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- Alternative Character Interpretation: All of the Doom Patrol's members are complicated and interesting characters.
- The Chief, much like the comics, is Ambiguously Evil at varying points in the first episodes. While warmer than his illustrated counterpart, he's also someone who is shown to be willing to lie and Shoot the Dog when circumstances permit. The Titans episode also showed him willing to operate on subjects without their consent. On the other hand, circumstances seem to indicate his actions always have a justification to them or are the Lesser Evil.
- Crazy Jane in particular, given that she's openly dismissive and disdainful of everyone around her, most notably Robotman and Chief, when she finds out his role in giving her multiple personalities their powers.
- Anvilicious: Having a Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits represent and stand up for the people who are by choice or necessity atypical is cool and all. So is having them be opposed by a soulless organisation that seeks to stamp out everything that isn't perfect cookie-cutter health and conformity. Having that organisation actually be called "the Bureau of Normalcy" can feel a bit on the nose, though.
- And You Thought It Would Fail: Being a spin-off to the controversial Titans (2018) and being based on a comic book team not that well known in the mainstream outside of being connected to Beast Boy, it was easy to assume Doom Patrol was not going to be successful. Instead, it ended up being better received by fans and critics alike for its casting, characters, and tone.
- Awesome Music: Has its own page.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
- Willoughby Kipling consulting a demonic oracle for advice on the Cult of the Unwritten Book. That's pretty logical. What is not so logical: said oracle taking the form of a glowing blue French-accented unicorn head who delivers her advice to them in song (to the tune of "A Horse With No Name".)
- While brief comments foreshadow their arrival and the audience certainly expects to see strange things in the Bureau of Normalcy, the "butts are loose!" scene comes out of nowhere in "Cyborg Patrol."
- In the middle of "1918 Patrol", the Sisterhood of Dada starts dancing to "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga, while the camera suddenly mimics an old-fashioned camera. There is never any explanation offered for why a modern pop song is playing during a scene set in the early 20th century.
- Can't Un-Hear It: Good luck reading a Doom Patrol comic after seeing this series and not hearing Brendan Fraser's voice for Robotman or Matt Bomer's for Negative Man.
- Complete Monster: In a world of supervillains and monsters, two parents and one infamous Serial Killer stand out as being worst of all:
- "Cult Patrol" & "Paw Patrol": Martha Patterson is a member of the Cult of the Unwritten Book, which worships the Decreator, which she intended to bring to the world via the use of a human vessel for the Unwritten Word. To these ends she had a son, Elliot Patterson, and raised him alongside her husband, Todd. Tattooing him and telling him he'd save the world, the truth came out when Todd, ridden by guilt, told Elliot the truth. Martha, dropping all pretense of being a loving mother and wife, slit Todd's throat and chased after her son, eventually sending cultists to fetch him when he took refuge at Doom Manor. Successful in summoning the Decreator—which soon after killed her son—Martha became an archon and confessed to Cliff and Jane her motivations: a nihilist of the highest caliber, she settled for a brief time as ruler of Nurnheim and deemed the rest of creation worth condemning to annihilation. She then proceeded to deconstruct both heroes, exposing their insecurities and traumas for the sake of mocking them. When a counter-cult finally took action to destroy the Decreator, Martha wrathfully attacked the heroes one last time, rejecting all attempts at preventing the world from being erased.
- Kay Challis's nameless father manages to stand out as particularly depraved. Not only did he rape his daughter repeatedly as a child, but whenever he felt she disobeyed him or only dared to as much as look at other males but him, he forced her down a well in a bucket, leaving her there terrified and crying for hours. His abuse of her was so bad that her mind broke into multiple personalities, one particular being "Daddy", who keeps tormenting and egging her on to commit suicide, making him the source of all her trauma.
