Do You Need to Watch the Original ‘Daredevil’ Series Before ‘Born Again’?

“Daredevil: Born Again” is finally here, and as the title implies, it marks the rebirth of the character fans came to know and love in a series originally made by Netflix. Now the question is, do you need to have seen the Netflix series before watching the new Disney+ one?

“Daredevil” premiered on Netflix in 2015, as one of the first 10 original series made by the streamer. It ran for three seasons, and had only the faintest connections to the MCU, thanks to a deal worked out at the time with Disney.

It carved out its own little corner of New York and the Marvel world, eventually branching into its own shared universe on Netflix. But now the series is only available to stream on Disney+, and Charlie Cox’s Daredevil officially entered the MCU in 2021 with an appearance in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”

Do you need to watch the original?

To get straight to the point, we’d say that no, you don’t absolutely have to watch “Daredevil” to understand “Daredevil: Born Again.”

While the new series does bring in characters and reference storylines from the Netflix series, it’s largely done in broad strokes, so that new audiences can pretty easily piece together how everything fits together and, for the most part, comprehend it.

That said, we’d also argue that you definitely should watch “Daredevil” before getting into “Born Again,” because it offers a whole lot of context that makes the story resonate more, and especially into its main character. Without that context, specific sequences in “Born Again” simply won’t land as hard, emotionally.

On top of that, “Daredevil” also builds out the relationships in Matt Murdock’s life, and how important they are to him. Without that history, it’s a bit difficult to form a bond with the characters that are returning. Knowing just how deep things go and just how important these people are to him is key.

Mid-Season Reset

It’s also important to note that “Daredevil: Born Again” saw a major revamp less than halfway through production on its 18-episode order.

In October 2023, the series parted ways with its head writers/showrunners and scheduled directors, and set their replacements a few weeks later. That overhaul led to the inclusion of “Daredevil” stars Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson, and an entire reframing of the story.

That shift is pretty evident in the final two episodes, which rely much more heavily on the original series. Again, you can understand what’s going on without it. But it’ll be harder.

Watching the original series is admittedly a heavy lift, with 13 hour-long episodes per season. But, with “Born Again” technically being a continuation of “Daredevil,” we’d highly recommend you pay a visit to the OG.

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