Harley Quinn is fed up of being seen merely as ‘Joker’s Girlfriend’, but does she have what it takes to get away from her abusive relationship and make her own mark on Gotham?

Billed as an adult adaptation of the source material, Harley Quinn really does take that license and run with it, with near every line of dialogue from its villainous cast (a veritable who’s who of the Batman Rogues Gallery) being laced with so much profanity it starts to wear thin very quickly. It feels like the balance is off with this, because rather than fading into the background because you’re barely noticing it, the profanity is so constant, so repeated and so mundane that it starts to be the one thing you can’t ignore. I’ve no problem with that sort of language, and I doubt many people do in this day and age, but it can’t help but start to feel a little desperate in context. Like the show really really wants you to know just how very grown up it is, but the only way it can think of to do it is by swearing long and loud (and to be fair peppering in a fair amount of gore as well).

It’s a shame because underneath this sub-teenaged posturing, there’s actually a challenging and interesting take on the characters. For too long, Harley has been that classic abused woman, desperately clinging to her partner in the belief that he loves her really. Here, the show takes more of a cue from Margot Robbie’s portrayal in Suicide Squad, and not just aesthetically. Here, Harley is somewhat confused, and prone to make excuses for ‘her puddin’ but she’s also still the fiercely brilliant Doctor Quinzel under the scars, and it takes the intervention of Poison Ivy (played with a delightfully laconic air by Lake Bell) to finally drag her out of herself and allow her to become her own person.

The show takes risks with that concept too – Ivy’s constant attempts keep falling on deaf ears and there’s a nice bit of deception on the part of the show as to how successful she’s been and when before it all falls into place for the final act. It’s a joke that could have been pushed too far, but here it works well, as the show exhibits the restraint and delicacy in its pacing that its lacking in its scripting (or at least one element of it).

It has fun with its characters too. Alan Tudyk makes for a particularly sleazy, nasty Joker who doesn’t have any of the likeableness or mischief that Mark Hamill has so often brought to the role. Diedrich Bader’s straight-laced take on Batman is absolutely what the show needs next to its anarchic cast of villains and Chris Meloni’s Commissioner Gordon – a man clearly at the end of his rope and probably with far too much coffee coursing through his sleep-deprived frame, makes a good alternate take on the character which works well although could wear out his welcome if the writers don’t use him sparingly.

Harley herself is played with gusto by Kaley Cuoco, who gives every impression of very much enjoying being let off the leash after so many years doing rather more sanitized TV. She importantly doesn’t even try to imitate the ‘Harley Drawl’, happy to let her own voice do the talking, as it were, and making the role very much her own. The mix of savage intelligence and occasional ditziness is just right, and this will definitely be a Harley who appeals to a broad section of fans.

It’s very much an origin story of an episode, taking us from Harley the mesmerized girlfriend to Harley the independent character, but it does what it needs to do very well. If it can only calm itself down a little on the language front, it could be something very special indeed.

Verdict: A fun (if at times slightly trying too hard to be grown up) take on the characters and the universe. I look forward to seeing where this one goes. 8/10

Greg D. Smith