Marvel’s The Defenders – Season 1: Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez’s series (the fifth in the shared Netflix universe) presents a storyline that is more focused, even if it takes a while to get rolling and unite all the threads. It’s also more action-packed than the previous entries, which makes it a more furious watch, but allows for less of the character insights than those. The larger scale of the conflict makes it less rather than more interesting. The characters are, in general terms, very consistent with what they were before; alas, given the storyline, more time is spent with the less interesting of the four. Finn Jones is the weaker chain of this cast, and is also given the worst character to play; Charlie Cox and Mike Colter fare better, but it’s Krysten Ritter that deserves the spotlight, even if she gets less to do than her castmates. Sigourney Weaver is a welcome addition (which continues the trend seen in all these series of having strong females characters both as protagonists and antagonists), and Wai Ching Ho (another constant in the universe) is fine as ever. The gritty look is appropriate, well-used; the action scenes are well-choreographed and executed, but hyper-edited, making them hard to follow.

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