TCTTS said:
I have to say, after watching the season finale tonight, this was a pretty big miss for me.
While I really liked the backstory/flashback-per-episode format, and a couple of the characters were fun and/or interesting, ultimately, the plot was all over the place, it didn't make a whole lot of sense, and I legit could not tell you what the hell the Princess was actually doing, what her motivations were in the end, etc.
Which is all a bit concerning considering Gunn himself wrote this.
That, and it's technically the fourth entry in the Suicide Squad > The Suicide Squad > Peacemaker > Creature Commandos arc/continuum, which is kind of tired at this point and now feels like we're running with the D or even E team. It's also still super weird that this arc/continuum and these characters are for some reason the lynchpin of the entire DCEU to DCU transition.
Not to mention - one last time - I hated the music so, so much.
Granted, it's just a cartoon, but with so much riding on the success of the new DCU, as the first entry it's such a random, bizarre, and flippant tone-setter.
I both agree and disagree with this.
On the one hand, I agree that this was a really bizarre show to kick off the DCU. But a lot of that is because I don't think these characters are meant to be the lynchpin characters. They are just minor characters in the background. Except for Waller, who I think could be setting up as a "big bad." But I think the rest of the characters are meant to be cameo type characters to give a sense of continuity across all the projects without having to pay for major characters/actors to appear across different films/projects.
I think this is an attempt to avoid the problem Marvel ran into where people just come to watch the big stars and the projects start to flounder without the stars. I am not sure this plan will work. But I think that is what they are attempting.
But this leads to my biggest issue, which is why have your first show be something that is essentially skippable? I get establishing Waller some more, but as you noted it is established and starting to be overplayed.
I sort of agree on the princess storyline being an afterthought. But there are points of the show, like the Princess's guards and castle being super high tech while her country was effectively poor supporting her plan of taking over the world through nuclear war. Her motivation was just acquiring more power.
It seemed like this first set of shows/movies is about Gods and Monsters dealing with power. The princess was just a monster trying to get power.
Personally, I think they needed one more episode focusing on the Princess's flashback, to establish her as the monster which would juxtapose with the Creature Commandos all being seen as Monsters, but by and large were victims of circumstance and who did "monstrous" things due to factors beyond their control.
That said, I liked the music. The cover of The Doors People are Strange as the theme to Nina's story about alienation and social awkwardness was well done. Also the music having this third-word, Eastern European flair helped me to accept the weirdness of the situation and convey the themes or the show.
Which to me was, this Cold War relic idea that bad things were going to come out of Eastern European that there going to destroy the world without the "good guys" knowing about.
This sort of fits back into establishing Waller as a player in the DCU. You have the heroes and villains doing their thing, regular people doing their thing, and Waller controlling the fallout from both worlds.
Ultimately, this is a niche show that isn't going to have broad appeal and is probably skippable.
I am at a B/B+ because I really enjoyed the story and what they attempted, but could have been executed better.
