In the fun, scary, colorful, strangely charming and adorably strange “Dead Boy Detectives,” premiering Thursday on Netflix, supposedly deceased teenagers Edwin (George Rexstrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri) investigate what's troubling troublesome ghosts. .
Created by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner for DC Comics, the eponymous team was born in the pages of “The Sandman” in 1991 and appeared, played by much younger actors, in the third season of “Doom Patrol”, the best of all. superhero series. But the current show, developed by Steve Yockey, is set within “The Sandman Universe,” at least to the extent that Kirby Howell-Baptiste, who played Death in the Netflix adaptation of “Sandman,” briefly makes a appearance here.
Edwin, who died in 1916, is formal, reserved, repressed and orderly. Charles, who died in the 1980s, is a comparatively wild child; He wears a “ska” button on his lapel and a “tough boys” patch on his shoulder, and says “brills,” “innit,” and “oi!” and such. They are teenagers not in person but only in person; The actors are over 20 years old, which allows, psychologically, for more sophisticated plots. (It's a kind of sexy spectacle, in a chaste way, driven by longing and jealousy.) Although they are friendly ghosts and walk the Earth by choice, they are not without trauma, of which Edwin has an extra measure, having passed seven decades. in hell due to an administrative error.
Yuyu Kitamura plays Niko Sasaki, whose qualifications for detective work include watching hundreds of hours of “Scooby Doo” and anime.
(Netflix)
Over the decades since they became friends, the pair have established themselves as well-regarded detectives for London's troublesome dead (they rent an office, with office furniture and files like any living private detective), avoiding Death every time. time he comes to town; They have no desire to move on to the afterlife or to abandon their profession. They accept payments: The ghost economy is incomplete, but some have money. (Although a misanthropic lighthouse keeper, haunted by other ghosts – “If I wanted to be around people, I'd frequent a Denny's” – offers saltwater taffy and “a freaking magic 8 ball.”)
As they progress, they will collect collaborators, going from a Hardy Boys model to a Scooby gang. (We have a clip from “Scooby Doo,” to make the point and pay homage.) First there is psychic Crystal (Kassius Nelson), who exorcises her ex, a demon named David (David Iacono), and who can see the dead. people. Following a lead, they travel together to Port Townsend, Washington, i.e. Vancouver, BC, to enjoy tax breaks and production advantages. Here they meet the cheerful and cheerful Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), whose supernatural near-death encounter allows her to see the deceased as well. She has “watched hundreds of hours of anime and detective cartoons” and so she feels qualified to join the gang. Crystal and Niko rent rooms above the cynical tattooed butcher Jenny (Briana Cuoco), who eventually joins them.
The pressure comes from several directions. There are the particular challenges of the episodic adventures, which are complemented and fueled by long arcs that pit them against Esther (Jenn Lyon), a glamorous witch and her main nemesis; the Cat King (Lukas Gage), who has trapped his strange interest in Edwin under magical house arrest in Port Townsend; and the night nurse (Ruth Connell), a middle manager from the afterlife (once again, Death's realm is presented as a bureaucracy, governed by “permissions and approvals”), who seeks to corral the children, whose presence continuing on Earth offends her. sense of order.
Kassius Nelson is Crystal Palace, a psychic.
(Courtesy of Netflix © 2023)
Supernatural physics follows whatever rules writers make up. The ghosts in “Dead Boy Detectives” are not tied to any place; they travel through mirrors; They can physically interact with the world of things and the living, although they lack smell and taste, which makes eating unpleasant; They can don visible human costumes when necessary. Other mythological agents, recipes and knick-knacks are made as desired. Talking cats, insulting goblins, a sea beast, a mushroom monster, a former walrus named Mick (Michael Beach), who runs the local (real) magic shop. You go with the paranormal current.
We've seen other series in which mortal or immortal agents help restless souls complete unfinished business and move towards the light or whatever: “Ghost Whisperer”, “Deadbeat”, “Dead Like Me”, my dear “Ghost Girls” , last year's excellent “School Spirits,” in which a high school student sets out to solve her own murder. And, of course, putting young people in supernatural situations, which lends itself especially well to humor, is as common as candy on Halloween.
But if there's nothing groundbreaking here, it's all extraordinarily well done: cleverly written, cleverly acted, sensitively performed and wonderfully realised. He's disturbing at times, but sweet at others and comical most of the time. There is animation. Every once in a while you can anticipate a twisted turn, because it's a turn that long years of genre exercises have taught you to expect. But a series can seem fresh without being original. And there are enough surprises.
