Dead Boy Detectives Is Fun for the TikTok Crowd, But It Doesn't Break the Mold

Move over, Sam and Dean Winchester, there are some new supernatural mystery solvers on the scene. The Dead Boy Detectives are taking over the ghost-hunting and demon-hunting duties on Netflix, and they're adding in British accents and the fact that they are dead themselves. Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland are DC comic book characters created by Neil Gaiman, but they have a lot more in common with the Winchesters than meets the eye. 

To understand the Netflix take on Dead Boy Detectives, you have to first understand how the show arrived on the streamer in the first place. It was originally intended as a spin-off of Doom Patrol after Sebastian Croft and Ty Tennant portrayed the ghostly sleuthing duo in Season 3. Steve Yockey (Supernatural) was developing the series when Max dropped it because it didn't fit in with new DC bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran's vision for the DC cinematic universe. 

Netflix picked up the ball and former Arrow boss Beth Schwartz was brought in to help Yockey transition the series from the Doom Patrol universe to Gaiman's The Sandman playground. Jeremy Carver, who used to oversee Supernatural and developed Doom Patrol, also remained on the project along with CW-raised super-producers Sarah Schecter and Greg Berlanti. The series was recast with Sandman's Kirby Howell-Baptiste making a cameo appearance to tie Dead Boy Detectives to its new flagship. 

Understanding Dead Boy Detectives' pedigree is crucial in understanding its appeal to elder teens and new adults. This is a show that caters to their tastes, with just the right amount of gore — blood, guts, and ooze, but never crossing the line into gruesome violence on screen. It's angsty, with a kick-ass soundtrack, and the writing team has made sure to make the most of their unlimited Netflix allotment of f-bombs. This show is designed to resonate with its target audience, shaping the criteria for which we judge the show. How many moody Tumblr and TikTok edits set to The Tortured Poets Department songs will the show inspire? How many new works will be added to the Dead Boy Detectives Archive of Our Own tag? The answer is numerous, on both accounts. 

George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri take over for Croft and Tennant as the titular detectives. Rexstrew's Edwin Paine is the buttoned-up, business-focused half of the duo, while Revri's Charles is a charming, rough-around-the-edges flirt. The pair team up with the very-alive psychic Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson) after saving her from a body-snatching demon (David Iacono) and the trio head to Port Townsend, Washington to evade Death and solve the disappearance of a young girl. Their trip extends through the season as they make new friends — Niko (Yuyu Kitamura) and Jenny (Briana Cuoco) — and foes, including the Cat King (Lukas Gage) and Esther (Jenn Lyon). 

Aesthetically, the show is stunning. Yockey and Schwartz used the budget well to flood the series with simultaneous color and gothic menace. The vibes are swoony and melancholic as Edwin "gets his degree in yearnalism," as the chronically online would say, and Charles battles his resentment of losing his life before getting to experience real love. There's humor and trauma throughout the series as the Dead Boy Detectives and their allies face literal and metaphorical demons with every case they take on. While Gaiman's signature animation style can be spotted in the monsters terrorizing Port Townsend and the central crew of the show, the overall pathos of the show is more akin to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina than Sandman. 

That's not a bad thing. Dead Boy Detectives is filling a gaping hole in the TV zeitgeist left by the creative team's former employer the CW pivoting to content for older audiences. With Sabrina and Supernatural in the graveyard of canceled TV shows, Dead Boy Detectives is providing spooky angst and binge-able horror camp for a starving audience. It's delicious TV cereal, but we've had it before. 

The detracting factor for Dead Boy Detectives is the story itself. Yockey and Carver's Supernatural experience serves them well for constructing the procedural elements of the show. The cases of the week are wacky and challenge each of the characters and different ways throughout the season. However, the collective goals of the characters don't really align until the very end of the series, making their storylines feel incohesive until the penultimate and final episodes. For a while, it's a toss-up of who exactly Edwin and Charles are running from or who their primary antagonist is, which makes it hard to focus on the overall destination of the story.

The Achilles heel of the series is hidden in the relationship between Edwin and Charles. We're told very early on that the duo are willing to do whatever it takes to spend the remainder of their afterlife together. It's a bond that's been strengthened over 30 years of solving cases together, but we also learn they've been keeping very integral information about themselves from each other — information they're respectively willing to share with their new friends only days after meeting them. It's a frustrating conundrum for the first several episodes before the pair's origin story is revealed, and even then, it feels like some of these personality-forming secrets should have surfaced during the three decades of history they built up off-screen. 

And if you're coming to Dead Boy Detectives hoping it'll fill the void until Sandman returns with new episodes, it is best to keep holding your breath. Howell-Baptiste's cameo is the singular thread connecting the two shows outside of Gaiman's aesthetic input. 

Dead Boy Detectives is staying comfortably in its teen thriller lane (but don't worry fellow horror-phobes, it is still safe to watch minus one sequence in Episode 3. Just hit fast-forward when Edwin and Crystal sneak into the hidden compartment in the house and press play when they re-emerge, and you'll be nightmare-free for the rest of the series!) 

The performances are top-notch and endearing. David Iacono deserves a special shoutout for effectively shedding his pristine, The Summer I Turned Pretty Cam Cameron persona and spreading his villain wings as the haunting David the Demon. Rexstrew deftly adds soft layers underneath Edwin's uptight and grumpy facade, while Revri is equally convincing at lobbing flirtatious barbs at Crystal and new clients as he is delivering heartbreaking rage-filled soliloquies. Nelson adds a welcome bit of spice and bite to Crystal's manic-pixie-dream-girl setup while Kitamura packs heart into Niko's deceptively vapid persona. 

Overall, Dead Boy Detectives is an aesthetically pleasing and endearing fun time. It fulfills a deep need in the TV landscape for more mature teen content. It's just not breaking the team drama mold or attempting to “prestige” itself onto an Emmy stage. It's no Euphoria, but it's still worth watching, especially if you love your teens with a dash of yearning, melancholy, and, of course, ghosts. 

Dead Boy Detectives premieres April 25 on Netflix. Join the discussion about the show in our forums. 
 

Megan Vick is a pop-culture reporter whose byline has appeared on TVGuide.com, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Reuters and more. You can find her on the internet talking about K-pop or screaming about teen romances.