Eco

The trailers made this seem like the first step into more gritty, adult content ala Netflix's Daredevil and Punisher series, but apart from 1 or 2 overally choreographed scenes it felt more like the worst episode of Iron Fist stretched into 5 episodes.

The concept itself isn't bad, but the writing was atrocious, with no real sense of character development or depth whatsoever. The only real standout being Vincent D'Onofrio's excellent portrayal of Kingpin, but even that is tarnished by the writing and a limp wiltering flower of an ending.

Echo also suffered from bad editing with the pacing and storyline feeling like they were all over the place.

The show had so much promise and I did appreciate the efforts made to honour the native American and deaf communities, but it didn't have to be at the expense of a coherent and gripping story.

I now fear what they're going to do with Daredevil, but hopefully with Dario Scardapane in the driver's seat there may be at least a small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe...

Well, there's not much to say for Echo, so I'll keep this short.

Echo in a word is... well boring! It's not terrible as the show starts interesting enough, but like Secret Invasion, it falls apart in the end.

The show had some good cinematography and I guess good cgi when compared to recent Marvel projects. Maya is well written and is played fantastically by Alaqua Cox. Seeing Daredevil was great in his like two minute cameo, and Kingpin is great too.

But where this show falls apart is in its storytelling and writing. Nothing really happens in this show, and it leads to nothing. With an ending that just left me thinking, "ok."

My expectations were never high to begin with, but d*mn this could have been far better. I honestly didn't even know this show was released this week until I saw an advertisement for it on my TV.

One last thing who the hell told Disney this was TV-MA material there were like maybe two or three things max that made me think TV-MA and even then that was just pushing TV-14. If this is what Disney thinks passes for MA, then d*mn I'm scared for Deadpools 3 R rating.

Oh well, until the next Marvel flop.

IMDb: 5/10 Letterboxd: 3/5

Watched on Disney+ in 4k Dolby Vision.

Much like Secret Invasion before it, Echo was hyped up to be a dark, gritty and mature series like no MCU series before it. It even had the TV-MA rating to go with. However it ends up being a disappointment.

The main actress isn't terrible, she just struggles due to the weak writing and Kingpin is absolutely wasted in this. None of the supporting characters are likable or memorable.

The plot is in shambles, and with only 5 episodes, some of which are only half an hour long, it leaves very little time for much character development.

There were so few actual violent scenes that it could have probably gotten away with a TV-14 rating. There were no real stakes, and nothing significant even happens by the end.

5/10 - Mediocre.

So apparently they shot 8 episodes but then it wasn't good enough and it got rewritten/reshot/redited down to just 5. Maybe that's why none of it makes much sense. The family connections don't make sense. The lack of communication with her cousin, uncle etc don't make much sense. How her mother's death was her father's fault wasn't made clear. The relationships in the community make no sense. The end showdown is totally incomprehensible. The only things that almost work are the scenes in the roller rink. Really disappointing when I was so hoping for great things based on how Echo was introduced and how well I thought HawkEye worked as a series with multiple interactions between characters from different parts of the MCU. Heartbreaking, to be honest. It promised to be a great showcase for indigenous culture too, but I learnt nothing. There was so much that needed to be said and done for it to really work. Either that or they could've had more action, at least? It just wasn't gripping dramatically or emotionally engaging enough, and it just felt like it had a plan that somehow went vastly wrong and they gave up and threw it out at us poorly poorly finished. Such a shame as some of the actors really deserved to be better respected for their talent.

I'm sorry to say this show was, as other reviewers comment, really boring and badly written. (Or maybe it was the editing). There were some good scenes but not many. The story was alleged over the place. The actors had really rubbish dialogue. But, for me it was the missed opportunities.

The audience could have been given more immersion in how the world seems to this deaf hero. She cannot hear assailants so how does she cope with the traditional kung-fu multi attacker fight. We only have got a couple of "quiet " scenes demonstrating her deafness.

Maya is deaf and relies on sign language. Sign language users have tons of shortcuts and body mimes when communicating. It is not like subtitles with hand movements. More like moving emojis.

As regards her crime fighting artificial leg. More could be made of this. Para athletes will tell about the difficulty of fitting and wearing specialist limbs. We have a hero who wears one. Yet we never see the limb care and difficulty riding a motorcycle which has foot controls.

These were wasted opportunities to get show triumph against outnumbering foes.

As for the terrible script. Don't get me started.