of The Defenders and his interactions with DD, JJ and Cage (who are all very different), and learning about their experiences, have a large impact on him / his outlook and philosophies. Then you can have him be quite different in S2 with a ready-made explanation.

I also think the series wasn't action-focused enough for the character. It seems to be more in tune with Jessica Jones and Luke Cage which focused more on other aspects of the story with the action being less at the front. The difference being that (IMO) the Jessica Jones storyline was darkly compelling and Luke Cage's (for MOST of it) was an intriguing character drama. But does ANYONE give a **** about Rand Enterprises? Or find the Meachum family drama in any way interesting? I don't think so! It needs to be more like DareDevil which strikes a more 50/50 balance. Still plenty of story focus but a lot of action in the majority of episodes, too. Give it a better fights / stunts budget, get in a skilled stunt double for Danny and give us more martial arts ass kickery . The best action scenes of this series (if far fetched...) have been Colleen Wing's cage fights ...

[Tom4784]

Here for Colleen and Claire being BFFs tbh.

I demand the Claire, Colleen and Misty team up series that we deserve!

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

Here for Colleen and Claire being BFFs tbh.

I demand the Claire, Colleen and Misty team up series that we deserve!

Misty would just let the side down to be honest. She kept getting herself shot, lost her sh*t as soon as a gun was pointed at her, and with the time it took her to be "sure" about Luke's identity and then figure out that he wasn't a killer, she's frankly a terrible detective. Claire on the other hand is a nurse who became an adept superhero surgeon overnight and Colleen is a ninja. If they need another team mate they'd do better with a roided-up Trish... She was pretty hard core.

[Tom4784]

Finished Episode 6, Madame Gao's elevating proceedings a bit but I'll be pissed off if she dies and all that potential they've built up gets wasted in this series.

Everything else is starting to gel together a bit now but Danny just doesn't work. The writing around him is supremely clumsy (the whole talking to his master thing is PAINFUL) and he suffers from a major case of Barry-Allenitis in that he's got all this power and shouldn't really lose against anyone he's fought so far but he does because the plot demands it which makes him look incompetent in the process.

I'm also starting to sympathise with Ward, if I had to deal with that manchild day in day out i'd be popping pills too.

Also the Hand are pretty poor villains, they are just an amorphous organisation which is difficult to care about. They were the worst part of Daredevil S2 and they aren't much better here although Gao's presence is improving things.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Misty would just let the side down to be honest. She kept getting herself shot, lost her sh*t as soon as a gun was pointed at her, and with the time it took her to be "sure" about Luke's identity and then figure out that he wasn't a killer, she's frankly a terrible detective. Claire on the other hand is a nurse who became an adept superhero surgeon overnight and Colleen is a ninja. If they need another team mate they'd do better with a roided-up Trish... She was pretty hard core.

Trish can be a recurring character

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

Finished Episode 6, Madame Gao's elevating proceedings a bit but I'll be pissed off if she dies and all that potential they've built up gets wasted in this series.

Everything else is starting to gel together a bit now but Danny just doesn't work. The writing around him is supremely clumsy (the whole talking to his master thing is PAINFUL) and he suffers from a major case of Barry-Allenitis in that he's got all this power and shouldn't really lose against anyone he's fought so far but he does because the plot demands it which makes him look incompetent in the process.

I'm also starting to sympathise with Ward, if I had to deal with that manchild day in day out i'd be popping pills too.

Also the Hand are pretty poor villains, they are just an amorphous organisation which is difficult to care about. They were the worst part of Daredevil S2 and they aren't much better here although Gao's presence is improving things.

Think we're on the same episode... I don't think Rand actually has lost a fight yet though? They've made sort of a point of him "never losing", and the fact that he had to yield the tournament to save the girl didn't set well with him, he struggles to come to terms with it because he doesn't know how to not win. It's not quite as bad as Barry IMO. They make his powers (especially his top speed) totally inconsistent to fit whatever the plot of the week happens to be.

I think Ward is supposed to be a sympathetic character really. Just the product of his father, who is a really slimy little cretin . I'd actually say one of the most effective villains so far, purely on account of being so genuinely unlikable.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Think we're on the same episode... I don't think Rand actually has lost a fight yet though? They've made sort of a point of him "never losing", and the fact that he had to yield the tournament to save the girl didn't set well with him, he struggles to come to terms with it because he doesn't know how to not win. It's not quite as bad as Barry IMO. They make his powers (especially his top speed) totally inconsistent to fit whatever the plot of the week happens to be.

I think Ward is supposed to be a sympathetic character really. Just the product of his father, who is a really slimy little cretin . I'd actually say one of the most effective villains so far, purely on account of being so genuinely unlikable.

I think it's more to do with the fact that he struggles against grunts that bothers me, like that fight in the Lorry. It just feels like lazy writing.

I only sympathise with Ward because Danny's so unlikable though, I doubt that was the writer's intent

[Scarlett.]

