Preacher – Follow up
SPOILER-FREE TELEVISION REVIEW: SEASON 1 – EPISODES 3 & 4
Excitement can lead to words like “tantalising” and “relentless”. Madness I say.
A great pilot doth not maketh the great show so let’s, once again, plunge slightly sideways into the gruesome world of Preacher.
I asked the question can Preacher keep up the relentless pace?
Well do ya? Punk?
You can read excitable gibberish about episodes 1 and 2 here, which might help with the following.
Do you know how much sets cost? How much does it costs to move your entire cast and crew around and feed the bastards? I haven’t got a clue, but I’m sure that’s the primary reason Preacher hasn’t moved on from its bright beginning.
Yeeeap.
Meandering.
The show feels constrained, than again comparing any comic-book adaptation to its source material is a swift kick to the nuts. After all comics can go as far as the imagination can allow. Unless you run out of precious ink money.
Preachers still very good, but that bubbling excitement has died down. It still has “those” moments, but we’ve been introduced to many a moment of TV character growth. I’m not against character growth, that would be mad, but character growth in TV land is pretty formulaic and mundane. It kinda sucks the life out of a whizzbang show like Preacher. What do I mean by this?
Acting
In the comic (imagine that said in the tone of a patronising granddad, like, “back in my day young man”) Odin Quincannon was a series of comic-book punchlines. He was a lot of disposable fun and was around to reinforce Jesse Custer’s manly-man ways and principles. We can’t have that in superior TV land can we? Whilst Quincannon’s demented, if not muted, fun remains, we have to pad it out with some semblance of “reality” and backstory with Custer’s daddy. Fuck that. I’m content with the shallow pervert businessman of the comic. Plus you’ve got a naff love-interest church lady for the Preacher, that does nothing and goes nowhere and no, I can’t remember her name and refuse to look it up.
Now I’ll reiterate from the previous more excitable article, the casting is still fantastic. The notable additions of the alien Anatol Yusef and Tom Brooke have improved the show considerably and like before, hint at excitement to come.
Couple of fun lads.
The story hasn’t begun. Cassidy and Tulip have had nothing to do. Tulip is literally pottering around, wasting time, waiting for her story to start. If this wasn’t Preacher you’d wonder why she’s even in the show at this point. Her exciting entrance could have been saved for episode bloody 4.
Start the fucking story.
I don’t mind the TV show changing things up from the comic, being it’s own erm.. man an’ all. After all, that is the Preacher way, but right now, it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Brooding serious insight into godlike powers or over the top, yee-haw, stupidity? The comic starts with a Preacher leaving faith behind, the TV show starts with a Preacher working as a Preacher. Which one do you wanna watch?
Angry cowboy lad.
Back to my original point, the show needs to be a massive hit, to get the massive advertising money, to pay for the massive madness we all crave. That wont happen if we’re stuck in the one location for a while. We’re all trapped, like Jesse’s power. Episode 3 was bloody slow and I thought, that’s ok. You can have a bit of calm before the storm. Episode 4 was more of the same. Christ, it faintly reminds me of the dreary second season of the Walking Dead, please don’t be a whole season of that.
Not disappointed yet, but I’m no longer barking at anyone to watch it.