Quarantine Control #110: The Wild Tiger Defense

If there’s anyone who isn’t a reckless fool and believes they’ll no longer have to discuss COVID-19, they should divorce themselves of that notion now. Cases are again increasing in countries like the United States, where the death count reached the sordid 1 million mark. Restrictions and lockdowns are unlikely to return thanks to beliefs about the public being over them persisting despite efforts to slow the spread polling positively whenever the populace has been asked. It’s a Groundhog Day scenario that won’t end, one too tiring to talk about any longer. So, let’s stop here.

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Geoffrey Barnes

Marvel’s The Defenders (2017)
Source: Disney+
Episodes: 8

In watching the earlier seasons of the Marvel Defenders shows, which arrived on Disney Plus in March after leaving Netflix, it was easy to imagine one particular scenario: Wouldn’t it be neat if all these heroes with special powers roaming around New York City teamed up? It was far from a novel thought even outside the comics, an idea that lost its luster after the sheer number of crossovers the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe included since these shows aired. But it was still nice to have a bunch of heroes who largely acted individually team up, which The Defenders serves the purpose of. The limited series marked a good opportunity to show how all the heroes don’t exist in their own specific universes despite the characters living in NYC, though the story itself isn’t quite up to snuff.

The Hand, the organization of martial arts masters hellbent on obtaining and maintaining immortality, returns from the second season of Daredevil and the first season of Iron Fist to conclude this specific storyline. It begins by showing all the heroes in their individual lives. Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) is doing his best to no longer be the vigilante Daredevil, looking to get back into his life as a defense attorney. Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is taking on new cases following the Kilgrave saga from her first season. Luke Cage (Mike Colter), meanwhile, leaves prison in Atlanta to return to Harlem. It’s Danny Rand/Iron Fist (Finn Jones) and partner Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) who are still actively fighting the Hand as the series starts, one that ropes everyone in when one of their incidents causes a massive earthquake in the city.

The Hand this time is led by the charismatic Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver), who revives Elektra (Elodie Yung) to chiefly assist her and the organization to obtain immortality. This was precisely the fate Elektra wanted to avoid at the end of Daredevil’s second season, only to fall right into their plans through little fault of her own. She’s retrained by Alexandra to ensure that she won’t remember anyone from her past. The Hand seeks to eliminate the Defenders for stopping their plans, but they’re especially after Danny Rand and his power of the Iron Fist, which they’ll need to obtain a special secret integral to their plans deep under NYC.

For as intriguing as they were, the Hand was never as threatening as other villains introduced in previous Defenders shows, and that unfortunately carries over to this show despite solid performances by Weaver and Yung. For as much as the heroes often struggle to fight them, the danger they pose never feels convincing despite the writers being given ample time to make them so. They never stop being entertaining at the very least, but it’s the kind of group that tricks the viewer into thinking they’ll become threatening just after a few scenes before never doing so. Only part of this is because producer Jeph Loeb reportedly didn’t think the backgrounds of Asian characters were worth exploring in detail.

The series falters thanks to the villains not being as engaging as they could have been, sure, but the interactions between the heroes and characters from several other franchises alone make this worth it. NYC is a big city, but it’s worth it to make the city feel a little smaller just to get everyone together. The Defenders is also worthwhile for making Danny Rand more convincing as the Iron Fist even compared to the first season of his own series. It helps a little that other characters constantly laugh at the fact that he was chosen as the Iron Fist, along with giggling at his constant desire to control and recharge his chi.

I didn’t go into The Defenders expecting Avengers-level crossovers, which wouldn’t have been fair considering how far they’ve gone since this show aired in 2017. But they all deserved to be in a better story — yes, including Danny Rand. After all, they never received the opportunity to have another team up like this again, after Disney and Marvel ended their deal with Netflix in 2019. No need to fund Marvel programs for a rival streaming service when they have their own now, after all.

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Joseph Daniels

Betty White has always been an entertainer, and when she passed away earlier this year, literally days before her 100th birthday, I resolved to pay a little bit of a tribute to her in this column, but I haven’t had an opportunity to yet.  This week, I was able to correct that and I sat down to watch one of her shows.

Betty White Goes Wild! (2013)
Source: Disney+

In 2013, Betty White filmed a special for National Geographic Wild where she visited three of California’s most famous zoos in order to get up close and as personal as she was allowed with various members of Team Big Cat, both full time and honourary.  She visited a small pride of lions, got to watch a cheetah run, and before I forget…

Tiger content: Betty White helped with the feeding of a pair of tigers she’d known from when they were born.

Sharp eyed viewers who have been following the Year of the Tiger portion of Quarantine Control will recognize a bit of the footage from the India specials a couple weeks ago.  Since National Geographic produced both that show and this one, it’s only natural that they would reuse archive footage if given the chance.

Fortunately, all of the footage in the zoos are new.  Betty White is as entertaining as always, bringing her unique and charming sense of comedy to what is essentially a day behind the scenes at three zoos.  It makes me wish I had watched it a lot sooner than now.

Anyway!  It may look like there’s not much tiger material available other than nature specials, but in the coming weeks, I’ll prove that wrong with some interesting anime shows, including one currently airing.  Hope you have a good week!

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Sure, the COVID-19 situation remains bad. But the world is in so perilous a state thanks to streams of violence and fascism that COVID has become the preferable topic to discuss. This isn’t getting any better either, because it’s clear that we’re not all in this struggle together.