- "Pain Patrol": Red Jack is an interdimensional being who feeds on suffering. First encountered by Caulder as Jack the Ripper, Red Jack has been many serial killers since, including the Monster of Florence. Kidnapping Mr. Negative and torturing him while using his radiation to torture others, Red Jack tries to sway Caulder to be his apprentice, deciding to torture him and his allies eternally as one of his collection; rows and rows of people turned into butterflies and kept in horrific agony so he may feed on them for all time.
- Crazy Is Cool: The entire show, really, provides as much delightfully nonsensical weirdness as a DC fan could ever hope for. At one point Mr. Nobody stages a plot to destroy a town by sucking it into a portal caused by the farts of a magical donkey. This is in the first episode.
- He may be evil but Mr. Nobody is a villain with a hilarious sense of horrifying humor.
- Creepy Awesome: As with the Grant Morrison run, most of the villains who aren't total jokes are both terrifying and awe inspiring, examples being Mr. Nobody, Archon Martha Patterson, Red Jack, and the Candlemaker.
- Crosses the Line Twice: The show is a master of this.
- Mr. Nobody's answer when the Chief asks him who he's talking to in the second episode opening.
Mr. Nobody: Grant Morrison Fans, Reddit Trolls, DC Universe Subscribers, and the three new people who stuck around after the farting donkey.- Having to shove Rita down the mouth of a donkey using a funnel.
- The Nazi puppet show extolling the virtues of a master race via super-science.
- Rita accidentally suffocating a producer under herself during a Casting Couch situation.
- The entirety of Mr. Nobody's terrorist attack from the 50s. First is the giant balloon shaped like buttocks with a jukebox set to play "Hot Diggity" on a loop. And then there's the laser that turns cops into pinatas for the locals to eat.
- The employees of the Bureau of Normalcy being attacked monster-movie style by the horde of carnivorous butts.
- Flex Mentallo accidentally making everyone on Danny the Street orgasm. Including Danny.
- Ezekiel the Cockroach and Admiral Whiskers passionately making out while giant-sized.
- Ezekiel and Whiskers in general; a religiously fanatic Cockroach and an rat who's on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge serving as a pair of villains.
- The show seems to be aiming for Once an Episode with this in season 2.
- Fun Size Patrol has Cliff killing rats while the size of a cheese curd. Funny. Chief confronts him and tells him that it won't fill the void in his heart? Crosses that line. Cliff going out and killing rats anyway, then returning wearing one's pelt and saying "Hole. Filled. Asshole."? Crossed again.
- Tyme Patrol sees Rita accidentally shattering Dr Tyme's head and spilling out his Continuinium, which prompts an all-out brawl between the various (previously brainwashed) people who traveled to Tyme's lair to get that Continuinium. First there's a samurai who tries to pick it up, only to be stabbed by a Zulu warrior, who then gets punch by Cliff! Oh, and the Continuinium is actually Tyme's brain.
- Pain Patrol: Cliff gets angry with Chief and goes to Clara's (his daughter) place to prove he's the better father. Keep in mind he's a seven-foot tall robot who has been legally dead for more than 40 years, and hasn't officially spoken to his daughter once in that time. Once there, he gets rejected by Clara and refuses to leave; she calls the cops on him eventually, and Cliff gets so angry that he starts punching the grill of the Doom Bus. The cops try to stop him, and he shouts, "Fuck you, it's my fucking bus!"
That's not the funny part.
The funny part is when one of the cops shrugs, turns to his partner, and says, "I mean, it is his fucking bus." - Also remember that during all that, Chief, Larry, and Rita are being tortured by a serial killer Humanoid Abomination.
- Sex Patrol is an entire episode of these moments. It practically deserves its own page.
- Rita asks Flex Mentallo to 'flex the wrong muscle' again for her, so she can access her repressed childhood memories.
- When the first time only partially works, Rita asks Flex to do it again. And not stop until she says to. Hours Later...
- Rita and Flex have caused such a buildup of 'sexual energy' that it causes a sex demon to appear. If he gives birth (yes, he), the baby's cries will kill every child on the planet. Also, the demon's name is 'Shadowy Mister Evans', and he's just a bald monk dude with a periscope coming out the top of his head.
