If Deciding, Then ask the Doggo

The thing about being a dog, is that I’ve probably seen a lot more television than you.

Whilst your screen time might include the select cuts of your own favourite shows, as the four-legged Head of Security in my family I am in the unique position of being present at almost every moment when the TV is on.

This means I’m present when the big humans are watching The Boys on Amazon. And I’m also there when the little humans are watching WandaVision on Disney+.

Now some people out there might be thinking a dog would be at a disadvantage due to a lack of knowledge about movie facts or the history of film making. You might even think I don’t know what I’m talking about because dogs aren’t allowed in cinemas (slightly discriminatory if you ask me, but I’ll let that bone of contention pass for now).

Well let me dispel those rumors for you. Much like passive smoking, a dog like me is able to absorb movie trivia and pop culture awareness very easily due to the conversations constantly going on around him (not cats, they don’t really pay much attention to anything).

I know my directors, my producers and my screenwriters. I know my prequels from my sequels and I don’t just have my own favourite human actors, I also have my own favourite dog actors (and no, it’s not that sell-out Lassie before you say it).

Cinema? Pfft. Every movie I’ve ever seen on our 32” widescreen TV is in Imax as far as I’m concerned. Don’t forget, I’m usually lying on the rug with my nose about 2 yards from the TV so I’m getting a much better view than you are way back there on the sofa.

And talking of my nose, you may have heard how us doggo’s have 300 million olfactory receptors up our snozzles. That means we can smell way better than you humans. So yes, we can smell things in a movie too. Trust me, you may think you’re understanding the nuance of The Queen’s Gambit, but I could literally smell the chessboard. It smelt of sausages by the way.

Similarly, some people say we only see in black and white, but the thing is we actually think in colour and that’s far more important.

The Strength of the Wolf

Now, having my family’s best interests at heart (I am a dog after all, that’s what we’re contractually obliged to do), my recommendations for your future viewing pleasure will be based upon my pack’s two most favourite shows as mentioned above.

However, this assignment will aim to consider these shows in accordance with the gospel of Saint Jon Favreau’s Jungle Book (sorry, being a dog I never read the Mr Kipling version). As Akela says, “the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack”.

With this in mind, my objective will be to evaluate the key features of the big human’s favourite show (The Boys) and recommend them a follow up suitable for their taste. Then I’m going to review the little human’s favourite show (WandaVision) and do the same for them. And my grand finale will be to come up with an all-important final recommendation they can all watch together, as a pack. I really think watching your favourite shows should be a pack activity, rather than separately like a bunch of mangey strays.

So you probably immediately noticed the theme of the shows my family likes to watch. However for those not paying attention, they are both originally based on comic books or graphic novels, or at least that’s where the source material came from.

Now don’t ask me what the attraction is about reading comics (or books in general). As a dog, I’ve never read a book in my life. It’s not that I can’t read (seriously, I’m an educated dog, not some kind of mongrel), but us dogs don’t have opposable thumbs, see? In other words it’s a real pain trying to turn the pages with our paws. And if we try and use our wet noses, we risk paper cuts.

Nevertheless, it is notable that the world’s biggest production companies have been trawling through the world of comic books for nearly two decades. Even the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now on Phase 4, which means they’re really trying to find value in some of the lesser-known characters right now. I honestly won’t be surprised if the Warner Brothers / DC bunch come up with a reboot of Krypto the Wonder Dog in the next few years (yes, there really is a canine version of Superman in the comic-verse).

But there are some significant and distinct differences in the subsets of each comic genre, and it is those differences that are most marked in our family. These will become more noticeable as we explore them so pull up your basket and pin your ears back.

The Big Humans

So the man human and the woman human in my pack both like watching The Boys which is streamed on Amazon Prime and is currently filming it’s third series. The Boys is based on the Garth Ennis comic book series of the same name published by DC Comics. A spin-off based around high-schoolers is also in production at the moment and there’s no doubt this relatively new franchise has been an unprecedented success.

If you haven’t seen The Boys, it is quite unlike any superhero franchise you have seen before. For a start, there is very graphic (albeit inventive and quite amusing) violence from the outset.

To give you some idea, episode 1 of the first series kicks off with the accidental death of the main protagonist’s girlfriend Robin within the first 3 minutes. She is pulverized by the superhero A-Train who is able to sprint at supersonic speeds (a thinly veiled pastiche of the more well-known character The Flash from DC comics).

Now her death is significant as it sets the tone for the rest of the series. Robin is holding hands with our hero Hughie in the middle of a street while they sweetly exchange pleasantries. Seemingly out of nowhere, the speeding superhero A-train blurs into frame at full thrust and is somewhat out of control.

