Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Titans’ On DC Universe, A Grim Take On The Teen Titans Comic Series

Are you surprised that the Greg Berlanti DC-hero machine hasn’t gotten to the Teen Titans yet? You know, the group of teens who are led by a slightly older Robin, trying to harness their powers to fight the bad guys. Well, you’re in luck; DC Universe, the comic brand’s new streaming service, needs a ton of content, and Titans is the first of many new shows based on DC characters that will stream on the service. Does it stand with its counterparts on broadcast TV?

TITANS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A dream-like sequence where a hooded girl approaches a circus tent. There, she watches The Flying Graysons, who have a horrible accident while attempting a trapeze stunt.

The Gist: The girl having the dream is Rachel (Teagan Croft), who lives in Traverse City, MI with her mother (Sherilyn Fenn). After having her nightmare, she begs her mom to lock the door behind her, because her uncontrollable blackouts where she turns into a raging demon are scaring her half to death.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, a new detective named Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) starts work after transferring over from Gotham PD. He’s not exactly the most personable guy, as his new partner Amy Rohrbach (Lindsey Gort) finds out. But we then see that Grayson is pursuing cases on his own, looking at a file of a young girl who was attacked as he stakes out the perpetrator. At a certain point, when he finds the guy, Grayson transforms into Robin, off on his own after splitting from Batman in Gotham, beating the ever living snot out of a bunch of bad guys as a drug sale goes down.

After Rachel’s mother is killed by a man who says that the woman wasn’t really her mother, she runs away to Detroit, eventually finding her way in front of Grayson because her demon voices are telling her not to trust people like the woman who befriends her at a shelter. “You’re the boy from the circus!” she tells him, thinking that the meeting was meant to be.

Near Vienna, we see a woman with bright red hair emerge from a bullet-ridden car. She has a bit of amnesia, not knowing her name — it’s Korland’r (Anna Diop), who is apparently a big star who commands an entire floor of a luxury hotel — or who’s after her, but she knows she’s looking for a girl. When she confronts the gangster who came after her, she surprises herself with her ability to not only fight but set his whole office on fire. She finds a picture of the girl she’s after… a younger shot of Rachel.

Our Take: The new DC Universe streaming service is coming out with a bang with Titans. Of course, any and all DC-related drama comes from the Greg Berlanti superhero mill; this series was created by Berlanti, Geoff Johns and Akiva Goldsman, and the showrunner is Greg Walker (Extant, Without A Trace). It’s already been renewed for a second season, so whatever we say here might not persuade or dissuade you from hanging with the show if you’re a fan of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). We don’t know quite yet if this, or any of the other new series coming to DC Universe, will be part of the Arrowverse that airs on The CW, but given what we do know about Titans, it doesn’t seem likely.

First of all, the show is very, very grim, sharing a dark vision of humanity with Fox’s Gotham. It feels like Walker is reveling in the freedom he gets by not being on a network, amping up the blood and sprinkling the words “shit”, “asshole” and others liberally throughout the pilot. It doesn’t particularly feel necessary, especially given how the rest of the TV portion of the DCEU, even Gotham, manages to do quite well without all of that.

The show seems to be content with taking its time getting the Titans together, considering we’ve only met four of them (more of that in a second), which is fine as long as they don’t draw out the origin story for too long; one of the beautiful things about the Berlanti shows is that the heroes are fighting as they figure things out about their powers. But, despite the decent acting throughout, it feels like it might be a bit too violent and depressing for some viewers.

The other thing that makes us feel that it won’t be part of the Arrowverse is the real settings. It’s centered around Detroit.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: In Covington, OH, a security guard at an electronics shop sees a green glowing tiger rummaging through the video games. The tiger escapes and transforms to a teenage boy in the woods behind the store, enjoying the fact that he got a new game for free.

Sleeper Star: We think Gort as Det. Rohrbach will be a balancing influence on Grayson; after he makes a speech to her about “his old partner” (i.e. Batman) having his back, but that he didn’t want to be as angry as his partner got, she took him down a notch by saying “So you’re not really, huh?” When he asks “What?”, she replies, “an asshole.”

Most Pilot-y Line: After Robin thwarts the guy he was stalking, plus everyone involved in the drug deal he was a part of, he goes, “Fuck Batman!”

Our Call: STREAM IT, especially if you’re a fan of Berlanti’s DC-related shows. It might be a bit darker than you like, with a bit less of a sense of humor than the others have, but it’s still well done.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Titans on DC Universe