Season one of “Marvel’s Iron Fist” was, for lack of a better word, underwhelming. At no point in watching the 13 episodes of the superhero web series did I find myself overly excited or relatively intrigued.

“Iron Fist” seemed to have all the rights part to become a major player in Marvel’s Netflix universe. A handsome leading man with acting chops, two leading ladies who can both act and kick butt, and a British dude, cause, you know? You’ve gotta have a British dude in there! We all know why (it’s the accent).

Then, of course, you’ve got ninjas. Or, in this case, Marvel’s Japanese-inspired evil organization “The Hand.” If you follow Marvel’s “Daredevil” web series, then you know “The Hand” does not mess around when it comes to bringing the pain. But still, ninjas! Who in their right mind doesn’t like ninjas?

Even as a huge Marvel fan growing up, I have to say I never got super into the “Iron Fist” line of comics. “Black Panther,” “Daredevil,” “Punisher,” and the X-Men were more my style, but be that as it may, I always knew Iron Fist was stupidly powerful with that glow-in-the-dark, Chi-charging fist of his. The character’s alter ego, Danny Rand, is extremely similar to Batman’s Bruce Wayne—born to a wealthy family, suffered the pain of losing them horrifically, and became the last person to carry his family’s surname. Aside from being one of Marvel’s better-developed tragic hero types, Iron Fist gave Marvel Television a reason to do a live-action superhero team-up of the “The Defenders.”

Nevertheless, Marvel Television found a way to screw that all up when they chose “Game of Thrones” alum Finn Jones to portray the super-powered martial arts master.

The cast of “Iron Fist” stars Jones, Jessica Henwick, Tom Pelphrey, Jessica Stroup, Ramon Rodriguez, Sacha Dhawan, Rosario Dawson, and David Wenham. At first glance, you might think that this is a strong cast of acting talent. If so, you’d be wrong. English-born East Asian actress Henwick plays the katana-wielding Colleen Wing, and is immediately thrust into the arms of Iron Fist as his main love interest. Overall, she was okay; though at times, her facial expressions were a bit unnatural, as if she didn’t know what scene she was in.

Pelphrey as Ward Meachum was easily one of the two decisions that the series’ casting team got absolutely right! Pelphrey, a Daytime soap opera veteran, effortlessly displays his ability to evolve from a suave rich man to a disjointed and disturbed guy with daddy issues. His journey alone is enough to binge-watch “Iron Fist” season one over the long weekend. What is funny, though, is that one of the best performances of season one comes from a character who doesn’t even exist in the “Iron Fist” comics. The writers created the character for the web series.

Dawson performed satisfactorily, as usual, as Claire Temple. However, she does seem to be more combative here than in her previous appearances in Marvel’s “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” and “Luke Cage” series.

Wenham as the villain Harold Meachum, was above average, but nothing Wilson Fisk-like (thank you, Mr. D’Onofrio). I do want to give a shout out to Dhawan, for his portrayal of Davos, which, by and large, was both believable and awesome. Rodriguez as the secondary antagonist Bakuto, on the other hand, was unremarkable to say the least.

Unfortunately, the way “Iron Fist” season one concluded was unsatisfying and simply failed to live up to the hype its marketing campaign cooked up for it since last summer. This was just a prime example of the fact that some of Marvel’s big whigs in the TV division were not comic book nerds growing up. Otherwise, they would know exactly what not to do with certain plot points.
Hopefully, the showrunners of “Iron Fist” have re-watched the entire first season and realized where and how they went wrong. Hopefully.