The Defenders Season 1 Review

The Defenders is the greatest combination of Netflix's Marvel shows thus far bringing together each of the heroes that have been showcased in their own separate seasons. It's somewhat of a big deal and if you don't know about it, this team is basically a smaller scale Avengers-like squad. They deal with saving their city instead of a global setting and it allows for much better character development. The group this time around focuses on Daredevil (Charlie Cox); Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) with a number of supporting characters around them.

Expect to see almost everyone important from the separate seasons along with the bigger side characters that we've seen cross-over in the past. The Defenders have been summoned to work together through a series of odd events and then work against their common enemy, The Hand. The key players in that organization are supernatural to a degree with Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) at the helm. They were an alright group, yet I still expected something more deadly or sinister from them.



With that expectation of something more, I felt it the entire time I was watching the series. I wanted to see more of a beating on both sides as while it was definitely intense, I'm used to seeing each of the cast get really cut up in their respective seasons. Here it seemed like there was little danger and even the potential emotional build at the end was quickly altered. This series is also rather slow to get going with the first half just building towards everyone getting together.

We know who these characters are at this point or at least some of them and why would someone watch a gathering without the context? I mean, there's no reason you couldn't hop in to watch this without seeing the seasons that build towards it, but you miss out on certain connections. It just took a bit too long to get them together and once they were, there were too few scenes where I felt the action of what they could do together. I actually felt some of the best scenes were when they were in smaller groupings as Jessica and Daredevil had great chemistry working as a duo. I will additionally mention that essentially all of the supporting characters from the past seasons appear at some point.

The Conclusion

When The Defenders get together to defend it works well and it was nice to seem them all interact. I would like to see that sense of a team being carried forward with more cross-overs in their standalone seasons. The quality of the presentation is about the same as the other Marvel Netflix content and it all looked great. There was a solid hall fight scene which was pleasant to view and for the most part the action was shot well. The powers were well displayed and I like the quantity of larger players that were present.

There was definitely some pay-off and it feels as though they completed a phase within their smaller part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I thought that overall while I wanted something more out of this it was easy to watch and enjoy. It had some really great moments aside from some questionable pacing and hopefully it leads to more future cross-overs for the characters. The Defenders performs well for the most part and it was a satisfying point of connection for the smaller heroes of New York.

Review for The Defenders at Home with Streamed Viewing
Screening was Provided by Netflix (1st four episodes)

Rating Overall: 7.0