Acting and Casting Right On

First, let me say the cast is great and fit their parts well. So let me start with some praise. Here are the main characters a brief summary of each.

• Diane Guerrero (Crazy Jane): An actual superhero. Jane has 64 personalities (we see like 6 which is probably still too many), she has superish strength and can teleport between places. The character bounces between emotions like a ping pong ball so kudos to Diane G for pulling this off with seeming ease.
• April Bowlby (Elasti-Girl/Rita Farr): Rita is a 1940s movie star who got her powers by accident while filming in Africa. She is just like elastigirl from the Incredibles, but in 60 years she hasn't even come close to mastering them (kind of a plot hole). April nails the character. Think of her as your grandma trapped in a 30 yr old body. She looks like she's young, but she is from another age and time.
• Matt Bomer (Larry Trainor/Jar Man): This is the dude from White Collar and is mostly a voice actor in this. A former test pilot badly wounded in a crash, he is always in completely impractical bandages. He has no real power, but is a host for an alien electrical creature who does the heroic stuff while he whines and acts sad. (Thus my moniker of Jar Man, cause that is all his character is).
• Brendan Fraser (Cliff Steele/Tin Man): A former Nascar driver who has his brain implanted into a robot body. He has incredible strength and durability, but no human senses at all which is a constant frustration for him. Brenden F owns this part and carries most of the comedic weight of this show (and believe me, it needs some levity).
• Timothy Dalton (Niles Caulder/the Chief): Mad scientist and leader of the Doom Patrol. Dalton's charm is needed given this characters grim background.
• Joivan Wade (Vic Stone/Cyborg): The only big DC hero in the show. Wade plays a very young Cyborg who is just learning his abilities. Doesn't really do much hero stuff in this. Probably no budget for effects.
• Alan Tudyk (Eric Morden/Mr. Nobody): One of my favorite actors. Mr Nobody is a Dr Strange sort of dude, but a villain. His powers are magical, overpowered, and poorly explained. He can sort of suck people into different dimensions where he is basically omnipotent.

Basic Plot

Um.. I'm not sure. Basically, they hang out at their home base and weird stuff happens to them. Then they fight their way out and more weird stuff happens. While not in weird situations, they sit around and feel sorry for themselves and argue. It a CW DC show on steroids. Lots of talking and arguing, not much in the way of action. Although there is some. Oh and lots of flashbacks to how awful each person was, or how that person was abused by the government or whatever.

This is also quite a bit of magic in the show. They use a soft magic system, so stuff just sort of happens with no explanation. Transfers to other dimensions, teleportation, talking horse heads, sentient streets, stuff like that. No mutants. No science based stuff to speak of (that would be Cyborg's thing, but he spends most of the time malfunctioning).

Why I'm not Watching any More

Main reason, the characters are just not very likable. Jar Man is guilty he left his wife, his two kids, and his boyfriend in the past. So he is constantly sad and self loathing. And his alien hero friend, can't communicate, so we learn nothing of him. Jane is just an ungrateful, mean, angry loner. The chief is apparently a semi-reformed super villain. Most of the stuff he has done is kinda hard to forgive. Cyborg has survivors guilt and a troubled relationship with his father. Rita and Cliff are the best characters. They are both trying to make the best of their situations and maybe grow a little.

There are some good moments here and there, but I kept hoping the show would get better. By midway through season 2 I was fast forwarding through most of the show. It just isn't going to get better. So here are the rest of my thoughts.

• The show is more of a soap opera than a hero show.
• I don't find psychosis or psychological issues interesting. This show is similar to Mr Robot in that way. They story tellers are more interested in exploring unhappiness or 5 of Jane's personalities (like Eliot in Mr Robot), than telling a story. Just not my thing. I'm not interested in Jane's other 63 personalties or where they live in her brain.
• Unhappy people arguing and bickering is just not fun.
• I'm not interested in incompetent heroes who bumble through a story. Heroes should be good at their jobs, or at least getting better.
• In season 1, Mr Nobody gets his powers because the chief breaks in on his Nazi doctor during his procedure and shoots him, thus overexposing Mr Nobody. Nobody gleefully goes on and on about how wonderful his powers are. But then we are supposed to believe he holds a grudge because the chief broke in???? The grudge makes no sense. Would have been better if he stole a girlfriend or something.

Anyway, if you like the show, great. Enjoy it. It certainly has very high ratings on IMDB. There were parts of it I like, but overall, it's just not for me. So that's my $0.02.