Tonight the wife and I finished out the TV show Daredevil with a marathon of the last half of the season. Despite it being late, I want to stick to my committment to write something here every day, so here’s my quick thoughts on the show (should be spoiler free).

First, I really liked how gritty the show was. It really had a great feel, and the look of the show made you believe that these places existed and that these events could really have been happening. I actually prefered the black mask costume to the full armor for this reason, as it gave his character a darker tone. So many dark areas also gave credibility to the strength of a blind hero, since he doesn’t need light to fight.

That dark tone mattered because, unlike many other good guy vs bad guy shows, every character in this show was flawed. The villains were mostly people who were broken and damaged. More than once I felt pity for the life experiences that had made them who they were. But yet the good guys were also flawed and broken. The internal struggle that Murdock went through as he wrestled with the type of hero he was becoming was extremely well played out. The long conversations with his priest were some of the best dialog of the show.

There were flaws in the show, and perhaps the biggest one for me was the fact that it felt like every single fight scene resulted in Daredevil having his butt handed to him. It started to feel like he just wasn’t that good at being a kick-butt hero. There were many fights where he simply escaped with his life and didn’t really ‘win’. Despite this fact, the fight choreography was amazing and beautiful. The motions were fluid and smooth, and only occasionally looked like something that would be impossible in real life.

The overall story and plot of the season was also well presented, and I enjoyed it. Yet, like the fight scenes it often felt like the heroes were fighting such a tremendous uphill battle that you started wondering how they could ever succeed. Thankfully, the ending wasn’t too formulaic, and I enjoyed how they tied up most of the loose ends.

A second season is rumored to be in the works, hopefully it can continue the high standards that this season put forth.