Preacher Season 1 Thoughts

Overall, Preacher was a magnificent surprise for me as I've never read or was even made fully aware of the comic book series that it originates from. The best way that I would sell this show to someone who may not be familiar with the source material would be to essentially call it a bizarrely entertaining show with fascinating characters that are beautifully introduced from the first episode and will take you on a visually jarring joyride of randomness and fun.

Unfortunately, I felt as though the storytelling element of the show was being smothered down by some of the questionable overly stylistic presentational choices being implimented ever so often during each episode (particularly music cues and title cards). Now, there is something great to be said about a series having its own identity visually and tonally, but there's something else to be said when producers constantly pushed the platform of style over substance just for the sake of standing out from the rest of the competitive crowd in its market.

There are also several moments on the show that could have easily been twice as impactful or memorable if it wasn't for the "Let's attempt be extreme during this scene!" vision being inserted for a forced dramatic and/or comedic reaction. Certain characters completely shift from being a nice grounded element to the story to becoming a twisted and pretty vicious image of what was introduced to us beforehand. Why? Because it's funny and outrageous...right? Well, perhaps in an alternate version of the show where the tone feels a bit more consistent and appropriate for the matter.

Eventually, we went from seeing our central characters as being the stand out entertaining crazy cast of individuals to get interested in to then the entire town coming across as a crowd of asylum inmates running around which basically withered down the uniqueness and striking personas of who we really should be taking back by originally. The best comparison to this would be to watch a Spiderman series for the first time and eventually realize that the majority of people in his surroundings all have animal based superpowers with entertaining personalities. How would you feel about the "unique" and "amazing" spider based superhero then?

However, as I mentioned before, the show is pretty entertaining to watch for the most part and I did enjoy watching these central characters interact with each other while revealing more interesting tidbits about their past (especially Cassidy who immediately became one of my favorite characters on TV from the premiere alone). Also, despite what I said about the overall style of the series, I do actually admire the boldness that it presents alongside the show's over the top tone and only wish that the studio would dial back a little every now and then for the sake of the story and characters to breathe a bit more.

As for the entertainment value of Preacher, there are a couple of fun action sequences to enjoy (especially in the first half of the season) and the cinematography can be pretty striking at times making Preacher one of the most beautifully shot comic book series out there next to Gotham in my opinion.

With an absolutely outrageous season finale showing off a visually disappointing God-like figure right before blowing up an entire town and setting up a road trip story, I must say that I am more than intrigued and excited for what's to come in the next season of Preacher despite some of the problems that I had. I can easily see the first season as being a montage of character introductions setting the stage for Season 2 which will act as the real storytelling experience that we wanted to see. Overall, Preacher is definitely one of the more positive surprises of the year as far as the new lineup of TV series go.

Season Rating: 8/10