- The Sex-Men appear to stop that from happening. The fact that the Sex-Men exist, and are actually necessary, is insane.
- Rita's never-ending orgasm summons legions of sex ghosts. As in, ghosts having sex. So enthusiastically that they slide around the rooms like slugs.
- Jane (well, Hammerhead) is the one to defeat the demon, by shoving his baby back up his crotch-hole. And even after he falls back to hell and Rita wakes up, the sex ghosts remain.
- Cliff spends the entire episode tripping balls because Chief filled his nutrient tank with Ecstasy. On purpose, and Cliff agreed to it. He can't help but celebrate by gleefully informing everyone how high he is.
- Two of the sex ghosts stick around the mansion for the rest of the season appearing in the background here and there.
- Finger Patrol gets its name from a scene in which Cliff tries to stop two guys from jacking a car, and he accidentally slams the door on one of the guy's hand. The dude's finger goes flying, and he runs off screaming. And Cliff picks up the finger so the Chief can figure out how to give him a sensation of touch.
- Space Patrol: Two of the three astronauts that Niles sent to study the cosmic energy (which turned out to be a spacial rift to the home of the Negative Spirits), spend half the episode acting like overly excited children. We later find out that they've been Dead All Along, and they're bodies are being controlled by a space fungus that will soon die in Earth's atmosphere. The third astronaut, or cosmonaut, more accurately, since she's Valentina Vostok, is simply there to bury their bodies. Which she and Larry do, and Larry asks her if she has anything she wishes to say, as is custom for funerals. The only thing Valentina has before walking away?Valentina: If any fruit grows here... don't eat it.
- "Dumb Patrol" has most of the team be infected with Scants, which causes them to think all their terrible ideas are great. Miranda and the other personalities defeat the Scant Queen by puncturing her water bed and electrocuting her until she explodes, drenching everyone in pink goo.
- Before this the Queen was quite Faux Affably Evil, and at one point tells them, "Once we drain all the Idiot from your brains, each of you will shit your pants and die!" with a perfect smile. Which they return, clearly thinking that sounds like a right jolly good time!
- At the very beginning of the episode, Cliff falls out of orbit, and has to pull himself out of the crater while ranting about how he's going to murder the Chief. So, business as usual. But on his way down, he crashes through a billboard, advertising a new book written by Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man...'s Velociraptor head, who is apparently female and goes by the name 'Denise'. One of the reviews cited on the billboard is Kite-Man of all people. And typical of him, the review just says, "Hell Yeah!"
- In Dad Patrol, Cliff is trying to make breakfast for his grown, pregnant daughter Clara. He adds the sausages to the plate, and, well... remember that finger Cliff brought home a few episodes ago?
- "Wax Patrol" gives us the spectacle of Cliff getting the shit beaten out of him by Jesus Christ... who talks like a foul-mouthed redneck.
- In "Possibilities Patrol", Daddy!Jane threatening Dorothy is scary. Daddy!Jane sniffing Dorothy is horrifying. But Daddy!Jane picking up Dorothy and chucking her out into the hallway? Hilarious.
- In "Dead Patrol", Larry wrapping his dead friends in preservative bandages and then arranging them at the dining-room table would be a tragic portrait of a man losing what's left of his sanity if it weren't for him fussing over making sure that Jane has one of her middle fingers extended.
- Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Of all people, Flex Mentallo was a huge hit with audiences, thanks to his portrayal capturing all the surreal wackiness of his origin but also his supremely wholesome charm. Many fans commented that they never in a million years thought they would see Flex Mentallo adapted faithfully to the screen at all, let alone make them so emotional.
- Danny The Street was, much in like the comics, also extremely well received due to their kind, nurturing nature, being directly associated with LGBTQ themes and even managing to help Larry come closer to accepting himself after decades of self-loathing. Each appearance since has been greeted with fan delight
- Despite being a one-off character, Garguax has gained some popularity for being an Affably Evil Retired Monster who dies trying to save the Doom Patrol.
