This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.
Just about two weeks ago (by the time this is posted), fans said “goodbye” to The CW’s Arrow, the flagship show in what has become an expansive, if not always consistent, television adaptation of the DC Comics Universe. Along the way, Arrow (and its spin-offs The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and connected shows Supergirl and Black Lightning) have thrilled and sometimes infuriated comics fans. For every fan who loved a character appearance or storyline adaptation, there was an equal and opposite reaction from another fan – and I’m sure this will continue now that the “Arrowverse” has moved beyond the big “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover and united all of the CW shows (plus, one assumes, the short-lived live-action and cartoon Constantine and Vixen series) on a single Earth. I’m of the opinion that no live-action movie or series adaptation of a comic book is ever going to be perfect, that storyline and character alterations to make the story work in a live-action format are necessary and should be expected, and thus there’s always been more to like than to complain about in Arrow and the rest of the “Arrowverse.” Your mileage may vary, of course.
Now normally when I do a “Series Saturday” post, it’s for a series I’ve recently read or watched (or re-read/re-watched), and so my thoughts are fresher. But I’m not in a position right now to do an 8-season long rewatch in short enough order to get a post written while the series finale is fresh in people’s minds, so this post is going to be a bit more nostalgia-based. There may be things I don’t remember, episodes/seasons I think were better/worse than they really were, etc. Bear with me.
I maintain that when Arrow was good, it was really, really good. And when it was not good … well, every long running show has at least one season that is a slump compared to the others, and every season is bound to have a stinker episode or two. And, as I said, I think in the end the really-really-good outweighed the stinker-bad.
WARNING: FROM HERE ON OUT, HERE THERE BE SPOILERS! If you haven’t watched all eight seasons of Arrow and you continue reading, I cannot be held responsible for anything you learn that you didn’t want to!
I came to Arrow about a season late; friends had watched season one and recommended it. I was skeptical, wasn’t too thrilled that the show was a complete relaunch (as opposed to giving us Justin Hartley’s Green Arrow spinning off from Smallville (which turned out to be a good thing for everyone, given co-star Alison Mack’s issues and that Justin has gone on to greater success with This Is Us, a show I should probably watch eventually)), and wasn’t really looking to add another hour-long show to my already long list of shows to watch. So it was as season two was starting that I finally decided to watch season one on DVD. My friends were right that I’d like it. I was hooked.
I think season one was the most tightly-plotted, and perhaps best, season of the show. There was a clear through-line: the producers knew where they wanted to be at the end of season one and got there without too much meandering (given the 23-episode length of the season). John Barrowman was a great “big bad” as the Black Archer, and I loved the development of the relationship between Oliver and John Diggle. The addition/development of the Queen family took some getting used to, but I came to really like both Susannah Thompson and Willa Holland. I liked the nod to comics history in making future (or so we thought at the time) Black Canary Laurel Lance’s father a cop, although I wasn’t crazy about Paul Blackthorne’s accent as Quentin Lance (it always felt a bit forced to me). I liked the way Roy Harper was eventually introduced, and I enjoyed watching Felicity grow from a guest to a supporting character to a co-star. I even found the flashbacks intriguing and for the most part connected to the current-day goings on. If there was anything I didn’t like about season one, it was the way the writers leaned so heavily into Oliver killing everyone on his List, and that (similar to Smallville) Oliver was given the first of a ridiculous number of nicknames before finally becoming Green Arrow, “the Hood” being about the worst of them. I also didn’t really connect with Katie Cassidy as Laurel at all, and thought she was better suited romantically to Tommy than to Oliver.
Season two was, I thought, almost as strong as season one. The flashbacks still connected strongly to the present day material. Manu Bennett was brilliant as the pre- and post-Mirakuru versions of Slade; the addition of Caity Lotz as the not-as-dead-as-we-thought Sara Lance / Black Canary was one of the best decisions the creators of the show ever made; and the show made good use of returning villains/anti-heroes like Huntress, Deadshot, and Bronze Tiger. I enjoyed enough of the season that I was able to overlook the complete misuse of Brother Blood. (Okay, full disclosure: I’m looking at the Arrow pages on IMDB as I write this, and I had completely forgotten Sebastian Blood was even a part of this season; when I think of season two, I think of Deathstroke, Sara, and the introduction of Grant Gustin as Barry Allen.) Oh, and I enjoyed the addition of Bex Taylor-Klaus as Sin (a character significantly aged-up from the comics) and wish they’d done more with her in subsequent seasons. Downside to the season: Laurel’s alcoholism storyline just didn’t work.
Season three, I struggled with. Partly because R’as al-Ghul is one of my favorite Batman villains and I initially thought Matt Nable was badly mis-cast. Partly because I hated that the season started off by killing Sara. Yes, I know, she got better, but “let’s kill the bisexual just to motivate the hero” is not a good look in this day and age. Thankfully, the powers-that-be brought her back to lead the Legends of Tomorrow. Positives to the season: the additions of Charlotte Ross as Mama Smoak, Katrina Law as Nyssa, Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer, and Vinny Jones as Brick, and Alex Kingston’s brief turn as Dinah Lance; the first “crossover” between Arrow and Flash. Downsides: the mishandling of classic comics character Ted (Wildcat) Grant; Laurel’s time as an assistant district attorney; the Hong Kong flashbacks, which had fewer real connections to the current storyline (other than introducing Tatsu and Maseo) and which felt painfully slow.
