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alibi_shop) wrote2019-09-05 06:25 pm
alibi_shop) wrote2019-09-05 06:25 pm
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TV: Swamp Thing, season 1 (DC Universe, 2019)
This is the fifth attempt (two movies and two previous shows) to adapt a four-decade horror-fantasy comic that, in its simplest form, is about a heroic moss-monster who develops from the remains of a murdered scientist in rural Louisiana and decides to defend people against other monsters and magical problems; in its not-simplest form, it's about everything under the sun. The comic had its ups and downs to say the least, but having written a little under 30,000 words about it, it's safe to say that I'm a fan. I was cautiously curious about the show, knowing that it's very easy to make this material stupid, and... I was pleasantly surprised, but I can also see why it got cancelled early, because it's an elaborate and expensive mess and only half in a good way. If it ever rises from the swamp again, which would be nice, they'll need to work on a few things.
What kind of adaptation is this? There can't really be such a thing as a faithful adaptation of Swamp Thing, because the premise was messed with so many times, and even what most people consider the best-written part (the Alan Moore years) was dependent enough on previous writers' convoluted ideas that it's hard to imagine how you could start fresh at that point. So they've taken a reasonable approach of picking out ideas from many different parts of the series, and using the existing characters—who were rarely consistent or memorable—just as loose guidelines. They're trying to get a lot of ideas in there, and what they end up completely ditching is the "monster-of-the-month" stuff that the comic did a lot of early on, where Swamp Thing wanders around and happens upon a demon or a murderer or a UFO and deals with it and moves on. Instead, pretty much everyone you meet and everything that happens is part of some major subplot or other, as it turns out a ton of funny business (some mundane, some science-fictiony, and some supernatural) is going on in this town. Swamp Thing doesn't even know about a lot of it, he's mostly dealing with figuring out his true nature and talking to his only friend, doctor/love interest Abby (Crystal Reed). By the 9th and 10th episodes (at which point they had to wrap things up in a hurry because 11-13 were cancelled) at least a few of the subplots come to a head and there's some fairly cool action that finally starts to give a sense of what kind of groove the show might have settled into.
There are a lot of things I like here. The general tone is horror/melodrama/soap opera with a lot of different threats and mysteries and villains working at cross purposes, in a small-town setting—somewhere in between True Blood and the '90s supernatural TV series American Gothic, especially in the way that the latter show kept building up the bad guy's magical evilness and cranking up the atmosphere and throwing in cool imagery while rarely explaining anything. Especially in the first few episodes (where you can most clearly see the hand of Mark Verheiden, a long-time comics and TV guy who I think is good at beginnings) they do a good job of setting up lots of extremely creepy shit so that if you haven't read the comic, you could easily assume that "Swamp Thing" refers to these other scary things in the swamp, and then the actual Swamp Thing arrives and maybe he's scary too, but no he's the protagonist and it's a nice twist (whereas in the comic he's the narrator from the get-go). Visually it's not trying to be cinematic, it's a TV look for sure but with pretty good use of scenery and effects—the effects do get very cheesy toward the end, possibly they burned through their budget but there is some excellent stuff early on—and I know some people don't like the Swamp Thing costume but I think it's lovely. And even though the story is overpopulated with side characters who don't have much to do, the main villains (by "main" I mean four out of the six or seven or eight antagonists; it's hard to say who's most evil) are really strong: Avery Sunderland (Will Patton) and Jason Woodrue (Kevin Durand) have way more personality than they usually had on paper, and Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Beals manage to class up the place a bit despite having less good script material to work with. The two human leads, Abby and our remains-provider Alec (Andy Bean), are OK but less interesting—this may just be my bias as a middle-aged guy, but I think one of the show's more predictable moves was deciding that they have to be charming youngish people you might see on a doctor show. It's hard to see any of Alec's personality in the lugubrious Swamp Thing; Derek Mears plays his monster form and is eventually good, but it takes them quite a while to get a handle on what he's like and unfortunately during that time he tends to talk too much. It's a shame that he and Woodrue only meet toward the end; the wounded beast and the super-dickish academic (Durand is very, very funny) make a great pair, a good example of how a fantasy premise can bring out character energy.
The problems become apparent pretty soon after the initial setup. We keep getting new subplots: a vengeful ghost, a marital double-cross, a benevolent(?) psychic, a science experiment gone wrong, some kind of demonic energy in the swamp, paramilitary business creeps infiltrating the CDC, a guy who's cursed to stay in the city limits and run a video store, the benevolent(?) entity who cursed him, etc... nothing gets space to breathe or develop, and I think it'd be too much even in a non-truncated season. And after those first few very creepy episodes, the horror/fantasy energy falters for a long stretch with less interesting visuals—I think it really doesn't help that they bring in a big part of the comic's mystical cosmology, the vegetable spirit world of "the Green", by only ever talking about the experience of it (I realize if they'd tried to do a big psychedelic thing it could've been bad, but... I don't know, show us some blurry lights or something, at least try being a little weird, it's a better use of your money than yet another CG vine attack). The last two episodes have their problems but they feel a lot more vivid, possibly because they knew they had to throw most of it overboard and focus on a few things to wrap it up.
