TITANS Premiere Gives Hope For The Rest Of The Season
The long-awaited 'Titans' show is here and it delivers a surprisingly good premiere, while there are definitely some issues, the bad doesn't outweigh the good and has me excited for the rest of the season!
For those who haven't watched the premiere, be advised that there will be minor spoilers and so avoiding this review would be a good idea until you have watched the episode.
Well, it's finally here. Titans has been rather controversial among fans due to the trailers and promotion pictures being rather dark and broody. However, the premiere actually works pretty well and that's mainly due to the way the characters have been handled. The first episode primarily focuses on Dick and Raven, we get some Starfire as well and we have a brief introduction to Beast Boy. So, here's my review for the premiere of the long-awaited Titans show.
One of the biggest concerns I had when watching this episode was Starfire. I think it's clear that Starfire has been the biggest source of controversy among people mainly because the appearance of the character is not all too similar to the comics. However, I won't talk about that too much for now, I think it's more important to talk about the actress and whether or not she does a good job. For the most part Anna Diop does a pretty good job actually, as someone who hasn't watched anything from her previous work I was pretty impressed and having watched her take on the character in this episode, I can honestly say I can get used to this take of the character. I have a few issues with the character for sure but I didn't hate her. However, I also don't like her as much as I wanted to which is a shame because I'm a huge fan of the Teen Titans/TItans comics. She was the weaker link in the episode but the actress does a good job with what she was given. The problem is just the writing for the character and the take they've decided to go with for her look.
The show divides the time mainly between Raven and Dick Grayson but there's a scene with Starfire in which she's looking for a guy called Konstantin Kovar. For those who don't know, Konstantin Kovar was a villain on season 5 of Arrow but this will be a different take on the character. In the comics the son of Konstantin Kovar, Leonid Kovar develops powers after a spaceship crash that he was involved in. Leonid Kovar develops a superhero name 'Red Star' after he joins the Teen Titans in the 1980s, however his involvement wasn't too large on the team. It will be interesting to see if they do something similar on the show and perhaps give us Red Star as a member through the season.
Overall, I was pretty impressed with the premiere and it has me excited for the rest of the season. Sure, I had a few issues with the premiere but nothing that took away from the story or the overall show. I do hope they improve the look they decided on for Starfire and that Teagan's acting gets better. I do understand why they only briefly showed Beast Boy as it would've been too crammed but I am hoping they show us more of him in the next episode as he is one of my favourite characters from the Teen Titans comics. If they decide on giving us Red Star as a team member than I do hope he doesn't stick around for too long as there are other characters that I would like to see on the team instead. For now, the premiere did a good job introducing us to Raven, Robin and Starfire so I am excited to see what the show has in store for us. I ended up giving this episode a 7.5/10 which is a pretty good score for a pilot and I can see the show getting better.