TV Review: TITANS: Season 1, Episodes 1-7 [DC Universe]

Titans Doom Patrol Review

Doom Patrol is an introduction episode except few introductory episodes are executed this well. The way in which each Doom Patrol member displays their ability, ailment, or affliction, in an organic way within the storyline, shows a high degree of skill and care by writer Geoff Johns for peripheral characters (though Doom Patrol will be getting their own TV series).

What sets the Doom Patrol members apart from the Titans members (except for Dick Grayson) is that the characters speak from established personalities, personalities that the viewer only gets a glimpse of in this episode.

The Doom Patrol character intros can easily be a disaster but everything is handled just right, especially Larry Trainor / Negative Man (Matt Bomer, Matthew Zuk)’s dancing, food preparation scene in Dr. Niles Caulder / The Chief (Bruno Bichir)’s kitchen.

The flashback scenes with Dr. Niles Caulder in Doom Patrol are one of the highlights of the episode. The flashbacks take Titans outside of its established parameters and broadened the TV series. The scene with Garfield “Gar” Logan / Beast Boy in the Congo contracting the Sakutia illness can be an episode onto itself (and probably should be because of the elements present.)

Dr. Caulder’s eventual malevolent actions toward Rachel Roth / Raven in Doom Patrol result in the mega-manifestation of Raven’s power, letting all those gathered witness it, making Raven and Dick Grayson’s potential friendship real (when he talks her down) but there is the lingering question proceeding it.

Why did The Chief have Garfield Logan, someone that has already given him a problem that day, in the operating room? Why didn’t Dr. Niles Caulder err on the side of caution and knock out Raven before opening his box and taking out his hypodermic needle? These two back-to-back mistakes from a genius,  with all of the dangers he’s faced in the past, are extremely dubious. Would a genius really be this consecutively slow-minded, skipping over the obvious and safe for the risky and unpredictable? I don’t think so. It’s more likely this is an instance of lackluster writing i.e. a means to an end regardless of logic by Greg Berlanti, Geoff Johns, and Akiva Goldsman.