Heroes come and heroes go, years pass, but some things stay the same.
It’s been a decade since Charlie Cox first donned the red-horned mask of Daredevil, the crime-fighting Marvel hero who makes up for his lack of sight with other preternaturally heightened senses and reflexes, on the dark and bloody Netflix series. Things in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the TV industry at large, were very different back in 2015: Thanos was a flicker in the Avengers’ eyes, Spider-Man was most recently played by Andrew Garfield and you could count the number of major streaming services on one hand.
Without a streaming service of its own, Marvel branched out to Netflix for some very mature shows about their “street level” heroes, the guys who are more worried about purse-snatchers than planet-enders. “Daredevil” was the first, followed by “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist,” “The Punisher” and “The Defenders.” They were all unceremoniously canceled as priorities changed and the shiny, A-list Disney+ Marvel shows (“WandaVision” and “Loki”) became the priority in the MCU. But pop culture is cyclical, and as some complain of Marvel fatigue, the always-adapting comics-based studio is happy for everything old to be new again.
And so we have “Daredevil: Born Again” (streaming Tuesdays, ★★ out of four), a revival of “Daredevil,” this time on Disney+, a streaming service that once balked at the idea of mature content rubbing shoulders with “Frozen” and “Star Wars.” After Disney+ began streaming those old Marvel Netflix shows a few years ago, it became clear there was an audience for more macabre violence and despair in the streets of New York. With Cox back in the red jumpsuit and the excellent Vincent D’Onofrio willing to go bald again to play archenemy Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, “Born Again” came together faster than Daredevil could stop a mugging. It’s all neat, tidy and reeking of corporate synergy.
But while it looks and smells the same as the old “Daredevil,” it doesn’t feel quite as ambitious and exciting. It’s a very good copy, but the creativity and exhilaration were lost in the reach for fidelity.
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So what’s the “where are they now” scoop on the “Daredevil” crew? Well, they’re pretty much in the exact same place they were back when all this started. Matt Murdock (Cox) fights crime in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood by night as Daredevil, and injustice by day as a lawyer, alongside his friends Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll). When he suffers a devastating personal tragedy, Matt decides to hang up his mask and focus on helping people through his law practice. But New York doesn’t sleep, and neither do Daredevil’s enemies. While Matt is in semiretirement, crime boss Fisk comes back from his and decides to run for mayor, seemingly with all good intentions. But clearly, something nefarious is underpinning his campaign.
Between Fisk’s shenanigans and a case that hits Matt very close to his vigilante justice home, the Daredevil alter ego is probably not gone for good.
The new series captures the moody aesthetic of its predecessor, as Cox and D’Onofrio easily slide back into the roles and the scene lighting is turned way down. With a new creative team at the helm ‒ Matt Corman and Chris Ord (“Covert Affairs”), replacing Drew Goddard and Steven S. DeKnight ‒ Daredevil still broods, practices law and pummels the required criminals and villains to within an inch of their lives. Other faces from the Netflix series reappear, including Jon Bernthal’s fan-favorite take on The Punisher, and the writers make a worthy effort to relate the comic-book drama to the world in 2025 in its portrayal of politics and systemic injustice.
Despite all this, it almost feels like the series is purposefully courting the average. It is a “good enough” copy of what was originally stunning. When it premiered, the first “Daredevil” was one of the few takes on superheroes as complex, morally gray and deeply violent. Ten years and two “Suicide Squad” movies later, that is sort of a tired trope. The original series, in its superb first season, sought new and stark ways to shoot its fight scenes, surprising us but never inuring us to the brutal violence. A famous bloodbath in a dimly lit hallway is likely stuck in the memory of anyone who watched it.
“Born Again” can’t find that greatness. In the producers’ desire to replicate something beloved they have ended up plagiarizing themselves: Too much of “Born Again” feels like something we’ve already seen. Great TV shows can and should strive for consistency season after season, but they also grow and change to keep the story interesting. Most don’t have a seven-year hiatus between go-rounds, but hey, Larry David kept “Curb Your Enthusiasm” the same but different enough, on and off for 24 years.
The new/old version of Daredevil will scratch the itch of anyone looking for fewer complications from Marvel, which in its fifth “phase” of storytelling is churning out increasingly convoluted and mediocre shows and films. “Born Again” is, at least, straightforward in its structure and narrative. Do you want a dark superhero? You’ve got a dark superhero. And maybe that’s enough to satisfy some.
But there’s enough “good-enough” TV on the air right now. I want someone to try to be great.