- Evil Is Cool: An omnipotent fourth-wall breaking Deadpan Snarker played by Alan Tudyk? Mr. Nobody certainly qualifies.
- Fandom Rivalry: Just like Titans, there is one with fans of the DC Extended Universe. Not only does the show have superior reviews compared to darker DCEU entries, but Cyborg became a regular supporting character on the show while his DCEU counterpart has been largely MIA with no solo movie or further appearances slated for the immediate future. Furthermore, Joivan Wade's depiction of Cyborg has been praised by critics and fans for being warmer and livelier than his more morose DCEU counterpart.
- Also a minor one with fans of The Umbrella Academy, given that both shows premiered on the same day, are built around many elements of black comedy and bizarre plotlines, and focus on misfits with superpowers who share a family-esque relationship, bicker incessantly, have a mysterious, manipulative mentor with a dark past, and must overcome their issues to save the world. Their source materials even share an author, Gerard Way, who created the Umbrella Academy comic before taking on writing duties on Doom Patrol in 2016.
- Friendly Fandoms: Fans of this show get along famously with Legends of Tomorrow fans, since both are team-based DC ensemble shows that have fairly diverse casts of dysfunctional misfits and tap into similarly absurd "go for broke, pull out all the stops, no plotline is too insane" veins of unhinged comedic madness for most of their storytelling.
- There's also a fair bit of camaraderie with fans of Stargirl, owing to the Doom Manor set being reused for the Helix Institute.
- Genius Bonus: In "Finger Patrol", Cliff imagines himself and Cyborg starring in a cheesy 70's cop show called "Steele and Stone", which is mentioned as being "a Morilar production". This is almost certainly a play on Lorimar, producer of a number of classic shows like Knots Landing and Dallas.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- Granted, this was before Jane took over as Primary, but when Jane goes to the Underground and asks Pretty Polly when was the last time she ever surfaced she follows it by saying, "Oh that's right, never!" In season 2 the first time Polly surfaced was during Miranda's orgy party and was clearly having a mental breakdown as she laughed at what was happening.
- Songs like "People Like Us" and "Forever Young" can hit differently after Season 4, where the team not only have to deal with rapid aging, but they end up going their separate ways once Rita dies.
- In "Fame Patrol", Dorothy admonishes Cliff that he should spend as much of his remaining time as possible with his family, because they're the ones who will have to live on after him and his death will be much harder for them than it is for him. In the finale, he finally returns to Clara and Mel's house to stay, only to find out that he's already in the end stages of Parkinson's disease. He dies suddenly soon afterwards, and Clara and Mel are both devastated.
M-W
- Misaimed Fandom: Plenty of viewers wanted the finale to end with the Doom Patrol still together, not taking to heart Rita and Larry's concerns about the fact that they're wildly incompetent as a team and the best they can do is stop threats that they were responsible for creating.
- Moment of Awesome: Crazy Jane and Robot Man's respective fight scenes as they tear through Von Fuchs' Mooks.
- Moral Event Horizon: Mr. Nobody did plenty of messed up things beforehand, but him manipulating Cyborg's paranoia and mistrust of his father to the point that Vic almost BEAT SILAS TO DEATH, only to reveal the deception and gloat as a bereaved Cyborg holds his unconscious dad in tears truly reveals how much of a monster he is.
- Narm: Cyborg's story is supposed to be tragic, but the actual event is downright cringeworthy. Essentially, Victor throws a tantrum over his father's absence and then throws a highly volatile chemical in an enclosed lab, causing the explosion that crippled him and killed his mom. Him being the son of two scientists doesn't help matters.
- Narm Charm: Mr. Nobody's hipper-than-thou narration about how superhero shows all suck is saved by Alan Tudyk's full commitment to the bit, plus coming from the bad guy so of course he'd feel this way. Then it turns out to be fully integrated into the story itself.
