Titans debuted on October 12, 2018.  The first two seasons premiered on DC Universe, and the third season was released on HBO Max.  The Titans makers  have recently announced a fourth season.  There are 37 total episodes throughout the three seasons.  Titans is based on the famous DC Comics superhero team: the Teen Titans.  The TV series, Titans, portrays a crew of teenage heroes who collaborated in their combat against evil and other perils.  The featured members of the team are Nightwing, Starfire, Blackfire, Raven, Beast Boy, Robin, Super Boy, Wonder Girl, Hawk, and Dove.

Season 1 of Titans follows a former Robin (vigilante sidekick to Batman), Nightwing, who is the reluctant leader of the new Titans.  Raven is a special, young girl that is engulfed by a bizarre darkness.  After leaving Gotham City to “find himself”, Dick Grayson (Nightwing) works as a cop in Chicago.  Rachel Roth (Raven) has been having increasingly-more-vivid visions about Dick.  When Raven comes home from school and finds her “mother” dead, she runs away.  Eventually, the two meet in Dick’s police station, and Raven informs Dick about her visions.  Raven gets kidnapped from Dick’s possession, and after Raven murders her kidnapper, Dick drives off with Raven because he learns that she is in constant danger.  Later, they find that Raven is involved in a prophecy that could wreak havoc on Earth.  Beast Boy and Starfire join them along the way.

The format of Titans is unique.  Each season has a main villain.  Season 1’s villain is the all-powerful demon, Trigon.  Trigon is Raven’s father that was sending his followers to attempt to reunite him with his daughter.  Season 2’s villain is Deathstroke, a biologically-enhanced assassin.  Deathstroke was a major antagonist that often fought the original team of Titans.  Season 3’s villain is Scarecrow, a well-known Gotham City criminal who exploits the fears of his victims.  He is also a main supervillain to Batman in other continuities.

Although there has been many adaptations of the Teen Titans, such as Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!, Titans is the first live-action take on the franchise.  Because the show is live-action, the fight scenes are way better than the other iterations.  The fights have well-choreographed martial arts, and the heroes’ powers look life-like.

The emotions of the characters in Titans are well-portrayed and well-written.  The team is full of outcasts trying to be better.  Titans is a gritty take on its other childish, animated adaptations.  The show deconstructs the idea of superheroes and sidekicks.  Nightwing is “trying to figure out who he is at the same time he's trying to keep the crew protected and safe”.  Dick overcomes his angst, burns his old Robin suit, and embraces Nightwing.  He often takes absences from his role in the team at climactic moments because he believes that it is the best decision.  Nightwing is meant to show hope and perseverance to the audience.  Beast Boy is the most underrated character in the show.  Beast Boy is extremely loyal and caring.  He is always left to take charge when the group disbands or their leader leaves.  He left his previous team, the Doom Patrol, just to join Dick’s new Titans group.  Beast Boy stayed in the Titans Tower by himself to look after Super Boy when he was in a coma for about a month!  Super Boy was made in Cadmus Lab from Superman and Lex Luthor’s (Superman’s archnemesis) DNA.  As a freshly made clone, his only emotions were derived from his “dads”.  Super Boy had no sense of right or wrong.  Throughout the seasons, Super Boy ponders his internal conflict and attempts to balance his unruly emotions.  The best character of the show, in my opinion, is Jason Todd’s Robin.  He is Dick Grayson’s successor and Batman’s second Robin.  Robin is a reckless teenager with a fun and dark side.  The show often has him transitioning between the two.  When he was first introduced, he was driving motorcycles down stairs and cursing on live television, then as the show progressed, he started to become rebellious, hated by the group, and even attempted suicide.  Robin dies, becomes resurrected in a Lazarus Pit by Scarecrow, has his emotions and character changed from the pit, and becomes the infamous Red Hood.

Titans has many references to the DC Universe that adheres to fans’ cravings.  My personal favorite was the live-action recreation of Red Hood’s introduction to Gotham’s mob bosses.  This was a recreation of a scene in Batman: Under the Red Hood.  The heroes’ costumes in Titans look almost identical to the comics.  Batman’s BatCave in Titans had many references to the DC Universe like Scarecrow’s mask, Catwoman’s whip, TwoFace’s coin, Joker’s giant card, Penguin’s umbrella, and Harley Quinn’s mallet.  The Lazarus Pit is a reference to the immortal supervillain Ra's al Ghul.  The psychiatrist that Jason Todd/Robin was seeking help from was a reference to an actual DC character.

Although Titans had many positive notions, there were some cons to the show.  A prominent feature of the show was the blue tint.  The first two seasons were produced with a blue tint filter.  With most media, the colors/filters are changed to represent emotions or settings.  However, Titans had a blue tint that only ceased by the third season.  It made every scene have a feeling of sadness or isolation and made differentiating setting changes difficult.  It would make sense if the blue filter was only put on when the characters were in Gotham City, but Chicago, the farm, and the motel still all had the blue tint!

The emotions in Titans were well-written, but the plot was not.  The plot was extremely messy.  The show was meant to show how the group of heroes were a team/family.  From the 24 episodes of the first two seasons, the Titans have disbanded over three times!  Titans had many subplots and storylines that went nowhere.  It felt like the majority of the main characters did nothing for half of a season!  Some of the characters would disappear for episodes at a time.  The show was filled with many underdeveloped plots.  Hawk gets over his addiction problems, regresses, then overcomes them again all in the same episode!  Super Boy gets debuted, then put into a coma two episodes later.  Robin falls in love with the villain’s daughter, gets heartbroken, and then leaves for a while.  Nightwing puts himself in jail out of guilt and to “make atonement”.  These subplots don’t add much to the main story of the season or to the characters’ development.  Out of the 13 episodes in season 2, two of the episodes are entirely dedicated to flashbacks!  The show feels as if there is no forward momentum until the season finales.

As a DC fan since I was little, I truly enjoyed the show.  It had sloppy subplots, but the emotions and crime-fighting superhero elements made the show enjoyable.