When I heard they were releasing a Swamp Thing series on DC Universe, I was very excited. I love any opportunity for Matt Ryan to be able to play Constantine on screen. He is so much like the character. No one could play him better, but Sting himself. Also, the dark and mystic tones of Swamp Thing were going to be a nice addition, possibly paving a way for Justice League Dark. Then the series came out, and while the first episodes were promising, the creators seemed to either not think so, or had no interest in it, announcing that it was cancelled only a couple episodes in.
This was increasingly shocking due to the fact that fans had been positive for the show so far. So without further ado, lets dig in and see if they made the right choice. As always we break down the critiques of the three categories: Story, Acting, and Overall. So let’s wade into the swamp.
STORY: 5/10
The villian of the show was pretty meh. While the original story isn’t the same it wouldn’t really work out in the show though. In comics a lot of heroes origins are, a thing happens, and the reason for it is not very large in scope. Later in the series they may retcon a deeper connection to another person to craft an arch-enemy, but the format of it being an accident, or a freak event allows the writers to focus more on them learning their abilities, and testing their mental state then to immediately jump into combat with their greatest enemy. That doesn’t seem to work for TV and movies. A long winded drag out would be frustrating for TV viewers. So they took two important figures in the comic and they made them be the reason for Swamp Thing being created.
Additionally, they took a lot of the focus off of Swamp Thing/Alec Holland story, and decided for some reason to delve into the story of Abby Arcane. It’s an odd choice for the first season of a show to steal spotlight off of the main character. It makes a little sense to make the audience feel connected to her, since they do very little in the show to showcase why Swamp Thing is connected to her. If Alec Holland never turned into Swamp Thing, and he followed Abby Arcane around and was obsessed with her like Swamp Thing was, he’d have a restraining order slapped on him.
ACTING: 8.5/10
Derek Mears, the actor inside the Swamp Thing costume does an amazing job conveying physical emotion, through a ghillie suit on steroids. Crystal Reed who portrays Abby Arcane is a little one note in parts, but you can feel her connection to her friends, and the fued with Maria Sunderland is very strongly in her presentation. Will Patton comes off as a deep and multi-leveled character as Avery Sunderland and it’s not surprising, as he usually gives an amazing performance, even when the movie is “Gone in 60 Seconds”. The only draw back is the acting of Kevin Durand as Jason Woodrue. He just comes off as completely wooden throughout the entire series. Every time I saw him, I couldn’t get Elon Musk out of my mind for some reason, but his character modivations seem lost as he spends most of his scenes staring into what appears to be nothing, a blank look on his face. With his tragic story line, I expected more.
OVERALL: 6/10
I loved the beginning of the story for the Blue Devil, and was excited to see his inclusion. Ian Ziering was a good casting, and he did great in the role, well as good as he could do. However, re-writing large sections of the lore of Swamp Thing, by removing John Constantine from it, and replacing him with a Satan-esc character who does the exact same thing as Constantine was quite a gaff on the studios part if you ask me. I know that Matt Ryan was interested in coming on the show, he has been on multiple other DC TV Shows, but their reluctance to allow the possibility that the DC Universe shows are in the same world as the CW Universe shows is baffling. It took them almost three years to let Black Lightning play with the other shows, and they are on the same network!
Sometimes DC shoots itself in the foot. Would it have fixed the story? No, but it would have at least made it a better show because it makes it more then a small one-shot window in the world that starts and stops unconnected to anything else in the DC franchises.
Conner’s Final Thought(s):
I can see why DC cancelled the show. It had high production costs, was difficult to make, didn’t fit into the theme of the other DC Universe shows they were making, and the writing started to drop in quality and story by episode three. It is definitely worth watching, and I am glad I did so, but I understand now having seen the whole show why DC Universe made the choice that they did.
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