Review Luke Cage (2016)

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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Your thoughts on this show......

When a sabotaged experiment gives him super strength and unbreakable skin, Luke Cage becomes a fugitive attempting to rebuild his life in Harlem and must soon confront his past and fight a battle for the heart of his city.



 
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Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Luke Cage

Marvel and Netflix have officially begun filming the second season of “Luke Cage” in New York this week with both star Mike Colter and showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker returning for the follow-up.

Colter previously confirmed that shooting on the new season will run from June through March next year which suggests it won’t air on the streaming service until mid-2018.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Shakir, Dennis Join “Luke Cage” Season 2


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Mustafa Shakir (“The Night Of”) and Gabrielle Dennis (“Insecure”) have joined the cast of “Marvel’s Luke Cage” for its upcoming second season on Netflix.

Shakir has been cast as John McIver, a natural and charismatic leader and whose mission is focused on Harlem and vengeance.

Dennis will play the role of Tilda Johnson, a holistic doctor with a complicated history in Harlem who tries to avoid trouble – but it always finds her.

The pair join returning cast members Mike Colter as the titular Luke Cage, with Simone Missick as Misty Knight, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, Alfre Woodard as Mariah Dillard, and Theo Rossi as Shades. Filming is underway on the new season of the series which is expected to premiere mid-2018.

Colter will be seen reprising the role in next month’s “The Defenders” event series and recently told LRM Online that the series will have a “certain lightness” to it with a tone very much like a “summer popcorn thing”.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
“Luke Cage” Showrunner On S1 Criticisms


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Netflix is bringing “Marvel’s Luke Cage” back in June with a second season that looks to be following more of a single story arc than the first according to early rumors.

Certainly the biggest criticism the show’s first season faced was that it took a nosedive in quality at the halfway point after the show’s villain, Mahershala Ali’s Cottonmouth Stokes, was killed off with Erik LaRay Harvey’s lackluster Willis ‘Diamondback’ Stryker replacing him.

In a new interview with PilotTV (via CBM), showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker revealed he is quite familiar with those criticisms and has addressed them, saying the death was a way to show fans no one is guaranteed safety in this universe:

“The standard conventional wisdom is that the show was great up until Episode 7, and then went downhill because Diamondback wasn’t as good a villain as Cottonmouth. But as Jeph Loeb, the President of Marvel Television, jokes, Mahershala couldn’t have followed Mahershala! Drama matches life. Anyone can die at any time. Doing that in Season 1 says, ‘People aren’t safe in Season 2. At any time, for any reason, people could go.'”

Actor Mike Colter also addressed the fan response, saying in the same interview:

“It was a great try. Some people enjoy the full season. Some really felt the second part was not as strong as the first. And I get both…but you’ve got to take a chance to make your series different, and I thought it was commendable. If people thought it was a miss, that’s fine. We have a different approach for the next season.”

New characters for the new season include Mustafa Shakir as John ‘Bushmaster’ McIver, Gabrielle Dennis as Tilda Johnson, and Annabella Sciorra as villain Rosalie Carbone. The second season of “Luke Cage” premieres Friday June 22nd on Netflix.
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
I liked all of season 1. Yeah, Diamondback wasn't as good a villain as Cottonmouth, but the show was still great (and to be honest, I have liked all of the Netflix Marvel shows, critics be damned). I eagerly await season 2.
 

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
Um...k. I finished season 2 the other day, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. It really was great, outside of it feeling like they were dragging things out for a few episodes. Then the ending.
Mariah is killed by her daughter, and leaves the club to Luke, who originally wants to burn it down. But suddenly, we see him all pimped out in a three piece suit, acting like the Godfather (complete with visual reference), refusing to see Claire, and poised to be the "King of Harlem". not the way I thought it should have ended.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Finally got to finish it.....

No way are they going to turn Luke into an all out villain, of course, so this is a predictable and redundant avenue they are headed up. Luke is obviously going to go through a dark night of the soul, then emerge redeemed. Hope they are not planning on the main villain of the next season being Luke himself with lots of scenes to him talking to an evil, tempting doppleganger.

I also became aware this season that they were deliberately padding episodes out with music in the club over montages or meaningful, lingering close-ups of characters.

Bit naughty that. Great for the acts getting exposure on a tv show, but it became a bit obvious and tiresome once you were onto this particular parlour trick.

