Marvel's The Defenders Review: 5 Ups And 7 Downs

Downs...

7. It's Too Slow

The Defenders being just eight episodes should've been a good thing. It should've meant a lean series that didn't suffer the same pacing issues many 13 episode Netflix series do.

Unfortunately, even with a shortened run, the show runs (or walks) into these problems. The series takes way too long to get going, as we don't have the heroes team-up until the end of the third episode, by which point a lot of time has been wasted.

It doesn't stomp on the gas from that point either, but instead prefers to mostly just cruise towards the finale, keeping both the Defenders and the Hand sitting around until it's time to make a big move.

The approach could work if the setup behind it was better, or the story more worthy of investing time in, but sadly it's not, and a lot of just comes off as being slow-moving and, at times, fairly dull.