By Josh Nason
For years, the now former Warner Bros. Discovery (RIP bro!) struggled when it came to trying to make the DC Universe come even somewhat close to the mainstream pop culture giant that is Marvel when it comes to the movies.
Outside the Batman films and even with one of the most well-known characters of all-time in any medium (Superman) and even with leadership that left Marvel to jump start their efforts (James Gunn), it just never found it. Remember ‘The Flash’? ‘Supergirl’? ‘BLUE BEETLE’?
However, their TV efforts have bucked that trend with two really entertaining seasons of Peacemaker, The Penguin (which I admittedly didn’t love but tolerated) and now, Lanterns which just completed its first season in early-October.
This latest effort to delve into Green Lantern lore got some buzz as a superhero version of True Detective, but was that all manifested by a ring? Let’s get into the first season of Lanterns and answer the burning green question of whether it’s worth your watch.
Should You Watch Lanterns on HBO/HBO Max?
How many seasons?
One with season two “in early development.” I’d find it hard to believe it doesn’t get a second season, especially with their new owners looking for successful IP anywhere they can find it and because of the viewership.
How many episodes?
8.
What type of show is it?
Well, I’ll go with the buzzy line of a comic book/superhero version of True Detective. It fits.
How old is it?
2026.
Where can you primarily watch it?
HBO/HBO Max
Who is it for?
I feel like you have to check the genre boxes of enjoying a) superhero stuff and b) detective stuff.
What’s the commit level?
Seven hours, 15 minutes but if you slice out Previously On and credits, you can get that to just under seven hours but I’d suggest watching the inside the episode features at the end of each episode. They’re only a couple minutes and helpful if you happen to get distracted once or five times an hour.
Is there a bailout episode?
The first one.
What’s the main plot in a sentence?
The Green Lantern responsible for defending Earth gets a trainee just in time for all hell to break loose in Nebraska.
Any interesting background in the show’s creation?
First announced in 2019 by the co-writer of the Ryan Reynolds 2011 Green Lantern movie, the original idea later revealed in April 2021 was to focus on both a closeted FBI agent who became Earth’s first Green Lantern and Guy Gardner, set in 1984.
Then, WBD and Discovery merged and new head David Zaslav brought in Gunn and Peter Safran to try and create the next Marvel Studios. The story was then flipped to focus on the more well-known Lanterns of Hal Jordan and John Stewart. Damon Lindelof was brought in as was Chris Mundy and Tom King as the three of them have worked on a ton of well-known projects (Lost, Watchmen, Slow Horses, True Detective, Ozark, etc).
It got the, wait for it, green light in June 2024 and here we are over two years later talking about its first season.
Are there actors the average TV watcher would recognize?
Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Poorna Jagannathan, Kelly Macdonald
What’s the reaction been?
To this point, it has a 91/70 critics to fans split on Rotten Tomatoes (more on this a bit) and a 72 (generally favorable) on Metacritic.
From a viewership standpoint, it’s been a monster for HBO/HBO Max which is why I think a second season is imminent. Nearly a week after the finale aired, HBO stated the premiere has nearly 30 million views to date while the season overall averaging 19.3 million which put it in the top five HBO series launches in their history. To this point, the finale grabbed nearly 11 million viewers worldwide.
This all comes with another asterisk as a) this came from HBO b) how are viewers determined in this case and c) how are viewers really determined in any case in the current day considering, well, the digital world we live in?
What’s the rewatch factor?
After watching the entire first season and knowing how the story played out, I’d love to give it another spin but you know how that goes.
If you like these shows or movies, you’ll like this:
True Detective*, Batman (Nolan movies)
Is this a first or second screen show?
Mainly a first.
Should you watch Lanterns?
My background with the Green Lantern character is limited to a) knowing who he is and b) the aforementioned Reynolds movie that was pretty widely panned. I have a general understanding of what he’s all about, but I’m not a hardcore fan like I am with Spider-Man.
I write that because there is a hornet’s nest online about the finale and about most of the series in general from Green Lantern fans who wanted something much different than what they got. And I write that to give you the perspective of the rest of this post…
…because I really enjoyed this show, even the finale.
This just hit for me. It has a darker tone with some comedic moments. It has good acting. It has the buddy cop feel with Chandler and Pierre (who I first saw in the really entertaining action movie Rebel Ridge on Netflix). It has some fun comic book elements and some action which you’d obviously expect.
To some fans’ dismay, the finale doesn’t have a massive action set piece because it didn’t really need it as there’s that checked box earlier in the series. The CGI looks solid when they go that route (much better than some Marvel efforts in the last half decade or more) but doesn’t overwhelm the story which I assume was one of the goals.
I would also assume a goal is to not appeal just to GL fans which is the reason that fan rating above is lower than the critics’ ratings. In other words, they wanted to make a more accessible series — a term hardcore fans of any entertainment medium hate to hear or read when it comes to their thing getting a TV/movie treatment. Believe me, I get it. You want it how you first experienced it, but life’s not like that.
Chandler is right up there with the best TV actors going. He has a likability factor but as Hal Jordan, he also plays a really great grumbly asshole with a heart, evidenced by his relationship with Macdonald’s sheriff character.
The episodes are easy to consume, don’t drag, and the total run of eight episodes didn’t leave much in the way of midseason slumping which we get a lot these days.
This is a very positive review, but I don’t have much in the way of negative things to say about Lanterns which is a positive in its own right. I think you have to be accepting of some superhero elements with a show like this which is why I put the * with True Detective above. There’s always going to be that barrier with some viewers, but if there’s ever a show to test that, it’s Lanterns.
So, should you watch Lanterns? Yes.
