Latest / The K.B. Radio Network / DC Studios' Lanterns - Series Premiere Review
Transcript
- 0:03hello ladies and gentlemen welcome to the concession stand here on the kb radio network i am your host kevin reed and this is the review of the world premiere episode
- 0:18of dc studios lanterns which premiered on hbo and hbo max sunday august the
- 0:2916th
- 0:30how is everybody doing out there welcome to the show everyone this was a highly anticipated show by me because i'm a big fan of green lantern i love that comic run of this character not only hal jordan but also john stewart and
- 0:48to have them both in a tv show live action tv show i was guns a blazing man i was ready to go geared up
- 0:58uh anticipating this show ever since they announced it the other reason would be because dc needs a win they need a win in a big way they're they're fresh off of the hills from licking their wounds from the supergirl uh
- 1:16bomb at the box office even though i didn't think it was a bad movie but it wasn't great and they're they're kind of they're kind of in the dumpster right now.
- 1:28So they need something to kind of get everybody back on board with this DC universe that
- 1:36James Gunn is creating over there.
- 1:38So
- 1:39I was highly anticipating this show.
- 1:42The show stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as
- 1:47Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart,
- 1:49respectively.
- 1:50This is the third television show in the DC universe.
- 1:56And another good thing that kind of drew me into this,
- 1:59this wasn't going to be your standard comic book superhero show.
- 2:04You know,
- 2:04punchy punchy fly uniforms and costumes and all the other good stuff.
- 2:11It was more grounded.
- 2:13They promised us that this was going to be kind of a true detective feel.
- 2:19A detective story set in the Lantern Corps.
- 2:24and
- 2:25You know,
- 2:27I'm there for that because,
- 2:29once again,
- 2:29another favorite of mine is
- 2:32True Detective.
- 2:33Love that series.
- 2:34Going back to when
- 2:36Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrison kicked it all off.
- 2:41Most recently with
- 2:43Jodie Foster,
- 2:46Dark Country.
- 2:47I loved detective element of that show.
- 2:51I'm big on that and very...
- 2:55very well put together show and so if they were going to follow that trope and have it set in a superhero world i'm all for blending genres you know that's the only way you're going to keep the superhero genre fresh
- 3:11you know that's the only way you can avoid superhero fatigue and you know the showrunners here with chris monday and damon liddinoff who
- 3:25look depending on who you ask david litanoff is not the greatest you know going back to loss yeah loss was good and then it wasn't you know uh
- 3:41he also wrote uh prometheus which the vast majority of people couldn't stand he's just i wouldn't say he's off and on he's more off than he is on.
- 3:54because i like watchmen you know the hbo series uh watchmen i enjoyed that but i i did acknowledge those fans of the watchmen comics or that that graphic novel upset
- 4:10with that show because it didn't follow that formula you know but and it was all over the place i can acknowledge all that but for me personally i'm
- 4:23enjoyed it for what it was you know it wasn't the greatest thing on earth but it was entertaining and that's all i wanted at the end of the day that brings me to lanterns this first episode i must say deeply
- 4:39enjoyed i am so in on this show it was you needed this first episode to work in order to hook me in and hook everybody else in of course to give it a chance and
- 4:53So far so good.
- 4:55This show
- 4:57I thought was funny.
- 4:59It was funnier than I thought it would be.
- 5:02And not just goofy funny.
- 5:04It's not goofy funny.
- 5:05It's just funny.
- 5:06It had funny moments.
- 5:08The banter between Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart was great.
- 5:13The chemistry,
- 5:14first and foremost.
- 5:15The chemistry with Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre.
- 5:20mwah the chef's kiss those two were born to play these roles i mean they were born to be on screen together i love the back and forth because these were these are two completely different characters especially if you follow the
- 5:37comic iterations of these characters two completely different characters and to have them on the screen together uh how would that dynamic work and you needed
- 5:50two actors that knew what they were doing and can actually convince you that they are green lanterns that they're walking around earth with these superpowers well a superpower ring because they're normal they're human they're they're not superman
- 6:08they you know they're not wonder woman they don't they're not aliens and uh greek goddesses they are human beings like me and you
- 6:16they just so happen to have this ring well there's one ring between the two of them which is another great dynamic with hal jordan uh being the one to train uh john stewart here i'm for it and john stewart being this military guy you know his father was in the military very reserved very calculated
- 6:40and focused and a hal jordan an older hal jordan who
- 6:45really just flies by the seat of his plans you know he he he just does what he wants you know carefree and to have those two different dynamics try to work together i
- 7:00i think so far we we're we've been treated to something really special here i will give it this as far as a negative and this was my only negative but it's a big negative
- 7:14a very big negative on this show this the episode ends the episode ends is a time jump is a 10 year time jump the the series is set in 2016 so okay we're set in 2016 10 years ago this
- 7:38event happened in nebraska where they're going to investigate
- 7:43Apparently there's aliens involved.
- 7:46Nobody believes that it's aliens except for Kyle Chandler or Hal Jordan,
- 7:52I should say.
- 7:53And they're there to investigate this small town thing.
- 7:57And this leads to a mystery,
- 8:01a murder mystery that for all of us detective story fans,
- 8:06true detective fans,
- 8:07Slow Horses,
- 8:08if you ever watch that show,
- 8:10really good show.
- 8:12All that.
- 8:13those elements are there and i'm like okay they're gonna slowly roll out this mystery and how uh uh the lanterns are gonna solve it and what what what's next around the corner who's who because this show has already promised us and this isn't a spoiler it was in the trailer that
- 8:33uh uh man hunters are going to appear on this show and man hunters if you don't know if you're not into the Comics are shapeshift.
