CABLE | DC Raises the Green 'Lanterns' on HBO

"Harry Potter went to Hogwarts, you ignorant alien f*ck!"

Warner Bros. Television / DC Studios

HBO's television adaptation of DC's intergalactic team of "space cops," better known as the Green Lantern Corps, stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as the two most famous incarnations of the superheroes, Hal Jordan and John Stewart (not to be confused with the venerable The Daily Show host), in a True Detective-style road murder mystery grounded firmly on Earth. The shortened and colourlessly titled Lanterns, created by showrunner Chris Mundy, screenwriter Damon Lindelof, and CIA officer turned comic book scribe Tom King, turns our interstellar emerald patrolmen into a rather compelling vehicle for an episodic sci-fi neo-noir series.

Chandler and Pierre's Hal and John start off contentiously paired together to investigate a small-town Nebraskan criminal conspiracy that seems suspiciously extraterrestrial in nature. Their water-and-oil interpersonal chemistry anchors the moody conspiracy drama (directly reminiscent of Watchmen) sublimely.

There's a quiet, decidedly middle-American quality to the detective mystery—imagine Yellowstone with aliens. Supporting character actors like the great Kelly Macdonald as the gruff town sheriff from Gotham City, Garret Dillahunt, and Poorna Jagannathan show up to add some (possibly alien) midwestern town colour to the dusty cinematography, with Nathan Fillion appearing as third Green Lantern, Guy Gardner (seen in Superman and Peacemaker), later on in the season.

Lanterns is an episodic superhero drama cleverly wrapped in a buddy cop series with certain sinister, otherworldly sci-fi elements but told as a neo-Western and set in the DC Universe. Chandler and Pierre do a fine job of embodying their comic book counterparts as reluctant heroes worthy of their galactic peacekeeping positions.

Lanterns' eight-episode season airs weekly on HBO and is available to stream on Crave in Canada (and on HBO Max in the U.S.).


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