'Cloak & Dagger' Is Such a Chore to Watch

Cloak and Dagger are among my most favorite duos in fiction.  So when a live-action TV adaptation was announced, I began to highly anticipate for it.  Unfortunately, once it aired this year, it never truly gripped me.  In fact, I was bored at most parts during its ten-episode debut season.  I was probably hoping much that it would reflect closely the Cloak and Dagger that I became familiar with in the comics.  And this TV series, in my opinion, does not.

Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger, or just Cloak & Dagger, is a teen-oriented superhero drama in the same vein as Runaways.  And just like Runaways, Cloak & Dagger does a couple of significant tweaks with the fundamental elements of the source material in order to make it translate into a TV show.  However, along the way, it sacrifices much of the superhero-vigilante facet of the duo for social commentary opportunities in its narrative.  While most critics applaud the show for it, it didn’t work for me.  It felt tediously heavy-handed.

It also becomes hard to follow when it utilizes the duo’s powers to do something metaphysical and trippy with the story.   I was never invested in the first place, and thus, when things become more complex, I didn’t have the motivation to focus so I could “get it.”

As I’ve already mentioned, this adaptation generally bored me because, to me, it wasn’t satisfyingly like the source material.  And the thing I probably I like the best about Cloak and Dagger in the comics is that they are among Spider-Man’s regular collaborators.  Though I knew from the start that that is something that can never be explored in this TV series, this nonetheless served as a source of disappointment.

Another interesting aspect of Cloak and Dagger as a duo in the comics is their dependence to each other due to their abilities.  Cloak constantly needs the dark hunger in him fed by Dagger’s light, while Dagger needs to dispel constantly her light into Cloak in order to avoid getting overcharged.  In relation to this, their contrasting powers also have complementary applications when they are working as costumed vigilantes.  Thus, I enjoyed the show the most whenever this dynamic was depicted.

Or, in other words, I enjoyed the show the most when its protagonists behaved like the Cloak and Dagger I know.

And that’s why my most favorite episode is the season finale.  Most of the season basically served as the origin story for this TV version of Cloak and Dagger, and it was an origin story that I was just unable to get engrossed on.  But in the finale, when most of “setting up” was out of the way, it seemed like the titular characters were a bona fide Cloak and Dagger pairing for the first time.

In the end, Cloak & Dagger was such a chore to watch.  And a compelling season finale was not much of a worthwhile payoff.  Still, if I can garner in myself enough interest when season two rolls in, I will watch it.  It’s because, based on what the finale left off, season two may finally offer the kind of Cloak & Dagger TV show I’ve been wanting.