Just watched the first episode and, so far, this show is quite a little gem. Take note, this is how you adapt a comic book into a show.
Super gritty, really more violent and bloody than I expected (for a comic book show, I mean, for a crime drama it's really standard) and with a writing that doesn't handhold, the dialogues feel natural and less expository.
I found myself thinking about how much I dislike Gotham and it's not because of the "too many Batman villains" usual complaint - it's because the characters and the world isn't really believable, the mobsters are cartoons and you don't really feel any threat from their way of talking or acting even tho you see them murder and do violent crimes. In a real world, people like the Penguin, Maroni or Falcone would be already dead or overthrown because of their very lenient behaviour. Were this, say, The Sopranos and you'd pretty much have a blood bath after that whole "Maroni is keeping the Penguin". Penguin would had been the first to go, just as soon as Maroni found out that he used to work for the other family. But I digress, this is about DD!
In Hell's Kitchen, the bad guys are properly cunning without being moustache twirling and they take a pratical and ground approach to their ways of doing "business". This first episode cast a huge shadow without ever giving us or showing us Wilson Fisk and that is how you introduce a major player. It was wonderfully set up and left me in the edge of my seat. This Kingpin means business and is intimidating even before we see him. Great kudos to Wesley which was brilliantly performed and fleshed out beyond more than the lapdog they call him. He has the confidence to back up his threats and you fear him because you know he's not bluffing.
The show also shines in it's protagonist. It embraces it's mythos and particularities but without handholding and showing more than it explains - you don't need to be told that he can hear really well, it's implied in the visual and sound direction. Speaking of which, this show has great cinematography and postproduction. It's amazing what a little color correction and mood lighting can do to a scene and it uses them beautifully. I loved the detail of Matt's apartment being illuminated by that big billboard and that having an effect of the price of the place. It's those little touches that elevate the show beyond an expository superhero show that only focuses on getting the thin plot across the dumbest viewer into a real show with meat and bones that's not afraid to delve into the language of fine moviemaking.
Acting was great all around. Charlie Cox is a great Matt Murdock, I'd dare to call him Marvel's TV Robert Downey Junior, but it's still early. He embodies the character really well.
I left the episode feeling that this is not a "superhero show", where the genre already comes with a subset of concessions and lowered expectations because of it's entertainment-only value, but rather I feel that this is "a show-show" with a story to tell and should be treated like so. This is not a superhero series, this is a series about a guy who happens to be Marvel's Daredevil. And a good series at that.
Marvel believed in the material and it shows. I was hoping for something good and it really delivered. Thank god there's a new show like this so that I don't have to watch the lower crap while I wait for the big good ones like Game of Thrones.
Let's see where it takes us but, judging from the critics, I feel like the rest of the episodes will not disappoint.
