Quarantine Control #103: Tiger’s Dare

The next COVID-19 outbreak is right around the corner, and the lifting of all the vaccine and mask mandates around the country and in other territories will only make it worse. Yet, it feels like nothing is going to happen. The news has been dominated with the (admittedly important) confirmation hearings for perhaps-future Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine. Anyone who’s reading this should get ready for the Omicron subvariant, BA. 2 or whatever they’re calling it, to wreak havoc in North America like it did in China, South Korea, and parts of Europe.

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Geoffrey Barnes

Marvel’s Daredevil: Season 1 (2015)
Source: Disney Plus
Episodes: 13

I cannot imagine how difficult of a task it must have been for the producers of Marvel’s Daredevil to merely discuss a new live-action adaptation before it entered production, while preventing the audience from remembering the cheesy 2003 film. The old movie starring Ben Affleck as the title character was hardly bad, but was stuffed with the kinds of goofy and cheesy moments expected of a non-X-Men or Spider-Man superhero movie released in 2003, which ensured its mediocrity. Personally, I couldn’t help but think of it upon undertaking this series after it and the other Defenders Saga shows (what they’re calling them now) left Netflix to arrive on Disney Plus last week (as part of the first TV-MA content on the US service), despite knowing full well that this series was better received.

For as negative as it sounded to remember the old movie, this turned out to be a good thing. It set my expectations for the series low enough that I was super impressed with the results here.

Daredevil takes place in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York City, and starts by showing off Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Franklin “Foggy” Nelson (Elden Henson), both of whom are rookie defense attorneys within this section of the city. They shortly gain a good reputation through Matt’s deduction skills and Foggy’s good judgment, though the former is unsurprisingly the more skilled of the two. Not that he doesn’t have help, thanks to the special powers Matt gained that gave him superhuman hearing after he was blinded as a kid. This also gives him the upper hand in his second life as a vigilante, though it takes him a while to be recognized simultaneously as a threat to the villains and trusted by the public. Matt’s balancing of two lives is where some of the series’ most interesting drama lies, but it helps further when interesting characters and villains move it along.

The entertainment and enjoyability come in how Matt’s handling of both lives doesn’t always go to plan. It’s helpful in the beginning of the series when he’s able to save the woman he has to defend in court accused of murder, future assistant Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), and in other incidents. But it doesn’t take long for him to run into trouble, and realize the difficulty of being a defense attorney and vigilante. Not to mention the fights Matt gets into as the soon-to-be Daredevil, which feel raw and real, as a simple man in a simple mask in dark street clothes that do little to protect him from damage. It helps that the vigilante’s battles with the enemies and overall fight choreography are solid.

A hero always needs a good villain, and Vincent D’Onofrio fits the role of Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin to an incredible degree. The first season’s best parts come from when Matt/Daredevil and Fisk try their best to outplay each other subtly and eventually overtly. It’s nice that the villains don’t have to restrain themselves because of this series’ TV-MA rating, a refreshing contrast to the usual Marvel Cinematic Universe’s TV-14 one, even though I wouldn’t argue that the series needs all the violent content it has. Interestingly, the language and sexual content never exceed TV-14 standards in this particular series.

I didn’t have many issues with the series’ first season, outside it not justifying its length. The pacing admittedly gives many of its major and minor characters plenty of time in the limelight, but it takes its time doing so. Netflix reportedly mandated that all the seasons for the Defenders Saga shows be 13 episodes, a tall order for writers that ran into trouble crafting tales that could have been done in nine episodes at most. My gut feeling suggests this will be an issue across many of these shows, which I’ll see in time. There was also a part of me that wished the red suit would have debuted earlier in the season, though this is hardly a flaw per se. I just liked how slick it looks.

Even though it’s clear the budget for the show was nowhere near on par with the newer MCU efforts, credit should go to the showrunners and producers of this first Daredevil season for all they were able to do with it. They also deserve credit for depicting the Daredevil character so well, and the world of its Hell’s Kitchen (even though it bears little resemblance to the gentrified and heavily LGBTQ area that’s existed for the last couple of decades). I’m only getting started with the second season, which appears to largely continue the quality of the first one while introducing new allies and villains in addition to the returning cast. I’m sure that I’ll enjoy Daredevil all the way through, and perhaps that will apply with the other shows too.

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Joseph Daniels

The Year of the Tiger continues this week with a show on Netflix featuring tigers which I alluded to last week and which recently added new episodes.

Animal (2021)
Source: Netflix
Episodes: 8
Tiger content: Of course!

The very first episode has a focus on big cats, so if you’re looking for tiger content, that’s the one to watch.  I think, though, it’s well worth watching the rest of the series.  The second episode covers “dogs”, which also includes wolves and foxes.  And as a big fan of everything from Australia, I would definitely recommend the third episode, being all about marsupials.

Interesting to me is that one episode per season dives beneath the waves, but it isn’t until season two that dolphins are featured, and I imagine the larger sea creatures like whales are being saved for season three.  I am, of course, assuming that there’s a season three coming.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there is going to be a third season.  There’s still a lot left to cover in the animal kingdom.  The second season’s episodes also include bears and birds of prey, and if you think that they’ve run out of land predators, you’ve clearly not spent any time watching National Geographic specials.  With only four episodes per season, the well has not run dry yet.

The tiger content in the first episode unfortunately takes a back seat compared to a larger focus on lions, but hopefully if they look at smaller cats in season three, they can make up for this clear bias by devoting as much time to lynxes as they did to lions.  If so, all will be forgiven.

Speaking of ground to cover, there are still scripted shows with tigers in them that I haven’t talked about in Quarantine Control, and I’ll talk about another one of those next week.

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It’s tough to think of anything else to say about COVID here outside taking care of yourself and staying alert, which could soon get more expensive in certain countries. Chances are, North America could be dealing with another virus crisis again, perhaps as soon as this time next week.