I had this idea that Damon Lindelof was supposed to be a good, exceptionally clever writer. I guess because I still think Prometheus is underrated. But last night's pilot episode for Lanterns, which he co-wrote with Chris Mundy and Tom King, was pedestrian at best. Maybe Mundy and King are to blame, but I heard King was supposed to be a good writer, too. Maybe sometimes things just don't work and it's no-one's fault.
I wonder who first pitched the idea of a Green Lantern show that aped True Detective. There's also kind of a Taylor Sheridan quality here, too, with all the cowboy hats and midwest milieu. It all felt slightly cynical, especially since the teleplay makes it clear that the writers do not share the politics of the people the show's ostensibly trying to appeal to. But the main problem is that the show's just boring. When we see the young black child getting inspired by the white superhero I thought, yeah, I've already seen this on Wonder Man and it felt cheaply manipulative there, too.
The actors are fine, particularly Kyle Chandler, who's charismatic despite being stuck in ornery mode like every other character on the show. I was surprised and happy to see Kelly Macdonald, an actress I like, though, as with her character on Skeleton Crew, she's again playing outside her range. She was perfect as the sweet, guileless wife in No Country for Old Men and the slowly awakening New Woman on Boardwalk Empire but, like Mary Elizabeth Winstead, or like Tommy in Goodfellas, she seems to have an inferiority complex. For some reason it seems to be important to her that people see her as a badass.
The most interesting part of the episode was the interrogation scene but its clever part was the same clever part of Invasion USA, the 1952 film featured on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, in which a spy gives himself away due to his lack of familiarity with the Chicago Cubs.
I don't know, maybe it gets better.
Lanterns is available on HBOMax.
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