Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Titans Season 1

 

Titans is a superhero series that aired for four seasons from 2018 to 2023. The 11-episode first season aired during the fall and winter of 2018. The first season starred Brenton Thwaites, Teagan Croft, Anna Diop, Minka Kelly, Ryan Potter, Alan Ritchson, Curran Walters, Connor Leslie, and Rachel Nichols. It is one of the handful of live-action DC shows not on the CW or directly tied into the Arrowverse. However, it was brought into the Arroverse as a part of the Crisis on Infinite Earth's crossover event with one of the very quick cameos. It was adapted from the "Teen Titans" comic book series (which has also been animated). However, they skipped the teens part of that (mostly) to tell a much more adult story. This is definitely not family-friendly as the CW shows are. There is a lot of swearing, some partial nudity, and some sex scenes, although you never see anything more than butt shots or side-boob. I would say it is a very hard PG-13, but not quite an R if it were going to be on the movie ratings scale. They often drop the f-bomb, so it is harder than a regular PG-13 or 14-type show.

The first season is really all about character development. Brenton Thwaites plays Dick Grayson, who works as a detective in Detroit after leaving Bruce Wayne. He comes across Raven, played by Teagan Croft, who, unbeknownst to her, is part demon. Anna Diop plays Starfire, Minka Kelly plays Dawn/Dove, Ryan Potter plays Beast Boy, Alan Ritchson plays Hank Hall/Hawk (he also played Aquaman in Smallville), Curran Walters plays Jason Todd/New Robin, and Conor Leslie plays Donna Troy/Wonder Girl. Rachel Nichols (from GI Joe and Alias, among others) has a significant role in the season as well. The show also introduces the Doom Patrol characters and teases Krypto and Superboy.

The bulk of the first season is spent introducing the characters and providing backstories for everyone to set up how they got to where they are. That, along with advancing the "main" storylines about protecting Raven from people hunting for her and herself. Dick is trying to deal with his own past as Robin. I will not go too much into the story to keep from spoiling anything, but there are a lot of characters and story setups in this season packed into a handful of episodes.

The Blu-Ray set is a two-disc set. The show looks and sounds great in HD. The bonus material includes some deleted scenes and several short (around 10 minutes, give or take) making-of and character-based featurettes. A decent amount of material for a MOD blu-ray set, for sure. It is well-written and very well-acted. I cannot say how closely it sticks to the comics or cartoons since I have not read or watched either of those, but it was very well done for what it was trying to be. It is definitely not for everyone, but it is worth checking out if you are a fan of the genre.