- 8:43so they could be walking amongst us and we don't know this and so that's there so who's who who is who who is real who is whatever and at the end of the episode we
- 8:59get a time jump to 2026 and hal jordan's dead and that just killed all the allure because up to that point
- 9:12this was an awesome show i was so impressed with the show still impressed it that didn't deter me enough to whereas i'm not watching it but what it did do it took away my
- 9:28guessing what's next element out of the show i don't i don't feel hal jordan is going to be in any peril throughout this this season you know when we go
- 9:39I guess this nonlinear storytelling that we're going to be telling here because,
- 9:44you know,
- 9:45it opens up another mystery.
- 9:46Who murdered
- 9:48Hal Jordan here?
- 9:50Or is that Hal Jordan?
- 9:52You know,
- 9:53because that could be another mystery.
- 9:56But it opens up a lot of things here that I don't,
- 10:01I just don't like that.
- 10:02You know,
- 10:04nonlinear storytelling is fine if it works.
- 10:09You know,
- 10:09if it works properly,
- 10:11if it's used properly.
- 10:13Um.
- 10:15And it could.
- 10:16This could pay off.
- 10:18But I wasn't expecting that on the first episode.
- 10:22You know what I'm saying?
- 10:23And it just sucked all the air out of the balloon because it was firing on all cylinders.
- 10:31The chemistry between Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre were great.
- 10:35All of the other actors,
- 10:37the supporting actors in this small town,
- 10:40when you had
- 10:41Kelly, McDonald,
- 10:44uh oh man i can't forget i keep forgetting his name uh he he shows up is garrett something i can't remember his last name but he's great uh uh jason ritter uh and others i i'm i'm blanking on their names but the supporting cast was
- 11:03great you know and i liked how that dynamic was working i loved the small town feel of it all it felt real and authentic and grounded
- 11:13all of this was working the mystery was working the reveal of the alien was working all everything worked it was a perfect episode and then that happened you know right
- 11:29at the end and i'm like why why did you waste that that was a perfect moment i mean you could have saved that and that could have been the story for next season you know what i'm saying it didn't have to happen
- 11:43this soon i already went into this season or went into this this series believing that hal jordan was going to die because if you knew the comics that's pretty much how john stewart became the green lantern so
- 11:59that wasn't a shock none of that that it didn't shock me but the thing was we're telling this story this particular story and it takes all of
- 12:13the allure away from it and i hope i'm just hoping that it doesn't damage my enjoyment of the show now i'm gonna go full naive i'm gonna go full uh uh uh just
- 12:29blanking it out of my head and pretend it didn't happen and i'm gonna pretend like it didn't happen and go for like they know what they're doing i'm confident they know what they're doing
- 12:42And let's see how it all plays out.
- 12:45Like I said before,
- 12:47this could be a red herring.
- 12:48This could be a swerve.
- 12:52Maybe that wasn't Hal Jordan.
- 12:54Because when
- 12:56Jon Stewart checked him for the ring,
- 12:58he didn't have the ring.
- 13:00And so,
- 13:02hey,
- 13:04maybe that's something else.
- 13:06Maybe that's one of the mind hunters.
- 13:09I don't know.
- 13:10I don't know.
- 13:10I guess I have to continue to watch to see.
- 13:13But that's part of the mystery.
- 13:16That is part of the mystery.
- 13:18And to be fair,
- 13:19True Detective kind of did the same thing,
- 13:22you know,
- 13:22with their nonlinear storytelling.
- 13:25But at least that first season I know did for sure.
- 13:28But it worked.
- 13:30The way they did it worked.
- 13:35It didn't kill the main character in the first episode.
- 13:39And then we had to bounce back,
- 13:41you know.
- 13:42So,
- 13:42we'll see.
- 13:45We'll see how this all plays out.
- 13:47But
- 13:48I enjoyed it.
- 13:50I enjoyed it.
- 13:51Other than that,
- 13:52I really thought this was great.
- 13:54I loved the writing.
- 13:55I loved the acting.
- 13:57I loved the directing here.
- 14:00And I mentioned
- 14:01Slow Horses.
- 14:02The director of this episode is one of the directors on Slow Horses.
- 14:08So,
- 14:08that was...
- 14:09pretty uh that was pretty smart on their end to keep that vibe going so i'm all in on that the mystery has me intrigued how they're going to uncover this big cover-up and everything else uh i am fully
- 14:26all invested in this show let's see let's see if my worries can be put to rest as we continue to watch
- 14:37this first season of lanterns but you let me know is it me am i tripping maybe maybe maybe i'm reading into this too much i think i think maybe my elevate my my uh uh uh expectations were elevated super
- 14:57high and that just let me down in that in those final two to three minutes of the episode.
- 15:06Maybe.
- 15:07Maybe.
- 15:08But hey.
- 15:10then let me know let me know i need you to talk me off the ledge maybe maybe you see it differently maybe you see well kevin you don't understand you know you're an idiot this is the reason why it's such as such as such and now i'll hey i'm open to that i'm open to listen i'm open to learn how can you let me know subscribe to the kbradionetwork.com website where you can be updated
- 15:37on all episodes that's dropping.
- 15:39on this network as well as previous episodes that we have on the show don't forget about youtube subscribe to the kb radio network channel and like this video while you're there don't forget about the five stars the reviews and sharing this show if you're listening on apple podcast spotify our heart radio wherever you are currently listening to the concession stand here on
- 16:06the KB Radio Network.
- 16:08Everybody.
- 16:09thank you for joining me for this review of the premiere episode of dc studios lanterns want you all to know that i love you continue to love everyone and until we speak again you all be blessed