In the series premiere, Jesse struggles to escape a past that is slowly catching up to him. Meanwhile, a mysterious entity comes to Earth, leaving a wave of destruction in its wake.

Based on the DC Comics/Vertigo series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Preacher captures the vibe of the classic series, though mixes things up quite a bit.

It’d have been easy to straight up adapt the comic for television and it’d have worked well with a few minor tweaks. Instead we get a hodgepodge of the series laid out in a very different way that expands some things and also diminishes the impact of others.

Through the hour and a half, I contemplated those changes and as the first episode ended, I’m not quite sure if one is better than the other.

The pilot does a good job in setting up the world of Preacher, but at the same time it also fails in some ways. Pulling myself back as one who has read the comic, I’m not sure it does enough to explain what’s going on to get someone new interested. It sets up a lot, but the hook of the series Preacher doesn’t quite come through in a way it does early on in the comic series.

The television seems to take some of the wrong lessons from the comic series. It relies on shock and over the top moments in hopes that’s enough to entertain and get folks to be interested. The humor it nails, but it’s almost like someone who watch a Tarantino film and think it’s just about the violence.

While it’s good, I’m not sure it’s a good adaptation of the source material. From the first episode it feels like the wrong things have been highlighted and a lot of what made the comic great was missed.

Overall Rating: 7.05