Doom Patrol understands what makes superhero TV shows great: wackiness

Rolling Stone

The DC Universe series is "refreshingly self-aware," says Alan Sepinwall, "both in the hilarious meta narration by Alan Tudyk as the team’s archenemy Mr. Nobody ... and in its more fundamental understanding that if you make a show about these characters, you’d best come weird or not come at all. Its highs aren’t as high, but it’s more consistently satisfying." He adds that Doom Patrol seems to understand "that the best — and, not coincidentally, weirdest and funniest — of its CW counterparts, Legends of Tomorrow, figured out a few years back: There is a fundamental absurdity to these stories, and you can (and should) embrace that while still treating your characters and their emotions as real and worth caring about....Superhero weirdness for its own sake can have its limits, as we’ve seen with Legion. But so many modern comic-book adaptations default to sober and joyless that the eccentricities of Doom Patrol (and, on disappointingly rare occasions, Umbrella Academy) couldn’t feel more refreshing."

ALSO:

• Doom Patrol is a welcome combination of old-school effects and a barrage of baroque CGI weirdness
• It succeeds by taking everything seriously -- except superheroes themselves
• Doom Patrol may be too offbeat to stand out
• It's a vast improvement over Titans, favoring irreverence and fun over grungy edginess
• Why Doom Patrol considers itself "Misfit Justice League"