Marvel's 'The Defenders' is without a doubt one of the worst properties they have ever produced. This is coming from someone who has seen the entirety of Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. with all its inconsistencies between seasons. After watching the pilot of Iron fist and skipping it, and after barely finishing Luke Cage, I couldn't help but wonder if this would be as bad as I thought would be. Skepticism prevailed, and though I watched the whole season, at the end it was more of an experiment in morbid curiosity and comedic value.

I'll jump into characters to start, following the Good, Bad, and Ugly formula.

**THE GOOD**
Daredevil, Matt Murdock was actually pretty good during the first half of the season. His scenes spent interacting with Jessica Jones were very fun, sharply written, and the two seemed to have a genuine chemistry that carried them to [spoiler] the diner scene, which I will talk about later as it's quite a point of contention for me with its lackluster cinematography and editing. [/spoiler]

Jessica Jones, as mentioned before, probably had some of the most memorable scenes this season, with her signature "I'm kind of an asshole, but everyone deals with it" schtick remaining from Season 1 of her standalone show. They drop hints at [spoiler] Killgrave's death affecting her, [/spoiler] but it never really goes beyond that. Jessica also has decent chemistry with Luke Cage, but everything is stilted by bad writing. [spoiler] Has anyone else noticed she sort of looks like Michael Jackson? [/spoiler]

Claire and Colleen were doing the best they could with their scripts, and it showed. The final showdown when they team up is actually crafted pretty well, when set against the Jackson Pollock painting of a story the rest of the show is.

Stick, with his David Carridane-esque delivery and presence was also a treat to watch [spoiler] until Electra killed him. Damn shame that they offed him in such a way. [/spoiler]

**THE BAD**
Luke Cage has a few decent moments here and there, and even bros out with Doom...err... Iron Fist when the going gets tough. Luke seems to have not much to do than be a bouncer (literally, his skin reflects bullets) for the entirety of the show, which is to be expected when half of this proverbial A-Team has ninja training.

Finally we get to the fourth and WORST Defender of them all, The Immortal Iron Fist, Protector of Shun-Lun, Master of the Universe, Mother of Dragons, and Heir to the Iron Throne. Joking aside, every time he had a name drop I couldn't help but groan. Disney-Marvel greenlit this? They greenlit his casting? Couldn't they have picked literally anyone else? Danny Rand had no good moments the entire show, and spent the back half of the season complaining about everything for nothing other than contrived conflict brought on by the Jack Sparrow equivalent of villains. As viewing went on, he got many a nickname. Archer fans will recognize Fisto-Roboto. Because of how robotic his delivery was.

Electric Nachos (Elektra Natchios) was as bad as she was in Daredevil Season 2. The lack of personality was actually ok for this season, [spoiler] her becoming a blank slate and slowly remembering things, that is. [/spoiler] I really wish they could have done something more with the duality of thought. Just look to the superior show, Legion. The framework is all there. Just borrow the highlights and come up with something original to put a bow on it.

**THE UGLY**
ALL. OF. THE. VILLAINS.
What were they thinking? These villains are supposed to be a fearsome world ending organization. And they just fail at EVERY turn. There are never any stakes. There is never any good dialogue. None of them live up to their potential. and by God if the great Sigourney Weaver's talent isn't wasted on the tripe they fed her in terms of dialogue. How could anyone think the lines were passable? None of these characters had their motivations spelled out.

What I've come to expect from these shows is a villain that has motives, meaning, and motivation to be doing what they're doing. The Hand are [spoiler] after magic fluid that makes them immortal [/spoiler]. Yep that's it. Instead of spending an episode with each of the villains like we did with Kingpin in season 1 and 2 of Daredevil, all we get is strung out lines fed into a few scenes here and there where they're panicking about the newly assumed Superfriends Scooby Gang that is somehow systematically eliminating the forces that once brought Daredevil himself to the brink of death a few times.

**CINEMATOGRAPHY**
I'm a bit pickier on this than most people. I like my high budget properties to have a certain level of polish. Who in their right mind let the director of photography do so damn many orbiting spinning shots? The biggest offender has to be the diner scene, where they decide that the best way to go about doing 4 solid minutes of dialogue is an orbiting camera on dolly track, going between each character. And that's all it is. A spinning shot. The same spinning shot that we've seen three times before this, and many more after, with basically any scene that Sigourney ends up being in, for some odd reason. The rest of it is just so uninspired, so plastic with an "edgy" flair.

What surprised me the most, though, is that the show sets up in episode 1 so promisingly, by attempting to use the unique styleguide that each show before provided as a template, to lay the foundation for each character. After the rapid-fire montage of each character, they slowly begin to meet through circumstance, as one would expect, but in an instant, (around episode 2 or so), all personality is lost. What happens is 'The Defenders' begins to not look like anything, and lose all sense of personality and self by the way of one of the two most important prongs of the visual medium, the cinematography. This, coupled with the writing that didn't know what it wanted to be made for a crisis of self within the work, a disconcerting string that radiates through the rest of the season. Which brings me to...

**WRITING**
I've said a lot about the writing on the show thus far. To not beat a dead horse, I'll add one more unique thing that I found particularly annoying. You know that thing where they say your brain is more likely to like a song when you can recognize the chord structures and patterns before they happen? The same is NOT true for that of writing dialogue. I've seen a lot of TV, I'll be the first to admit. More than a lot of people. Not quite 'Abed' from 'Community', but I'm getting there. --When your show decides to pick the most common, thinkable response to everything to the point where I can say the line before it happens, rewrite the bloody line. Even the CW show, 'RIVERDALE' of all things is better at that than 'The Defenders'.

I'm begging the team that had compelling narrative and lines with Daredevil, The Punisher, and Kingpin back in Daredevil season 2, please hire some new people. I don't know how you managed to make magic happen back then, but the decline in quality between those two shows is astounding, and if papa Disney gave a shit, they'd have checked you a bit more. Maybe we're at that point finally where these things aren't a concern anymore, and basically everyone that has a Netflix account will watch the shows, but please don't waste the fan's time with subpar everything.

**CONCLUSION**
All in all, this show is a small trash fire. I'd say about office recycling bin size. While it isn't a full on dumpster fire, It's still not just a pile of waste that HASN'T been set on fire. If you're like me and have a morbid curiosity about bad properties, and decide to learn from their mistakes when it comes to your own work, I'd recommend still giving it a watch. It is truly a master class in high budget bullshit, with a few moments peppered in here and there to keep you from losing interest entirely.

4/10.