TV Review - Swamp Thing (2020)

This series was created for DC Universe, which is a video-on-demand streaming service. It aired in 2019 on that service. Unfortunately, the service canceled the series shortly after the series began in the early summer. Yet, given that COVID-19 had resulted in the shutdown of Hollywood and new TV shows couldn't be produced, the broadcast networks needed content, so the CW network decided to pick up this series and basically re-run what had aired nearly a year ago. It makes sense why the CW would air this series, which it started doing in October. October is the month of Halloween and Halloween is when content for fans of horror usually appears. This series could be considered a horror series but it's also a super-hero series. Yet, the super-hero parts or aspects seem more obscure. This could be probably better described as a dark fantasy or Gothic fiction. It could also be a TV series that David Cronenberg would love or possibly Guillermo del Toro.

My problems with this series are along the lines of my problems with something as Ratatouille (2007) or Rango (2011), particularly Rango. It's superficial and not fair, but I simply didn't like the character design and ultimately the look of the protagonist or titular character. I didn't find it aesthetically pleasing. There have been a lot of pulp narratives or Gothic fiction where a grotesque being, creature or even hideous monster that is meant to be the protagonist. In several of those stories, the point is if people can identify, empathize or even love someone who might not be beautiful in the traditional sense or might even be ugly in the traditional sense. It goes all the way back to the fairy tale, The Ugly Duckling (1939), which was a Disney animated short. It even is expressed in another Disney flick, that of Beauty and the Beast (1991). However, those Disney films never made the protagonist as grotesque or hideous, as one might expect.

Crystal Reed (Gotham and Teen Wolf) stars as Abby Arcane, a woman who works for the Centers for Disease Control or CDC. She's a scientist who has been traveling all over the country and world, dealing with various outbreaks or epidemics. She returns to her home town of Marais in Louisiana when a new disease is discovered, affecting people who live along the bayou down there. If this were Beauty and the Beast, Abby would be Belle or the beauty.

Things change when another scientist named Alec Holland, played by Andy Bean (Here and Now and Power) is shot and left for dead in the bayou. As a result, he's infected with the mysterious disease, but he doesn't exactly die. He's instead transformed into a plant-based creature that has plant-like super powers. If this were Beauty and the Beast, he would be the beast. Yet, the look of him isn't as tolerable as a Disney creation would be. The look of the creature is akin to the look of the creature in the latter half of The Fly (1986), a creature that isn't meant to be attractive, appealing or even heroic. This series pushes, if one can tolerate something that disgusting as being something possibly attractive, appealing or at a base level heroic.

The Shape of Water (2017) won the Oscar for Best Picture. It basically did a similar thing where a young woman is teamed up with a hideous and slimy creature. That film attempted to be a more romantic spin on Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). It was an interesting spin, but it simply didn't land for me. This series doesn't really try to build a romance between Abby and Alec, following his transformation into the creature. It would be like trying to make Abby be into necrophilia. Warm Bodies (2013) did try having a girl be into necrophilia, but, at least in that film, the so-called creature wasn't hideously deformed but instead a tad cute.

It then becomes a wonder where this series could have gone. The creature would have to remain in the bayou. It's not as if he could become a crime-fighter who travels openly around town. He could probably do so at night. Batman is a crime-fighter who only comes out at night, but, at least his altar ego is allowed to have some kind of social life in the daytime and possible romances or just sheer normal friendships, if he so decides. The creature here doesn't seem like he could do that. Perhaps, the series could become about the town or society at large accepting Alec's new form, such as in The Elephant Man (1980) or Mask (1985). Otherwise, the mystery that the series builds for the entire season isn't that engaging. Maybe, it could be compelling if they really showed Alec using his new powers to great effect, but I didn't get that impression from the first, few episodes.

Rated TV-14.
Running Time: 1 hr.
Tuesdays at 8PM on CW.