Ep.13 spoilers

Spoiler:

I don't think Gao is with The Hand

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Chewy

Ep.13 spoilers

Spoiler:

I don't think Gao is with The Hand

I've not watched that far yet but right from their first interaction, I've been thinking that there's a good chance that Gao is an ex-Iron Fist?

[Scarlett.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I've not watched that far yet but right from their first interaction, I've been thinking that there's a good chance that Gao is an ex-Iron Fist?

There is a lot of mystery about her, so I'm not sure myself

[ChristmasNeeve]

Youtube video

[Scarlett.]

I've put some more thought into Iron Fist, and how it stacks up with the rest, I feel that unlike the other three, there is no great villains like Fisk, Kilgrave, Cottonmouth, Shades, or hell, even Diamondback (I think the fight would have been better if he looked less dorky, lol). While Iron Fist has some interesting characters, there is no real full on villain, Madame Gao is great, but that is thanks to Daredevil building the character up.

The fight scenes were pretty lacking too, the only one that stood out at all was the hatchet fight. Danny's motivations also don't seem to exist, he's in New York because...? I think for season 2, we definitely need more insight into the character, and a better overall plot.

[user104658]

Despite its flaws I've quite enjoyed plodding through it whilst pottering about doing other things, but that did make me realise something. It's definitely far less complex than the other three shows. You CAN watch it windowed whilst (for example) sitting in TiBB arguing the toss on SD, and still follow what's going on. I've gotten through the series much faster than I did with either DD series, Jones or Cage... And that's because all of those series demand your full attention. If you get distracted doing something else you constantly have to skip back because you missed something important to the plot. Doesn't happen with Iron Fist very often... Which suggests that the plot is pretty simple. I don't necessarily mind that, I like a good mix of easy viewing and more complex shows on my "to watch" list.

I do agree that Danny himself is massively under-developed as a character, though. He just doesn't make sense. He doesn't seem like he has the strength of mind required to SURVIVE 15 years of intense martial arts training... Let alone to thrive and become Iron Fist . I mean, for all of Arrow's flaws in recent seasons (though I actually thought the most recent episode was above par) they at least have convincingly created a character who returned from his "missing" time as a completely different person to the rich kid who left. There's a clear path of him going from soft billionaire to hard as nails vigilante and it for the mostpart works. Danny Rand seems to have managed to spend 15 years in a monastery working himself half to death with training, being beaten with sticks for failure, and has come back... As exactly the same kid, except a martial arts master! It's not very plausible .

[Tom4784]

I finished it.

It went from boring, to watchable but bad to straight up ****.

Spoiler:

The plot is all over the place and the influx of random villains and enemies at the end is just stupid. Bakuto and Davos were literally there to fill up a few episodes and (in the process) their presence managed to totally destroy the only interesting orginal character in Iron First. Colleen being part of the Hand is a crap twist that makes no sense and completely derails her character, it makes her look dumb and naive which she wasn't before the twist happened. Also Harold and Bakuto make Diamondback look like a subtle and nuanced villain, I'm surprised there was any scenery left by the end given how they were feasting on it and not in a good way.

The whole last episode with Danny on the run just felt out of place, like the writers ran out of ideas and threw it together by taking inspirations from the most generic sources possible. The fact that they presented Harold as such a threat to Danny when they fought was just silly, like I said before, the writers have a bad habit of making Danny look incompetent because they don't know how to balance out his powers. Even with one hand, Danny should have destroyed Harold. What the writers SHOULD have done was introduce Davos earlier, develop him, have both Bakuto and Harold killed off before the last episode and have the last episode based around the build up of bad blood between Danny and Davos.

Don't even get me started on the fact that Joy went from turning against her dad because he framed Danny in one scene to wanting Danny dead for some nonsensical reason in the next. It was eye rolling-ly bad.

The only good points were Claire and Gao and the writers made the same mistake that Luke Cage's writers did in jettisoning Gao (IE the only interesting villain) partway through, thankfully they had the sense not to kill her off.

IF there's a season 2, I'm just going to read a plot summary. I can't watch another 13 hours of this ****.

[user104658]

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

IF there's a season 2, I'm just going to read a plot summary. I can't watch another 13 hours of this ****.

To be fair, if there is an S2 I think it would be a fair bet that there will be some dramatic improvements. Because it's not a shown-while-still-filming series (obviously, being Netflix) they have to disadvantage of the product being set in stone before there's any feedback... and I think they'll have been taking serious note on the feedback on this one. The feedback for DD 1&2, JJ and LC was for the mostpart all good. This will have caught Marvelflix off guard and if they do run another Iron Fist series I'd imagine they will be trying very hard to redeem it. They can do that fairly easily in terms of production and writing... their main stumbling block of course is going to be Danny himself. I think the actor might just not be very good . BUT It's sort of difficult to tell because some of the dialogue is so badly written. Like... my-7-year-old-could-have-written-this sort of bad. People being stabbed in the belly bleeding everywhere and someone being like "OMG u OK?" sort of bad .

