Advertisement

Marvel's Daredevil: Baggage and fixing flaws in the new Netflix series

The first season of Daredevil hit Nexflix last week, tempting subscribers to binge on the street-hero series that digs into the story behind the comic book's blind vigilante.

Set in modern day New York City, the live action series follows Matt Murdock (played by The Theory of Everything's Charlie Cox) as he fights crime as a lawyer, by day, and as the masked superhero at night.

The 13-episode series begins with the tragic accident that blinded Murdock as a small boy and results in the unusual enhancement of his other four senses.

Like other complicated protagonists carrying popular TV dramas (such as Mad Men's Don Draper and House of Cards' Frank Underwood) Murdock is a troubled hero.

It's the story's dark side that is hooking viewers, says Daredevil's leading lady, Deborah Ann Woll.

"We really like the idea of the flawed hero," says Woll, who plays Murdock's secretary Karen Page.

Page, like Murdock has a few skeletons in her own closet. It's her serious legal troubles that find her cross paths with Murdock and his legal partner Foggy Nelson (played by Elden Henson.)

Woll says it's thrilling to play a character who is struggling with her past.

"Everyone (in Daredevil) has baggage," she says, "everyone has a back story, everyone has an ulterior motive."

"As an actor, you want to play flawed people. You want to play people who are struggling with things."

Downloading Daredevil

One thing Daredevil is not struggling with is finding an audience.

Despite being available to Netflix subscribers, the show is so popular it was the second-most pirated program last week, according to tracking firm Excipio and reported in Variety.

More than 2.1 million downloaders ripped illicit copies of the show from torrent sites between April 10-16.

The first most pirated series, of course, was HBO's Game of Thrones, which was downloaded 6.5 million times in the same period.

Helping Netflix to see

The launch of the show also forced Netflix to change its business model.

Visually impaired Marvel fans were less-than-impressed when the series launched without descriptive audio.

The feature provides a narrative track describing what is happening on-screen, including the actions of characters and scene changes.

But the streaming service was quick to act in the face of the backlash, promising to make its programming more accessible, starting with the blind superhero story.

Netflix said it would add the feature to more of its original programming, like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, in the coming weeks.

All 13 episodes of Daredevil's first season are available on Netflix.

Deborah Ann Woll talks about the show's noir influences in the video above.