Robin is not simply bopped out of the way or knocked a comical distance through the air into some garbage bins. As A-Train ploughs through her, the action breaks briefly into extreme slow motion as her body is atomized before our eyes. We watch horrified as her organs and spine hover in mid-air and droplets of blood disperse into the atmosphere and spatter on Hughie’s stunned face.

As Hughie looks down, he realizes he is just left holding each of Robin’s hands in his own, the only thing he has left of his girlfriend.

Cue opening credits.

Now this opener is a definite love it or hate it moment. Many people will have turned off at that point. Other viewers, like me and my big humans were instantly hooked. Seasons 1 and 2 continue in much the same manner, with a black humour / violence ratio not dissimilar to the 18 rated Deadpool movies. If you liked Deadpool, then The Boys is definitely also for you. Ultra-violent, inventive, dark and brilliantly funny.

In the universe of The Boys, the superhero characters are essentially alternate-world versions of DC’s most decorated PG-rated legends. For example as well as A-Train, there is Homelander who is the most famous, all American hero of all. Homelander dresses in a distinctive red and blue outfit, is generally indestructible, flies faster than a speeding bullet and can shoot red lasers out of his eyes. Sound familiar?

Another hero is The Deep, who has gills just below his ribs so he can breathe underwater and is able to command loyalty and service from the planet’s sea creatures and all who dwell within the oceans. Aquaman anyone?

And so on. However the main twist in The Boys is that these superheroes are generally franchised by money-grabbing corporations and individually each character tends to be narcissistic, sexually predatory or otherwise despicably corrupt. Adam West, they are not.

They are driven by the very human flaws of money, vanity and fame. They are certainly not the typical, selfless examples of heroism we have come to expect from superhumans. Therefore our actual heroes are ‘The Boys’ who are a rag-tag bunch of un-super mercenaries united only by their common hatred for who they perceive as abominations - all superheroes.

Hold on, you’re going to have to excuse me for a bit. The violence of The Boys gets me all riled up, I can feel my upper lip twitching. I’m going to have to go in the garden for a bit to bark at the birds.

I really don’t like birds you know, especially the starlings. They’d peck your dick off if they weren’t so lazy. And the pigeons with their tiny heads - lay off the worms fatty, you’re going to break the tree. How is it ok for them to sit up there tweeting at me? Anyway, you go and catch up on The Boys if you haven’t seen it yet, and I’ll be back in a bit.

* * * * *

Well that was annoying. I was giving the birds my best attack-woof and I got shushed by the woman human. I will not shush I thought, so I barked louder and then the woman human dragged me back inside. Total injustice.

Anyway, where were we? So you caught up on The Boys and you liked it, so now you want to know what to watch next. Now remember, we’re only talking about the big humans at the moment.

To meet the standards of The Boys we’re really looking for something that is set in a fictional comic book world where the adult themes are dark, complex and heavily layered. Somewhere there’s likely to be foul language and both freaky sex and ultra-violence are common place. The Boys clearly subverts the expectations of the genre, and as such our recommendation should be equally subversive.

Ok I’ve got a great suggestion for you. In fact if you were here, I know you’d be patting me on the head saying ‘good dog’. Yes, I am a good dog aren’t I.

You big humans need to go watch Preacher, which is also available on Amazon Prime. There’s a good reason why you’re going to love Preacher if you loved The Boys. The source material came from a Garth Ennis comic book again.

Garth Ennis is a popular comic-book writer known for his somewhat crazed take on the superhero genre. To give you an idea, the first work he ever had published for Marvel (in 1995) was entitled Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe, and that title is by no means misleading.

Another interesting thread linking the The Boys and Preacher is that both TV versions were produced and developed by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, and it shows.

Now Preacher is a little older than The Boys and wasn’t released with quite the same fanfare, so it’s quite possible you missed it on first release. Originally airing in 2016 and running for 4 seasons (thereby concluding in 2019), the production team then went on to kick off The Boys.

The titular lead character of Preacher is an alcoholic, chain smoking guy who is also pretty good with his fists played by Dominic Cooper (yes, that is Sky from Mamma Mia). Cooper swaggers darkly in the style of Colin Farrell in any number of roles and helps us see that a career in the clergy might actually be pretty cool.

Preacher even kicks off in a distinctly similar manner as The Boys prior to the starting credits as a fellow man of God somewhere on the continent of Africa is graphically atomized before his stunned congregation. This time by an apparent meteor.

No further spoilers, needless to say the series goes on to introduce a world of violent leprechauns, ambiguous angels and tantalizing demons. Adolf Hitler even makes an appearance which is a great touch.

