With the first season of HBO Max’s Peacemaker series coming to an end, many subscribers to the service will be looking for anything that can fill the John Cena-shaped hole in their hearts. They’ll have plenty to miss as The Suicide Squad spin-off has been as violent, silly, and touching as its full-length counterpart. There is another season of Jame Gunn’s hit show coming eventually, but in the meantime, there is another show that does everything Peacemaker does just as well, if not better: the hilariously odd and oddly heart-breaking Doom Patrol.
While its first season made its underseen debut on the short-lived DC Universe, Doom Patrol has found a new home on HBO Max. Two more excellent seasons have come out since the switch, so thankfully, there’s plenty to binge on, and there’s already a fourth season on the way.
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Largely based on Grant Morrison’s legendary run on the comic series, Doom Patrol is about a truly strange group of superheroes played by Brendan Fraser as Robotman AKA Cliff Steele, Matt Bomer as Larry Trainor, Joivan Wade as Cyborg AKA Vic Stone, Diane Guerrero as Jane, and April Bowlby as Rita Farr. They are led by Timothy Dalton as their wheelchair-bound chief. There’s nothing else quite like it on the air right now.
Let’s explore a few reasons this show stands out among the current glut of superhero shows.
Surreal Meets Silly
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If you had to sum up Doom Patrol with one word, “odd” might be the best option. To give just a taste of the show’s bizarre world, there is a character named Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man (Alec Mapa) who, in addition to other transformations caused by an experiment gone wrong, gains a Velociraptor head that he constantly argues with. This only begins to scratch the surface of all the weirdness going on.
However, the show goes to great lengths to ensure that no matter how strange it gets, there is a reason behind the madness. Surreal and Dadaist moments are used for laughs and to explore the characters’ psyches and tell a compelling story. Doom Patrol is often very silly, but always with a purpose beyond shock value.
The show also features Danny the Street, which, as their name implies, is a sentient street. Having a non-binary street as a recurring character is not something most shows would do, but Doom Patrol’s unique world allows for their identity to be celebrated.
Doom Patrol, Assemble!
What keeps the show grounded while its plot goes wild are the excellent performances from the core and supporting casts. While it’s truly an ensemble cast, of particular note are Brendan Fraser and Diane Guerrero. Fraser voices former race car driver Cliff Steele, while actor Riley Shanahan is the actual person in the Robotman suit. Cliff could be an incredibly unpleasant character due to his obstinate nature, but Fraser’s vocal performance gives so much pathos to the character, even when he’s dropping f-bombs left and right.
This Tin Man Has a Heart
A great cast and a fun world would be enough to make the show entertaining, but the writers clearly wanted to make something with more depth. Each Doom Patrol member went through their own traumatic experience to gain their superpowers, and the show explores their respective difficulties with grace. These tragic backstories aren’t one-note like they are in many other superhero origin stories.
Each member of the Doom Patrol went through a specific crisis to become the hero they are today, but their hardship extends beyond that single moment. Just like in real life, their trauma is not neatly contained within a single event; it’s messy and obtuse. The show is ultimately about how the characters deal with that trauma, how these broken people deal with their past mistakes, and the harm done to them by others.
It is honestly a slight stretch to call Doom Patrol a superhero show; its main characters are much more dysfunctional than super and end up making things worse as much as they make them better. Despite this, the show delivers all the action and humor one could want from a superhero show while also building well-rounded and sympathetically flawed characters. These disparate elements come together to make a uniquely compelling show.