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

To be fair, if there is an S2 I think it would be a fair bet that there will be some dramatic improvements. Because it's not a shown-while-still-filming series (obviously, being Netflix) they have to disadvantage of the product being set in stone before there's any feedback... and I think they'll have been taking serious note on the feedback on this one. The feedback for DD 1&2, JJ and LC was for the mostpart all good. This will have caught Marvelflix off guard and if they do run another Iron Fist series I'd imagine they will be trying very hard to redeem it. They can do that fairly easily in terms of production and writing... their main stumbling block of course is going to be Danny himself. I think the actor might just not be very good . BUT It's sort of difficult to tell because some of the dialogue is so badly written. Like... my-7-year-old-could-have-written-this sort of bad. People being stabbed in the belly bleeding everywhere and someone being like "OMG u OK?" sort of bad .

I think there's always been one flaw that has been present in all the Marvelflix series (although it's affected JJ the least despite the efforts of the cop character whose name I've thankfully forgot) and that's that they nearly always lose steam halfway through due to poor narrative choices (although IF was a mess from the start).

Wilson Fisk became a drag in DD S1 because he was overexposed and the writers made a mistake in replacing the Daredevil/Punisher dynamic with generic ninjas in Season 2 instead of presenting an actual villain, They wasted Elektra in a similar fashion to Colleen as well. Iron Fist and Luke Cage both had the same issues in that they replaced an interesting villain with a contrived one (or three, in Iron Fist's case).

I don't think they've done a good job of learning from their mistakes thus far, I think the only hope of me bothering with S2 of IF is if the Defenders writers handle his character better and the IF writers follow their lead.

[user104658]

True, but I find that with a lot of series' to be fair. My prime example is American Horror Story, stopped watching that half way through the "freak show" one because EVERY season of it seems to start well and then end up an absolute shambles by the end.

My English teacher always taught me that with creative writing, you think up the beginning, then skip to the end and write that, before you even try to tackle the 90% in the middle. That seems to be a bit of a lost art with TV in general these days. So many shows start floundering half way through and then have no idea how to finish.

[user104658]

I found the inclusion of Claire in this one sort of problematic as well, though she's a good character. The issue this time was just... That it makes zero sense that she wouldn't contact Matt as soon as the trouble with The Hand started. Luke is out of action, Jessica doesn't want to be involved in these things... But DD is a full on costumed hero. Had it even been another organisation, fine, you could say it's "not his back yard" but... It's The Hand, who he is very much interested in, and very recently. It makes no sense at all that she wouldn't have give him a call straight away... But of course they're saving that for The Defenders.

And then again... I often have that same issue with the single-hero MCU titles. They always have really flimsy reasons for things like Cap and Black Widow not contacting the other avengers in Winter Soldier...

But at least they put the excuses in there! They needed that throwaway line of Claire saying "I know a guy who could help but he's away skiing this week sadly" or something...

[user104658]

Just remembered he's blind and most of his friends don't know he has ESP.

[Scarlett.]

Hopefully they cut the series' length down, 13 episodes is too much.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I found the inclusion of Claire in this one sort of problematic as well, though she's a good character. The issue this time was just... That it makes zero sense that she wouldn't contact Matt as soon as the trouble with The Hand started. Luke is out of action, Jessica doesn't want to be involved in these things... But DD is a full on costumed hero. Had it even been another organisation, fine, you could say it's "not his back yard" but... It's The Hand, who he is very much interested in, and very recently. It makes no sense at all that she wouldn't have give him a call straight away... But of course they're saving that for The Defenders.

And then again... I often have that same issue with the single-hero MCU titles. They always have really flimsy reasons for things like Cap and Black Widow not contacting the other avengers in Winter Soldier...

But at least they put the excuses in there! They needed that throwaway line of Claire saying "I know a guy who could help but he's away skiing this week sadly" or something...

Yeah, that was problematic but tbh I ****ing love Claire so I was glad she was there to elevate proceedings. I suppose the point of including her was to put her on a path where she could potentially be more than just the Defenders' nurse, I reckon she'll put those claws to good use in the crossover.

They did need more direct allusions to Luke and particularly Daredevil though, I agree that there had to be a real reason why Matt couldn't be involved in the fight against the Hand.

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Chewy

Hopefully they cut the series' length down, 13 episodes is too much.

AGREED. 8-10 episodes would be perfect.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

AGREED. 8-10 episodes would be perfect.

Yeah that's probably true of all of them so far. I'd say JJ was the best paced overall but it also had a couple of episodes around the middle that dragged and could have been condensed.

[user104658]

Redeeming moment of the final episode: Danny and Ward get all tearful and emo and share their feelings; Hogarth is like " wtf is this..." .

Also had to chuckle at Claire being like "You guys just respond to everything with violence, u has psychological problems. Now I'm just going to take these vicious razor sharp boxing claws and be on my way..."