Along with Supergirl and Clayface, it’s one of several exciting new projects coming out of James Gunn’s DCU this year. But Lanterns will be different. It seems to be de-emphasizing the comic-booky elements in favor of a more typical buddy-cop story about one cop on the brink of retirement teaming up with another cop eager to crack his first big case.
Kyle Chandler stars as Hal Jordan, a seasoned veteran of the Green Lantern Corps, and Aaron Pierre plays his new partner, inexperienced rookie John Stewart. At the beginning of the series, the pair will be sent to investigate a murder in Nebraska, which will draw them into a much larger conspiracy. It’s a different kind of superhero show, but it could work out spectacularly.
Lanterns Could Succeed Where The Mandalorian Struggled
Back in 2019, when The Mandalorian first premiered with the launch of Disney+, it was poised to be the first true sci-fi show to break into the prestige TV space. Even the most popular sci-fi shows, like Stranger Things and Battlestar Galactica, are kept in their own category, separate from more grounded shows like Breaking Bad and The Bear.
Those shows exist in the A-tier, but the highest a hardcore sci-fi show like The Boys or The Walking Dead can get is the B-tier. Shows like Severance and Pluribus have been rightly praised as A-tier prestige shows, but they don’t lean too heavily on their sci-fi elements. Their stories are technically science fiction, but they don’t have spaceships and laser guns.
We still haven’t had the sci-fi equivalent of Game of Thrones — an unashamed genre piece invited to play with the big boys. Initially, it seemed as though The Mandalorian could be that show. It leaned into the pulpy adventure-of-the-week escapism of Star Wars’ original influences, but audiences were deeply moved by its father-son story.
The Mandalorian could’ve been our prestige sci-fi show if it had just ended when it reached its natural resolution. Mando and Grogu’s story ended perfectly when the bounty hunter gave up his young ward to be trained as a Jedi by Luke Skywalker. But Disney wasn’t done profiting from Baby Yoda, so the characters were promptly reunited for an unnecessary third season.
Now, it’s just another Stranger Things: a once-great sci-fi show that got too greedy, overextended itself, and replaced honest human storytelling with gratuitous blockbuster spectacle. Instead, Lanterns could be the prestige sci-fi show.
If Lanterns Lives Up To The Hype, It Could Change Sci-Fi TV
When Gunn first announced Lanterns as a part of the DCU’s “Chapter One: Gods and Monsters” lineup, he promised a detective drama worthy of HBO’s airtime. Never mind that the detectives in this drama are a part of an interstellar law enforcement agency, all equipped with magical rings. This is being hyped up as the next great murder mystery.
If Lanterns does, indeed, live up to the hype (which is a long shot, because it’s been hyped up pretty high), then it could change the face of sci-fi TV. If Lanterns really is the next big thing — an HBO-level prestige drama — then it could save science fiction from the television ghetto and prove its viability as a prestige genre.
Lanterns’ Approach Sounds Risky
DC Studios’ approach to Lanterns has sounded risky since it was first announced. When Gunn first added Lanterns to the DCU’s initial slate, he compared it to True Detective. Adapting the bright, colorful Green Lantern space cops into a gritty, somber, slow-paced True Detective-style prestige drama just doesn’t sound like a good fit. It never sounded like a good fit, no matter how many talented people got hired to work on it.
The Green Lanterns are tailor-made for a big, bombastic, high-flying space opera. But DC is taking the opposite approach: a grounded, Earth-based murder mystery. I’m excited to see it — and I hope to be proven wrong — but it just doesn’t sound like it can work.
Lanterns Is Another Promising Sign For James Gunn’s DCU
Whether the True Detective approach can work or not, the development of Lanterns is yet another promising sign for the future of Gunn’s DCU. When Kevin Feige started building out the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he settled on a familiar house style that all the movies had to adhere to. But Gunn is doing the opposite: telling lots of different stories in lots of different styles for lots of different audiences.
A few weeks after releasing Superman, a bright and colorful and lighthearted comic book adventure, DC Studios came out with Peacemaker season 2, a dark, twisted satire set in an alternate universe run by white supremacists. This year, we’re getting a space adventure with Supergirl, a body horror movie with Clayface, and a gritty cop show with Lanterns.