An interesting bit of casting for British fans is that of Joe Gilgun as an unhinged, blood-thirsty vampire. If you don’t recognise the name immediately, Joe is the Lancastrian-born actor who played lovable skinhead Woody in Sean Meadow’s brilliant This Is England.

It is clear that the ancestry Preacher shares with The Boys means that both stories are laced with adult themes, extreme violence and graphic black humour. And if that’s your thing then you’re going to love them both.

How does a dog feel about this sort of violence? Meh, we’re indifferent. To be fair I wouldn’t mind so much but in the last year I’ve been hit on the head with a rolled-up copy of Cosmopolitan magazine not once but twice!

The first time was because the woman human thought I was attack-woofing at the mailman. I wasn’t actually attack-woofing him on that occasion although admittedly I have been known to do that before. Mainly when I think he’s here to steal our things.

Mailmen do that you know, they have a big sack they carry around and they steal all our things. But on this particular occasion the mailman decided to put things through our letter box and it startled me. If anything it was more of a panic-woof. I kind of think that humans should be able to tell the difference between an attack-woof and a panic-woof. Anyhow, that was my first Cosmo on the head.

The second time was when I pooped on the sofa. In my defence, that hadn’t really been my fault either. The man human left the fridge door half-open and my 300 million scent receptors sniffed out an open packet of streaky bacon. How was I to know that uncooked bacon would give me an upset tummy? So really it was the man human who should’ve been hit on the head with a Cosmopolitan that time.

The Little Humans

So anyway, I digress. What about the little humans? I’m not sure their exact age in human years but they are somewhere between 63 and 77 in dog years.

As a result, much like me there’s certain things the little humans aren’t allowed to say. Just as I’m not allowed to attack-woof, the little humans aren’t allowed to curse. In fact, they’re not even allowed to hear curse words, so The Boys and Preacher are definitely off limits to them even though they are equally partial to superhero yarns.

They’re favourite most recently has been Marvel’s WandaVision available on Disney+. To say this series was experimental would be like saying most dogs have more than 2 legs. In other words, an understatement.

The innovation in Disney’s daring, genre-bending series was evident from the outset. The first episode is set almost entirely within the realms of a 1950’s sitcom setting. The distant familiarity or nostalgia we all feel with vintage TV shows of this era surely comes almost entirely from archive footage or clips shown years later. There are certainly no humans in my pack who earned enough dog years to have watched them the first time around.

The second episode followed a similar format, only with story taking place within a 1960’s sitcom, similarly complete with black and white film and a canned laughter track. Each episode laid a scooby snack trail of hints towards something going on beyond the surface, so the series was definitely more of a mystery than your traditional superhero tale.

Although later episodes reverted to type with the introduction of colour film, more conventional characters and a modern-day setting, it was still a massive departure from the world of The Avengers we had come to expect as it played with the styles of subsequent decades.

The gamble was certainly a critical success, with the industry generally impressed with Disney’s efforts to reinvigorate the MCU franchise with new ideas. Conventional fan reaction was also positive with WandaVision earning an impressive 4 stars on Decider.com although a lot of adult viewers who didn’t have an underlying knowledge of Wanda and Vision’s history were utterly bewildered.

So what was it that could possibly have appealed to the little humans? It certainly couldn’t have been nostalgia for the golden age of television. Well it seems to me that the little humans accept what they’re watching a lot more on face value than the big humans. They don’t have so many pre-conceived expectations of what they are going to see in a film or TV series, they therefore enjoy it solely based on the merits of what they see on the screen.

Almost every movie they’ve been dragged to watch by their big humans would’ve been an utter mystery to them until after they’d actually seen it. This means they are more willing to let the story unfold. Watching the first 2 episodes in black and white was fun - it was a novelty. By the time it started to get explained away in episodes 4 and 5, they had already bought into it and by then all the action starts to kick off anyway.

So I, as an open-minded dog of course, would heartily recommend it if you haven’t given WandaVision a go, but remember you must be open-minded too. Don’t expect Iron Man and Thor to be duking it out in Westview.

If you have seen it of course, you will already have made up your mind. So what else could your human pups watch next?

The surefire winner with the kids will of course be Marvel Studios newly released The Falcon and the Winter Soldier currently streaming on Disney+.

Set in a similar timeframe as WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier also takes place shortly after the events of the concluding MCU blockbuster Avengers: Endgame.

The simple premise of continuing the story arc of the two primary characters may appear bland on the surface, and it is true to say that this new show is a far more conventional addition to the MCU library than WandaVision.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier does show promise of bringing a spotlight to bear on more potentially controversial issues in the real world. Endgame closed with Steve Rogers - the legendary Captain America -metaphorically and quite literally handing over his iconic shield to newcomer Sam Wilson (played by Anthony Mackie). Sam is of course the alter-ego of the winged hero, Falcon.

