2x04 Viktor

While this is an okay TV show, I'm starting to suspect it might actually be a poor adaptation. Series creators Catlin, Goldberg and Rogen have basically taken nothing from the original comics beyond surface elements: character sketches, story beats, a tendency towards obscene and gross comedy. The heart and soul of Ennis and Dillon's storytelling, though, is nowhere to be found.

There's no doubt that Garth Ennis is an utterly profane (a lot of the times puerile) writer, never afraid to plumb the basest, most depraved depths of humanity. Conversely though, he's also singularly adept at depicting decency, kindness, friendship and love, often through a prism of very old-school morality. Now, with that comes more than a few problematic aspects – his is a very male, white and straight perspective – but in excising most of the problematic aspects connected to that part of the original text, the creators of the TV show appears to have just dug a hole where the soul of the story should be. After fourteen episodes, nothing, except maybe the outré, gross-out stuff, feels like Ennis. And lest we forget the sorely missed Steve Dillon, no attempt has been made to emulate his voice either. The TV show's world is a dark, rich and sinister one, while Dillon's work was stark, clean and deadpan. A lot of its appeal – both in terms of character work, as well as Dillon's masterful knack for both comedy, action and horror – could be found in the way the more out-sized elements contrasted with the relative sparseness and mundanity of the rest of the world. The TV show has felt like a somewhat stifling Southern fever dream from the word go. Viewed in isolation, I think the show's production design and its visual storytelling are its biggest strengths, but nothing about it feels like Preacher.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for an adaptation to be a meticulous copy of the source material here. I'm more or less fine with the deviations the show has taken in terms of plot, and on a performance, scene-to-scene level, I think the different directions in which they've taken the characters are great as well. I guess it comes down to, essentially, that Catlin, Goldberg and Rogen saw and appreciated different things in the original comics series than I did. Which is fine, but it still makes watching the show a somewhat hollow, grasping exercise for me.