Lanterns, DC's Long Shot: What the New Series Is Like and the Full Episode Release Schedule

In August, Lanterns premiered on HBO — one of the most important shows in the rebooted DC cinematic universe. After all, while Marvel is basking in the record-breaking box office of its new blockbuster — Spider-Man: Brand New Day crosses $2 billion worldwide — and mentally converting the hype around Avengers: Doomsday into ticket sales, things once again aren't going so smoothly for the competition.

The DCU reboot, headed by director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad) and producer Peter Safran, the man behind The Conjuring and Aquaman, got off to a fairly confident start. 2025's Superman earned excellent reviews and performed decently at the box office, while the animated Creature Commandos and the second season of Peacemaker also went down well with fans and critics alike. But then came a deafening flop — Supergirl Ends Its Theatrical Run With a Record-Low Box Office Haul — which cast doubt on whether the Gunn–Safran duo can really turn the DC universe into a successful film franchise. Against the backdrop of the $111 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. deal — EU approves Paramount's Warner Bros. Discovery purchase with strict conditions — there's a non-zero chance that the media giant's new leadership, instead of dealing with the problems, will simply decide to reboot the cinematic universe all over again.

So a lot more rides on the success of Lanterns than the fate of a single show. Gunn and Safran need to prove that Supergirl was a fluke, win back viewers' trust, and convince management that everything is going according to plan. The most ironic part is that the show tasked with doing this has a very unusual concept — a True Detective-style drama about two superheroes investigating a mysterious crime in the American heartland. In short, nothing you'd associate with the Lanterns comics.

Lanterns opens with a nod to the legend of William Tell. The father of a very young John Stewart places an apple on his son's head and shoots it clean off with a pistol. The protagonist just smiles back, clearly showing that events like this are a boring Tuesday in the Stewart household. The scene isn't exactly strange, but for now it clashes sharply with the show's overall mood and looks more like a cryptic hint at the hero's past.

From there, the action moves to 2016. Two Green Lanterns — the veteran Hal Jordan and his young partner John Stewart — head to the small town of Rushville, Nebraska, to investigate a mysterious murder. By every cop-show standard, what we have here is yet another take on the "grumpy old-timer and young idealist" duo. Hal is a living legend, sardonic and cocky, hiding the traumas of his past behind dad jokes and alcohol. Stewart, on the other hand, is a classic straight-A student: serious, buttoned-up, by-the-book, and trying to convince everyone around him — and himself — that he'll make the perfect Lantern.

That said, he hasn't yet received the coveted ring and serves only as a "cadet" who will one day replace Hal. It's the relationship between the two leads that is the best thing about the first episode. Chandler is superb as a superhero who is, of course, a little "too old for all this," yet still too experienced, stubborn, and self-assured to retire. Hence the constant jabs at the newcomer and the attempts to test his mettle. Pierre, by contrast, is calm, reserved, and in no hurry to get drawn into verbal sparring, though he clearly has no intention of putting up with the role of "just the sidekick" forever. Most of the pilot's energy and chemistry is built on the clash between these two personalities — the characters are forever sizing each other up and arguing, as if working out which of them truly deserves the ring.

In the background, the exposition of the local detective story gradually unfolds. On the menu: a sleepy cowboy town, a mass murder during an American football game, aliens who have been among us for a long time and are clearly up to something, and rednecks with tactical rifles gearing up to resist an alien colonization. For now, the set of events and the writers' moves are fairly standard, but at least intriguing. Plus there's no doubt that a couple of unexpected twists are still in store — the first one already happened in the pilot's finale.

There really is very little classic superhero action in Lanterns. For now, the show devotes far more attention to conversations, atmosphere, and local color than to green rings and special effects. Believe it or not, in the first episode the entire action amounts to a bar fight with no superpowers used and a single car going off a cliff. Even the Corps' famous oath — "In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight!" — is delivered in the show almost like a curse. So the creators weren't lying: what we have is a genuine detective story about "space cops," with a clear emphasis on the second word. Even the Lanterns' powers come across more as one more tool in the investigation than the show's main attraction.

This approach works best when the show focuses on its characters and the detective element. The pilot has excellent humor, an unhurried, uneasy atmosphere, an intriguing mystery, and reasonably well-developed characters. Lanterns is at its best precisely as a detective story about two cops who run into who-knows-what out in the sticks and gradually realize that no one here can be trusted — not even each other.

That said, the excessive desire to resemble "prestige HBO dramas" sometimes works against the show. Lanterns tries too hard to fit the mold of True Detective, Ozark, and other projects like them, as if forgetting that this is, after all, an adaptation of a popular comic book. And that means viewers came not only for tense conversations, the secrets of a provincial town, and the mistrust between partners, but also for space opera — to revel in the beautiful, graphically lavish destruction of chthonic monsters. For now, though, the superhero element remains more of a seasoning for the detective story.

Lanterns still has to answer the question that has hung over the show like a guillotine since its announcement — why do we need a superhero detective story in the vein of True Detective when we already have True Detective and a host of other cult crime dramas? All the more so because, due to the conventions of a comic-book adaptation and the need to remain accessible to the widest possible audience, the show will almost inevitably fall short of its genre benchmarks in creative freedom, experimentation, boldness, and depth. No one is going to let the creators of Lanterns turn Hal Jordan into a full-fledged antihero, make the atmosphere truly bleak, or tackle hard-hitting social issues without regard for the mass audience.

In the end, the show risks getting lost between two formats: too down-to-earth for viewers who came for cosmic superhero action, and too cautious for those waiting for a new True Detective.

Still, for all the caveats, Lanterns has gotten off to a solid start. Showrunner Chris Mundy and the writers managed to make the Green Lanterns interesting to viewers who have never opened a comic book. Instead of a long tour of the Corps and cosmic mythology, they chose a detective story that's engaging to follow and characters you warm to almost immediately. If large-scale battles, expensive special effects, and cosmic monsters get added to the mix down the line, it'll be even better. At the very least, there will definitely be fan service with two other Lanterns — Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) and Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen)…

Will you be following the show as it develops? Share your opinion in the comments and let's discuss it together.