I thought Mariah was a great villain and hope that Luke gets somone as equally heavyweight next season. Just not his evil internal twin, please, coz we know how it has to end, so any arguing about killing people is pointless. Luke can't - won't be allowed to - directly kill anyone! (Although a few indirect deaths will no doubt happen, but nothing he can't ultimately shrug off as not really his fault.) :emoji_alien:
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
The fate of “Luke Cage,” “Jessica Jones” and “The Defenders” is unclear at present but should ‘Cage’ get canned it could potentially open the door for a “Heroes for Hire” spin-off on Disney’s streaming service.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
“Luke Cage” & “Iron Fist” Viewership Details


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The recent abrupt cancellations of two Marvel & Netflix series, “Luke Cage” and “Iron Fist,” left many scratching their heads. Why would Netflix do this? Both shows had creatively improved on uneven and flat-out terrible first seasons respectively. The obvious culprit was viewership numbers with the shows simply not pulling in enough to justify the cost.

Exploring this possibility is Jumpshot, a San Francisco-based analytics company which uses an anonymized global panel to track five billion actions a day across 100 million devices of U.S. users – offering insights into online consumer behavior. That includes how Netflix Originals are performing and speaking with Screen Rant, they reveal results indicating why both shows were cut.

According to them, both shows lost nearly two-thirds of their viewers between their first and second seasons – “Iron Fist” falling 64% and “Luke Cage” 59%. Additionally viewership of both shows took less than a month to drop back to baseline levels, showing no long-term buzz generated by those who saw them. Both shows’ second seasons also only pulled in about one-third of the viewers that the second season of “Daredevil” did.

Netflix itself doesn’t comment on viewership numbers, and sadly the study doesn’t indicate how well the second season of “Jessica Jones” did on the service.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
“Luke Cage” Star Suspected Cancellation


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Three of Marvel’s five Netflix series have been cancelled so far. When “Iron Fist” got the chop it wasn’t a surprise, but the axing of “Luke Cage” following a decidedly more even-keeled second season was unexpected. The subsequent cancellation of a resurgent “Daredevil” has led to outright resignation to the fact the other two’s time will also soon be up.

One man who suspected the writing was on the wall though, probably before everyone else, was “Luke Cage” star Mike Colter. Speaking with ComicBook.com, Colter says hearing the news that the show wouldn’t return was ultimately “bittersweet” but he also sort-of suspected it:

“It kinda did catch me off guard. I don’t think I was as shocked as most people were because I was a little closer to it. There were some things, some tell tale signs, that were not quite feeling right for me.”

Although we had an internal pickup, amongst a certain amount of people who were close to the project, and we were moving forward with the writing and writing the group writers room, et cetera. There was a lot of stalling. There was a lot of things that didn’t feel quite right. Then, deadlines. One deadline would come and it would go. Another deadline would come, it would go.”

There were some things that started to feel a little odd. So, when it happened, I was like, ‘Eh.’ It wasn’t that much of a shock. But yeah, still shock.”

There’s also no sign of anything fans can do to ensure the show has a future because it’s ultimately a decision which will be made by both Marvel and others.

“I don’t know that it’s something that fans can do, necessarily. I think it’s a real network/studio thing. I think it’ll resolve itself, one way or the other. There just needs to be some time. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s it. But I don’t think the fans… as much as the fans – the outpouring of the fans is very touching and well received and it’d be appreciated – I don’t think it’s gonna make anything happen, but it’s nice to know that. I think, ultimately, if it comes back, it’ll probably come back because of the fans demand for it. I don’t think that their work is going in vain. It just may not happen as soon as they want it to.”

Disney+ is expected to be focusing on new shows set firmly in the MCU in 2019 and 2020, so it’s unlikely these characters – even if they could – would return until well into 2021 at the earliest.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Marvel releases official statement on Netflix show cancellations


Now that all of the Marvel Netflix shows have been canceled, the studio has released an official response.



Appearing on Marvel.com, the statement from Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb says the following:


“It had never been done before.

“Four separate television series, each with different super-talented showrunners, writers, directors, cast and crew, coming out months apart and then…

“…they would meet in a single event series all set in the heart of New York City.

“We called them The Defenders.

“And together we were thrilled by stories of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and even the Punisher joined in!

“They said it couldn’t be done.

“But Marvel assembled amazing teams to write, produce, direct, edit, and score 13 seasons and 161 one-hour episodes.

“Take a moment and go online and look at the dazzling list of actors, writers, directors, and musicians who graced us with the very best of their craft.

“We loved each and every minute of it.

“And we did it all for you — the fans — who cheered for us around the world and made all the hard work worth it.

“So, Thank You!

“On behalf of everyone at Marvel Television, we couldn’t be more proud or more grateful to our audience.

“Our Network partner may have decided they no longer want to continue telling the tales of these great characters… but you know Marvel better than that.

“As Matthew Murdock’s Dad once said, ‘The measure of a man is not how he gets knocked to the mat, it’s how he gets back up.’

“To be continued…!”

The “to be continued” does suggest some hope for the characters involved but this is, of course, nothing definitive. We will have to wait and see when, where, and if we will see these characters again.
 
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