Doom Patrol

The+Doom+Patrol+Poster+and+Production+

“The Doom Patrol” Poster and Production

Michael Martinez- Melara, Contributing Writer

Besides the town-eating donkey, numerous world-bending villains, a teleporting street, and a bunch of rag tags poorly mismatched all with their own chaotic mental problems team of “superheroes”, Cloverton, Ohio, is a nice, quiet town to raise a family.

Doom Patrol Poster

The main characters are Cliff Steele, “Robotman,” who is a pro racer in the ’80s, who is also a terrible father/person and got into a car accident. The only thing surviving from the crash was his brain, which has to live with the fact that it is now stuck in a robot body. “Crazy” Jane, a woman who has 64 different personalities each with superpowers that were created from childhood trauma, and with a lot of hidden history to her. Larry Trainor, “negative man,” is a gay pilot who had to hide it since he comes from the 1950s and is split between wanting to be himself and living a wanting to live a life with his gay partner or his normal life with his wife and 2 sons and meeting up to social expectations. He proceeds to get into a crash with an extra-dimensional being who now lives inside him and is radioactive and has to wear bandages all over his body. Rita Farr, an actress from the 60s who had an accident on a film set in Africa where her body turned into a blob, is stuck living in the past as she admires her past life and doesn’t move on. Victor Stone, “Cyborg,” is the only one who actually considers themself a superhero and tends to help others while the other members tend to help themselves. And finally the “Chief,” Niles Caulder, a famous scientist who has made many enemies and holds lots of secrets from the other members. 

Doom Patrol has 3 seasons with a total of 34 episodes. From the surface, it looks like a comedic TV show about a bunch of weird superheroes, like Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Some of these weird things are similar to it, like the town eating donkey, Danny the street who is a living being that takes the form of a street who can teleport and is a safe haven for misfits and outcasts to live, numerous weird villains, Mr. Nobody, a Nazi who got mutated in an accident by the chief and can go through dimensions, an evil robot called “Brain” (looking like one of those robots you see in restaurants that opens up and serves your food”, an evil talking melica gorilla, and a shape-shifting evil lady who has amnesia, but it has so much more to it. 

All of these characters are like us, going through so many of their own problems which a lot of people can relate back to. The show follows the typical ‘good VS bad,’ and develops it in a deeper sense with them going against themselves and their past and trying to reattain their relationships with either what they love or their loved ones. For example, Negative Man tries to reunite with his sons, and Rita Farr tries to relive her good old days as an actress. 

I recommend this show to people who are into atypical fiction or deep shows with a mix between both of them. You don’t need to know anything about the comics. I didn’t know anything about them other than just one hilarious scene from the show and I was completely hooked by the first episode. 

Doom Patrol showcases nudity, drug use, extreme violence, and profanity, and is rated for mature audiences.

Overall, I rate this show as a 9/10 and a fourth season is in the making, premiering sometime in 2022, so it is a good time to get a start on it.