The new series opens by echoing one of the closing scenes of Endgame with Steve Rogers handing his vibranium shield to Sam asking “How does it feel?”

“Like someone else’s” comes Sam’s prophetic response.

Will America accept a black man being the heroic embodiment of their nation? Has Sam actually been given a poison chalice from the Cap? A perfect time to ask the question, in the shadow of the Black Lives Matters movement.

Similarly, the Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes played by Sebastian Stan) who originally fought alongside Steve Rogers in World War II offers the promise of further intrigue. In the new series, we find Bucky in a psychiatrists office as he comes to terms with nearly a century of warfare. What psychological scars is he contending with and how will it affect him now the war is over?

With supporting roles from Don Cheadle as fan favourite War Machine and opportunities for cameos from a multitude of other Avenger luminaries, the series will be a surefire winner with the little humans but maybe the big humans will need something less formulaic.

The Strength of the Pack

So what is a loyal dog to do? How do I get the whole wolfpack to sit down and watch that darn TV together?

The big people need a complex story with world-building on a grand and layered scale whilst the little people need vibrant characters who capture the imagination with just enough intrigue so they don’t get lost in the intricacies of the plot. And both need just enough comic-book action to prevent them all falling asleep on the sofa after their Chinese food.

Do we go Harry Potter? Hmm, too many wizards.

Star Wars? Seen it.

Batman? Not enough dogs

But I might just have something for you. Oh yes I have. Head pat please.

If you love comic books, and you love the superhero series I’ve been talking about today, then get your wolfpack together, crack out the popcorn and check out The Umbrella Academy, currently available on Netflix.

The Umbrella Academy was originally released in 2007 as a comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics. The series was written by the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way. Interestingly Way has since admitted he actually wrote much of it backstage before gigs.

The series was developed for TV by Steve Blackman (who has Fargo amongst his credits) and Jeremy Slater.

The premise centres around a world where 43 babies were born simultaneously and unexpectedly at different locations around the world back in 1989. As children, 7 of these babies were mysteriously adopted by a wealthy and eccentric benefactor who trained and shaped them into the world’s first family of superheroes.

However, this is not some cute interpretation of The Incredibles by any stretch, and our young heroes suffer from the same insecurities and personal traumas of any young adult. In amongst our dysfunctional family of misfits there is a drug addict, a guy with aichmophobia (a fascination with knives), a somewhat deformed jock, a painfully shy girl and of course a dead person.

Their mission in Seasons 1 and 2 is nothing less than preventing an apocalypse. Season 3 is currently in production and due to air early in 2022, so if you’re not caught up, it’s a great time to tune in.

The series is great partly because of some fabulous casting with beautifully drawn characters. The young cast includes the brilliant Elliot Page (Juno, Inception) supported by Robert Sheehan (Misfits, Mortal Engines) and newcomer Aidan Gallagher as quite possibly the smartest but most irritating schoolboy you’ve ever met.

The plot builds on the original comic series as it turns and swivels through each episode. The beauty of this series is that it weaves multiple facets from each of the TV shows cited earlier in this article. The Umbrella Academy includes the subversion of the superhero genre that we saw previously in The Boys. It also puts our superheroes in alternate dimensions as WandaVision did and creates new characters with their own mythos, powers and human frailties just like the more familiar blockbuster franchises.

The story offers enough depth to keep big humans interested and moves the story along at a pace that will keep little humans enchanted.

And you know the best thing about The Umbrella Academy? There’s a talking monkey! As if that would ever happen.

So to wrap it up, there are my amazing recommendations for now:

If you’re old enough and you liked The Boys, check out Preacher.

If you’re a pup and you liked WandaVision, seek out The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

And if you want to watch something similar as a family, try The Umbrella Academy.

But I’ll be back soon as there’s some good stuff coming out later in the year that I’ll need to tell you about. Neil Gaiman’s spellbinding graphic novel The Sandman is currently in production by Netflix and I’m looking forward to finding out who plays Barnabas the dog.

So next time you think your dog isn’t paying attention to your TV, or you think he’s just having a snooze, think again.

We know what you watch.

We know what you like.

We know what you love.

Woof. Take that.

Thanks for reading. If you like taking advice from dogs, please hit the 'like' button below. It's like a pat on the head for me.

If you trust my recommendations and would like to leave a tip, I'll make sure at least $1 minimum from each tip will go towards a donation to The Dogs Trust charity. This is a great charity that provides life changing care & forever homes for our furry friends. Thanks.