- Flex Mentallo flexing while screaming in pain would be silly, but Dolores’s death moments before makes it a genuine Tearjerker.
- Nausea Fuel:
- Beard Hunter's fetish of consuming facial hair is pretty disgusting.
- The longevity pendant that Niles Caulder kept turns out to be a dead skin-tag harvested from Immortus. What makes it so gross is that it's abnormally large.
- Rita's cremation causes her body to inflate before releasing pungent fumes.
- One-Scene Wonder:
- Edward Asner as a hospital patient who helps Rita through her greatest issue, and is actually a disguised Mr. Nobody.
- "Dad Patrol" gives us the nameless store clerk who helps Dorothy with her First Period Panic.
- Playing Against Type: A mild example, with the casting of Brendan Fraser as Cliff Steele. Whilst Fraser is well-known for playing goofy, shouty, socially-awkward characters (which puts Cliff in his general wheelhouse), it can be a little jarring for his fans to find out that he's also easily the most foul-mouthed character in the show (apart from Jane, that is). Likewise, the flashbacks revealing Cliff's spiral of sex, drugs and alcohol can be a little surprising for those used to Fraser's usual "nice guy" image.
- She Really Can Act: Diane Guerrero was most widely known for doing lighter roles and playing attractive but not very bright characters. Her role as Jane, however, allows her to show off incredible versatility as she portrays various, wildly different personalities, giving each a unique performance and switches between them effortlessly. That's in addition to the dramatic scenes which she handles extremely well, even getting a whole episode devoted to Jane's traumatic past, and holding her own opposite Timothy Dalton and Matt Bomer. Many reviewers have even cited her as the stand out of the series.
- Ship-to-Ship Combat: Some fans prefer the Crazy Jane/Fog pairing over the Crazy Jane/Space Case pairing.
- Signature Scene: Larry singing "People Like Us" on karaoke in "Danny Patrol" is one of the most beloved moments due to its vibrant energy.
- Spiritual Adaptation:
- Given the long history of being similar to the X-Men as a team of outcasts led by a guy in a wheelchair (and the accusations of plagiarism that followed, despite Doom Patrol predating X-Men by a few months), this could be considered as a live-action X-Men series in all but name.
- Parallels can also be made to this being a Fantastic Four series in all but name, given that they're a Family of Choice exploring the weird ends of the universe.
- Given the series having a penchant for Cluster F-Bomb, Crossing the Line Twice, Breaking the Fourth Wall, and adult themes in general, while still being a colorful show about superheroes, it's easy to see this as a team-oriented Deadpool adaptation, but in a TV format.
- Strangled by the Red String:
- Bendy and Malcolm's decades-long relationship plays a major role in the events of season 3, and has a large impact on Rita's Character Development, but it has almost no real build-up - they meet, exchange some words and gifts, and then time skips forward to them being in a relationship.
- Casey's relationship with Kay begins in the very last episode and comes after Jane previously rejected Casey's advances on the entirely understandable grounds that she wasn't ready for a relationship.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Mento makes his introduction in "Doom Patrol Patrol" as a superhero from The '50s onward. It is then discovered that he's an old man, was driven hopelessly insane by Mr. Nobody, and confined to a wheelchair.
- Dorothy is a major character in the first half of season 2, then goes Out of Focus for most of the second half before being written out in season 3 to make room for Madame Rouge. Worse, she was expected to join the Dead Boy Detectives, only for that show to be retooled without her. She returns for part of season 4, gets one episode mostly to herself, and plays a role in the Musical Episode, and then simply disappears from the show for good, with no explanation of what happened to her.
- Speaking of the Dead Boy Detectives, they were one of the most universally-loved things about season 3, which a lot of fans praising Ty Tennant and Sebastian Croft's chemistry, but they only appear in that one episode, and the planned spin-off completely recast the roles and explicitly takes place in a different universe.