Season four: I’m going to just admit it: I loved watching Neal McDonough chew the scenery as Damien Darkh. But they really dropped the ball on exploring his connection to the League of Assassins, which had been hinted at multiple times in the previous season. Positives: the Diggle Brothers storyline gave David Ramsay some great stuff to work with; we got Tom Amandes as the Calculator, Megalyn Echikunwoke as a live-action Vixen, and Echo Kellum as Curtis Holt. Negatives: the flashbacks started to feel like interminable space-fillers that the producers were including only because that’s what the show’s format demanded (a problem that started to plague LOST about this point in that show’s run). If there was one positive to the flashbacks this season, it’s that they brought Matt Ryan’s Constantine officially into the Arrowverse. Oh, and the first “big” crossover introduced us to Vandal Savage, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl as a lead-in to the mid-season debut of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. I liked Katie Cassidy’s work as Laurel in this season – just in time for them to kill her off, of course.
Season five: Possibly the tightest-plotted complete season since season two. The misdirect about who Adrian Chase is was set up and played out brilliantly (and Josh Segara was great as Chase). The flashbacks were more connected to the main goings-on again, bringing us full-circle to the pilot episode and giving us reasons for Oliver’s early bloodthirstiness. David Nykl, although not credited as such, was practically a full regular cast member as Anatoly, and became one of my favorite characters of the entire run. Dolph Lundgren as Kovar in the flashbacks was a credible threat and really fun. Katie Cassidy’s recurring appearances as Earth-Two’s Laurel (aka Black Siren) convinced me that my dislike of her in the earlier seasons was likely more due to bad writing. Willa Holland and John Barrowman got to do some wonderful work together exploring the Thea-Malcolm relationship. Joe Dinicol as Rory Regan/Ragman and Lexa Doig as Talia al-Ghul, both of whom I really liked, joined the cast, as well as Rick Gonzalez and Juliana Harkavy as Wild Dog and the newest Black Canary, who I was a bit ambivalent toward. And of course, we got the INVASION crossover, bringing Supergirl officially into the fold.
Season six: I had hopes for this, the first flashback-less season, after the overall solid season five. I was … disappointed. The Deathstroke-searches-for-his-son two-parter was strong. Roy coming back, Thea leaving, Quentin dying all had emotional impact. David Nykl and Katie Cassidy do great work as Anatoly and Black Siren throughout. The Earth-X crossover was possibly the best-written to date. But the glaring misuse/underuse of Michael Emerson as Cayden James, the unending and illogical “splitting of Team Arrow,” and the show’s sudden obsession with making Ricardo Diaz a much bigger bad than he really deserved to be all worked against the season as a whole.
Season seven: And that slump continued through at least the first half of this season: the Oliver-in-prison portion of the season just went on for way too long, Diaz’s continued billing as a “big bad” continued to irk me (I’m not sure I’ve ever cheered a villain’s death quite so loudly), Adrian Paul (like Michael Emerson the season before) is largely wasted, the reveal that Emiko Queen is the real “big bad” of the season was lackluster (This is not to say that Sea Shimooka didn’t do some wonderful work as Emiko; she did within the confines of a less-than-startling storyline), and the flashfowards felt like an unnecessary reversion to the format the show was supposed to be leaving behind. The flashforwards also didn’t really connect with the present day goings on, as we never got the big reveal of what “the vigilantes” did that turned Star City into a future crime-ridden hell-hole. That said, if anything good came out of the flashforwards, it has to be Ben Lewis as the adult William Clayton Queen. I’ve rarely seen such a good job of adult and teen actors matching each others’ mannerisms and vocal ticks as Lewis did matching Jack Moore. This was also the season of the Elseworlds crossover which was more notable for introducing Batwoman, The Monitor, and Lois Lane than for any real quality of storytelling.
Season eight: I’m glad Stephen Amell agreed to do one more short season and wrap things up, because I think the show went out mostly on a high note. The writers got a chance to revisit a number of old favorites (characters and locations). We got closure for a lot of characters, and the shortened episode order forced the writing to be tight and concise (despite the presence of the flash-forwards, which are redeemed only because The Monitor brings the kids back to the present, giving Amell and Lewis and Kat McNamara a chance to do play some wonderful scenes together – in particular William’s coming-out to the father he thought he’d lost long before coming out). We also got the “Crisis” crossover, followed by an embedded-pilot for a spin-off starring Mia Queen and the Canaries. And, of course, that final episode, which was about as good as it could have been: a flashback that actually told a complete story focused on Oliver and Diggle in season one, and graveside appearances by almost everyone who mattered to Oliver. My only complaint about the finale was the absence of Charlotte Ross as Mama Smoak, and Manu Bennett and Michael Jai White as Slade and Bronze Tiger (the two villains Oliver actually managed to help redeem themselves over the course of the series). I know scheduling and price-tags (and maybe the supposed bad blood between Bennett and the producers) kept these from happening, but I wish something could have been worked out.
The biggest complaint I have about the show as a whole (and pretty much all of the “Arrowverse” shows) is that the ostensible star of the show rarely got to be the capable independent hero that the comics version is. The CW seems, with the exception of Legends, to be stuck in this rut that the title character MUST have a team of voices telling him/her what to do and how to do it. The Flash and Supergirl are particularly affected by this, and even Batwoman and Black Lightning have someone talking into their ears (Lucas Fox and Peter Gambi, respectively). I wish all of the shows would do a little less of that.
But in the end, complaints aside, I’ve enjoyed my time with Arrow. Stephen Amell, David Ramsay and Emily Bett Rickards kept me engaged every week even when the writing was not so great or the storylines took ridiculous turns (don’t get me started on the idea of a nuclear missile wiping out a whole American city with almost no repercussions).