Warner Bros. provided a copy of Doom Patrol Episode 1 to Variety Radio Online and I recently had the opportunity to view it after the review I did of the trailer.
Airing on 2/15/2019, Episode 1 opens with Alan Tudyk’s Eric Morden is a criminal henchman visiting a Nazi scientist in South America to receive special powers in 1948. Morden also provides narrative voice over throughout the episode. Next the viewer skips ahead to 1988 and meets Cliff Steele (Brendan Fraiser), an aging stock car driver who has a rocky marriage and then has an accident. Taking a cue from Verhoeven’s Robocop, we see The Chief, Dr. Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton), working on Cliff from a first person point of view. As The Chief tries to help Cliff recuperate, we learn that he was saved by implanting his brain inside of a robotic body, and it has been 7 years since the world thought that Cliff died in a wreck.
Through the course of the episode, we are also introduced to Rita Farr (played by April Bowlby), an actress from the 1950s, who had an incident while filming in Africa. The incident could be seem as karmic or tragic depending on your point of view. Also helping Cliff recover is Larry Trainor (Matt Bomer), an Air Force test pilot in the 1960s who has an encounter with something in the upper atmosphere while testing an X-15 plane. The plane crashes, but due to the encounter, Larry survives, albeit burnt badly, so he is almost always seen wearing bandages, a la a mummy. Many years pass by to present day, when another house guest shows up in the form of Crazy Jane (Dianne Guerrero), a young lady suffering from multiple personalities. 64 to be exact, and each one has a different super power. There is a little bonding between the four houseguests and even a field trip to town when The Chief leaves the house for a bit. Something to note is that both Robotman and Larry/Negative Man are voiced by their respective stars and those stars appear as the characters in flashbacks, but are played in their post-accident forms by other people. Matthew Zuk is under the bandages, and Riley Shanahan is inside the robot.
In all, the episode is good and kept my attention. There are a few things that don’t necessarily jive together. Rita was supposed to be an Olympic-level diver or swimmer, but when she has her accident in Africa and ends up in a river, she panics like someone who can barely swim. Also, Crazy Jane tells Cliff/Robotman that she had been aggravating The Chief since the 1970s. This should put her age in her late-40s, but she is being played by an actress who is 32. It is a pleasant change of pace for Alan Tudyk to be a villain though. I am curious to see how the series progresses.
Have you seen Doom Patrol? Let me know how you felt about it in the comments below.
Doom Patrol Season 1, Episode 14 “Penultimate Patrol”
Doom Patrol Season 1, Episode 13 “Flex Patrol”
Doom Patrol Season One, Episode 12 “Cyborg Patrol”
Doom Patrol Season 1, Episode 8 – “Danny Patrol”
Doom Patrol Season 1, Episode 7 – “Therapy Patrol”