- The show's use of Codpiece has been criticized
for turning him into a generic misogynist idiot, whereas the comics gave him a very clear pathology - hatred of sex workers, particularly transgender sex workers, which in the comics makes it all the more significant that he's defeated by Kate Godwin, a trans woman who also happens to be a former sex worker. That he is defeated on the show by Dr. Harrison, a cisgender female, while Godwin remains Adapted Out, only adds salt to the wound for some fans.
- Unexpected Character:
- Let's be honest, how many people expected a freaking Doom Patrol show to get made in the first place? While they have a following, they're not nearly as widespread as much of the DCU.
- Crazy Jane isn't as widespread even among the members of the Doom Patrol, making her inclusion here rather surprising. She's also the only member who wasn't on the original team, having been created for the 1989 roster, whereas the others are series staples.
- Once the initial shock of the Doom Patrol announcement was over, an even bigger surprise came in the form of Cyborg having an Adaptation Origin Connection to the team. He's had no such relation to them in the comics, and like Batman it was thought he'd be off-limits because of the DC Extended Universe. Not to mention that him getting Adapted Out from Titans also made the general audience assume we would never see him. Later reports clarified that Cyborg is planned to join the Titans cast once this show is underway.
- Danny the Street is extremely obscure, and may seem a little hard to properly adapt as a literal sentient street. But sure enough, they appear in the show.
- At the end of episode three, we get a look at a character nobody was expecting to get in a live action show: Animal Vegetable Mineral Man, due to being made up of plants, minerals, and a secondary dinosaur head.
- Seriously, who in all the world thought we would get a faithfully adapted version of FLEX MENTALLO?
- Garguax was fairly unexpected even for this series, as he's simply an alien supervillain who doesn't quite fit the surrealist vibe this series is drawing from. Luckily he's given plenty of depth.
- While it initially appeared he was Adapted Out of Flex's backstory, Wally Sage makes a sudden appearance in Season 3, his power over creation still intact and holding a Flex Mentallo comic.
- Visual Effects of Awesome: Robotman looks exactly like his comics counterpart come to life.
- Cyborg's Arm Cannon. It looks just great.
- All of Dorothy's imaginary friends in season 2 look good, but the show's version of The Candlemaker is fucking terrifying to look at. Its a skeletal titan made of molten wax and flames that looks so real. And gets a decent amount of screen time, considering he's an All-CGI Character.
- Win Back the Crowd:
- After the heated fan response to Titans (2018) note , internet reactions to this show have been much more positive. Among other reasons, fans are excited because Doom Patrol's never had a proper adaptation of its own before, and because unlike Titans, the Patrol's adventures have always been weird and creepy, so its usual tone seems like a much more natural fit for DC's streaming network.
- Even people who've never heard of the titular team (or are even DC comics fans at all) were delighted when the fan-favorite Robotman was announced to be played by equally beloved internet "man who deserves a hug" Brendan Fraser.
- Few DP fans would ever have dreamed that an actor as esteemed as Timothy Dalton would end up being cast as the Chief.
- Many fans are also very excited to see the always great Alan Tudyk playing Mr Nobody.
- The first set photos of Negative Man and Robotman have had a much warmer reception than those of Starfire from Titans, since they pretty much look spot-on unlike the latter.
- The casting of Matt Bomer as Negative Man has also been very well-received.
- Many fans were delighted to learn that iconic Doom Patrol character Danny the Street would be appearing in the show.
- The Woobie: Doug, first introduced in "Danny Patrol", the subject of Karen's Stalker with a Crush who is constantly having his life torn apart any time she manifests. His family state that previously when she showed up, he spent six months unable to leave his room after she left, and him constantly taking her back has wrecked his relationship with them. The worst part is he's a completely normal guy who isn't aware she's a metahuman with Love Potion Hypnotic Eyes, so he has no idea that he's a victim of Mind Rape (and based on Hammerhead's description, actual rape too), and neither is his family.
