S01.E01: Til Death Do Us Part

[MarkHB]

Quote

Harley sets off to rule Gotham City and separate herself from being known as "Joker's Girlfriend"

 

[CletusMusashi]

They need to straighten out their episode synopsisesees. Neither Dr. psycho nor Wonder Woman was even in this. And I am fine with that, because Episode 1 was everything that the pilot should be.

Cuoco's Harley is a worthy interpretation. I think she is destined to be remembered, along with Aileen Sorkin and Margot Robbie, as one of the holy trinity of great Harleys. I started out a little iffy about how rarely she used the "gangster moll" accent, but the writing and voice acting are so great that I am perfectly fine just taking this character as she is.

Tudyk's Joker is reminiscent of Hamil's, but if you're gonna be inspired by someone it might as well be the best. His behavior has more flashes of semi-normalcy than Hamil did, but the more graphic nature of the art and writing make it clear that he's just as insane and brutal.

Bell's Ivy is interesting in her subtlety. They've toned down the femme fatale aspect and made her more of an "emo girl all grown up now," which not only fits the character pretty well but also makes her a really good contrast to Harley.

And the other big standout is the sad broken mess that is Commissioner Gordon. I'm not quite sure what they mean by Joker crippling his partner, besides it being an obvious reinterpretation of a certain Batman comic, which the Joker's hideout also alludes to.  Did they mean "detective partner?" Did they mean spouse. girlfriend/boyfriend? No idea. But the end result? Sort of a cross between Harvey Bullock from TaS and Bill Dauterive from KotH? Absolutely perfect! I don't know the actor from anything else, but he's nailing it in this.

I like that they have a full cast of Arkham loonies, and all the characters they we ourselves already know a version or two of are already acquainted with each other. The only character I honestly didn't find entertaining was Frank. I get that they're doing a shoutout to "Little Shop of Horrors," but could they possibly have found somebody less annoying than J.B. Smoove to voice him?

Edited November 30, 2019 by CletusMusashi

[ApathyMonger]

That was great. I'm definitely on board.

The voice cast were all great, but I especially liked Jim Rash's Riddler. Meloni's Gordon is very different to any other version I can remember too.

[MarkHB]

12 hours ago, CletusMusashi said:

They need to straighten out their episode synopsisesees. Neither Dr. psycho nor Wonder Woman was even in this.

In fairness, that was my line. They hadn't given a real synopsis by the time I created the thread so I grabbed a moment from the trailer and ran with it.

As for the show itself, I laughed my ass off all the way through.

[CletusMusashi]

I quite agree. Jim Rash is nailing his role as The Riddler so well that while I was posting I forgot that he was the Jim Rash version of The Riddler. Probably because he wasn't calling himself the Rid-Deanle-er or something, but, in any case, he made me seriously like his character while forgetting the actor.

And I like that the rogue's gallery and their relationships with each other are already established. Ivy can seriously just call Riddler up to help her with an intervention! It reminds me a bit of that episode of TAS where they were all sitting around playing poker and telling Batman stories.

[Lantern7]

SyFy kept the cursing! Yay!!!

I'm five episodes in right now. I did see this one free on YouTube, but I forgot most of it. I don't think the adult content and language makes everything funnier but it does help. Also amusing to put Kaley Cuoco's Harley in parallel with Margot Robbie. One isn't a knockoff od the other. If anything, the animated Harley seems inspired by the Jimmy Palmiotti/Amanda Conner run on her comic book. And we got Diedrich Bader voicing Batman again! Only now, he's surrounded by potty-mouths . . . including Jim Gordon. You know, this haggard version works on me.

On 11/30/2019 at 2:00 AM, CletusMusashi said:

I quite agree. Jim Rash is nailing his role as The Riddler . .

I knew it, because he doesn't sound far from Jim's work on Mike Tyson Mysteries. If you've never seen that series, he voices the Marques de Queensbury, the man who set the modern rules of boxing. Also, he's really 19th Century gay.

ETA: Oh, and everyone calls him "Marcus" because "Marques" would probably go over everyone's heads.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Lantern7