3 out of 5

Developed by: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen and Sam Catlin

covers season 1

Setting aside the mostly hate / hate relationship people have formed with Zach Snyder, focusing on the adaptation from his thus-far career that squarely fell into the “yes movie please except it’s impossible” category that was Watchmen, I do feel that he extracted something that resembled the book (yadda yadda minus complexity plus sex scene) and created a film that is watchable, if not entertaining, if you’re so inclined.

Most comic fans who’ve been in the trenches for a few years did their time with Preacher.  It is also often – speaking from experience – one of those good introductory books, both to seasoned readers of more “mature” fare and to new readers to prove that more than tightsied heroes exist between the floppy covers.  And once you were part of this group, inevitable “make it a movie!” conversations would ensue, fueled by the changing Hollywood hands of the rights to the property, and once the modern age of tv began to assert itself, “make it a series!” became the call.

During those conversations, some of us voiced some doubts; Namely: How?  The violence wasn’t necessarily the concern, with the acceptable ante on that upped significantly, nor was Ennis’ gross-out humor – that could either be produced as-is or toned down, without really affecting the story’s core elements.  It was the story itself, which fully embraced the comic format by going outlandish from the get-go – Genesis!  Vampires!  Saint of Killers! – and then, with its audience wowed, peeling back to work on character.  This might not sound too un-cinematic, which, at a high-level it’s not, but it’s the accelerated pacing and assumption that your audience has a built in tolerance for weirdness (for better or worse, that’s the manipulative variable of the comic medium) that make the structure of Preacher difficult to adapt without tweaks.  In much simpler words: What’s your “in” for your audience?

Thankfully, what didn’t need any work – and this was actually a more important element, and the one I do think a lot of us wanted to see on screen – was the characters.  Banter and relationships are the core of most Ennis tales, as they’re generally studies / contemplations on the highs / lows of humanity.  Although subsequent rereads of Preacher have shown its limitations (it’s rather f-bomb-laden and “yeah, screw god!” immature, like the I-just-discovered-philosophy thoughts of a teen), you bond with the characters more than most tales, and with good casting, you could transport the dialogue word-for-word to a movie / show and it would work.

I started by mentioning Watchmen because of its adaptation difficulties; it’s typically literary, coming from Moore, and lacks a clear point of view to latch on to for a viewer.  And yet, again, the movie is (excuse the word choice) watchable.  Whereas with Preacher, you have a ready-made element in all the strong characters, and yet – despite some intelligent story-flip-flopping, that’s the one thing the show really, really botches.  It’s very strange, given that the casting is pretty good, but its almost like the show is so unwilling to be what it is that it sucked all of the personality out of it.  But oh, wait, fuck man, producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and driving force Sam Caitlin know Preacher to be an awesome story, so despite not really giving the audience much reason to watch, they layer on a ton of swagger.  The writers and producers are telling a story, knowing that it gets really good and so visibly amped when telling it, but forgetting to inject that goodness into the story itself.  Which is kind of important.

Preacher is about the eponymous Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper), who gets the power to command anyone to do as he says.  There are no limits to this.  Thankfully, Jesse is a fairly moral type, so instead of applying his powers as most probably would, he puts it to use in his church, but is eventually brought to question the how and why of everything – meaning The Big Everything, like life itself – and finds himself with a gift that actually lets him ask those questions, to possibly get an answer.

Mixed up in this is Tulip (Ruth Negga), an old flame returned to town and demanding Jesse’s affections and a return to their previously shared wild life, and a vampire, Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun), because why not.  And then there are those standing in Jesse’s way, whether its to take ownership of the church – Odin Quincannon (Jackie Earle Haley) – or to take ownership of that gift – quirky axe and gun totin’ messengers DeBlanc and Fiore (Anatol Yusef and Tom Brooke).

If it sounds like a blast, that’s the comic book setup you’re sensing.  The show does some things well in terms of shifting one of the series’ weakest parts (Quincannon) up to the story’s beginning, and spreading out the origin of Jesse’s power a bit to give it some more mythology, but in trying to de-comic-ize the lead-in to what really ends up being the point of this whole affair – and what ends up occurring way at the end of this first season – the show’s creators also completely flip-flopped how characters are intro-ed, which affects how they come across, and which really undermines all that good Ennis work.

The going-ons are just weird enough to keep you watching, but that it seems to be weirdness stacking on top of itself without (at this point) reason chalks it up to personal tolerance if you’ll hang in there if you don’t have the experience of the source material to sort things out.

Production values are solid, although it all has that “assumed cool” vibe that’s a tad fake feeling.  Dominic Cooper, attitude-wise and visually, is well cast as Jesse if not for the faked Southern accent and questionably gelled hair, and Negga definitely exudes the strength Tulip need, but – if I can hammer this home yet again – they forgot to write any balance into these characters, and the events don’t play out enough to let us in.  Gilgun is Gilgun – if you saw him in Misfits – which works perfectly for Cassidy.

Preacher does put things in a good plotty spot to kick off season 2 with some momentum, but I am admittedly concerned that the unearned belief that Caitlin and crew are making awesomeness because they’re finally putting to screen some fans’ longtime dream will continue to undermine the show’s potential if it took a step back and tries to recreate itself, properly, for its medium, and a new, haven’t -read-the-book audience.