Two things that probably won't matter to normal people: 1. I was particularly entertained by Macon Blair (of Blue Ruin and Green Room) as the Phantom Stranger, because I love Macon Blair and because his meek schlumpy performance is the exact opposite of what a pompous ass that character was in the comics. 2. My wife suggested an unusual direction the series might take if revived: cross over with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as Swampy hangs out with his new friend, Moss Oak.
What kind of adaptation is this? There can't really be such a thing as a faithful adaptation of Swamp Thing, because the premise was messed with so many times, and even what most people consider the best-written part (the Alan Moore years) was dependent enough on previous writers' convoluted ideas that it's hard to imagine how you could start fresh at that point. So they've taken a reasonable approach of picking out ideas from many different parts of the series, and using the existing characters—who were rarely consistent or memorable—just as loose guidelines. They're trying to get a lot of ideas in there, and what they end up completely ditching is the "monster-of-the-month" stuff that the comic did a lot of early on, where Swamp Thing wanders around and happens upon a demon or a murderer or a UFO and deals with it and moves on. Instead, pretty much everyone you meet and everything that happens is part of some major subplot or other, as it turns out a ton of funny business (some mundane, some science-fictiony, and some supernatural) is going on in this town. Swamp Thing doesn't even know about a lot of it, he's mostly dealing with figuring out his true nature and talking to his only friend, doctor/love interest Abby (Crystal Reed). By the 9th and 10th episodes (at which point they had to wrap things up in a hurry because 11-13 were cancelled) at least a few of the subplots come to a head and there's some fairly cool action that finally starts to give a sense of what kind of groove the show might have settled into.
There are a lot of things I like here. The general tone is horror/melodrama/soap opera with a lot of different threats and mysteries and villains working at cross purposes, in a small-town setting—somewhere in between True Blood and the '90s supernatural TV series American Gothic, especially in the way that the latter show kept building up the bad guy's magical evilness and cranking up the atmosphere and throwing in cool imagery while rarely explaining anything. Especially in the first few episodes (where you can most clearly see the hand of Mark Verheiden, a long-time comics and TV guy who I think is good at beginnings) they do a good job of setting up lots of extremely creepy shit so that if you haven't read the comic, you could easily assume that "Swamp Thing" refers to these other scary things in the swamp, and then the actual Swamp Thing arrives and maybe he's scary too, but no he's the protagonist and it's a nice twist (whereas in the comic he's the narrator from the get-go). Visually it's not trying to be cinematic, it's a TV look for sure but with pretty good use of scenery and effects—the effects do get very cheesy toward the end, possibly they burned through their budget but there is some excellent stuff early on—and I know some people don't like the Swamp Thing costume but I think it's lovely. And even though the story is overpopulated with side characters who don't have much to do, the main villains (by "main" I mean four out of the six or seven or eight antagonists; it's hard to say who's most evil) are really strong: Avery Sunderland (Will Patton) and Jason Woodrue (Kevin Durand) have way more personality than they usually had on paper, and Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Beals manage to class up the place a bit despite having less good script material to work with. The two human leads, Abby and our remains-provider Alec (Andy Bean), are OK but less interesting—this may just be my bias as a middle-aged guy, but I think one of the show's more predictable moves was deciding that they have to be charming youngish people you might see on a doctor show. It's hard to see any of Alec's personality in the lugubrious Swamp Thing; Derek Mears plays his monster form and is eventually good, but it takes them quite a while to get a handle on what he's like and unfortunately during that time he tends to talk too much. It's a shame that he and Woodrue only meet toward the end; the wounded beast and the super-dickish academic (Durand is very, very funny) make a great pair, a good example of how a fantasy premise can bring out character energy.
The problems become apparent pretty soon after the initial setup. We keep getting new subplots: a vengeful ghost, a marital double-cross, a benevolent(?) psychic, a science experiment gone wrong, some kind of demonic energy in the swamp, paramilitary business creeps infiltrating the CDC, a guy who's cursed to stay in the city limits and run a video store, the benevolent(?) entity who cursed him, etc... nothing gets space to breathe or develop, and I think it'd be too much even in a non-truncated season. And after those first few very creepy episodes, the horror/fantasy energy falters for a long stretch with less interesting visuals—I think it really doesn't help that they bring in a big part of the comic's mystical cosmology, the vegetable spirit world of "the Green", by only ever talking about the experience of it (I realize if they'd tried to do a big psychedelic thing it could've been bad, but... I don't know, show us some blurry lights or something, at least try being a little weird, it's a better use of your money than yet another CG vine attack). The last two episodes have their problems but they feel a lot more vivid, possibly because they knew they had to throw most of it overboard and focus on a few things to wrap it up.
Two things that probably won't matter to normal people: 1. I was particularly entertained by Macon Blair (of Blue Ruin and Green Room) as the Phantom Stranger, because I love Macon Blair and because his meek schlumpy performance is the exact opposite of what a pompous ass that character was in the comics. 2. My wife suggested an unusual direction the series might take if revived: cross over with Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as Swampy hangs out with his new friend, Moss Oak.