DC Live Action

[Spark Of Spirit]

So now we have The Atom!

I wonder how this is going to affect the plot?

[Spark Of Spirit]

Found this on sitcomsonline which was a link to another blog. The title is "8 Reasons why Arrow Has Jumped the Shark."

I'm not kidding.

Just Missing The Cut

• Honorable Mention #1: Death Means Noting: I get it, the show is based on a comic book where death has become meaningless. However it bothers me that Malcolm Merlyn has escaped death's hand and that they teased the title characters demise for all of one show.

#8. Roy the Boyfriend not Staying in his Lane

Maybe this is the overprotective sibling in me speaking but I get very perturbed by an outsider coming in-between a brother and his sister. At this moment, Arsenal is only an ex-boyfriend of Thea. So he has no place trying to check Oliver in the way he deals with his sister and I'm personally tired of seeing him interject himself into their conversation. Let's just keep it all the way 100, Thea has a history of making poor decisions. From developing a drug problem, going down to the glades time and time again looking for Roy to the horrendous decision of going off with her (known) genocidal father so she never gets hurt again. So if Ollie wants to keep certain things from her or not include her in on Arrow related situations (a la when Laurel as Black Canary lay on the table drugged) then he has every right to do so. I get it, Roy being the partner of the Arrow while also the on-again off-again lover of Oliver Queen's baby sister creates tension on the show. But for me as a viewer I cringe whenever Roy is on screen and it tempts me to the fast forward button through his scenes.

#7. The Perpetual Flashbacks

We get it already. A lot of things happened to Oliver before his return to Starling City. Enough with the flashbacks. I know Lost made it an integral part of the storytelling and as such TV show today are following suit with this overdone trope. It was a great way to tell the dual story of Oliver's return home while showing what he endured on that island for five years. Now that we know most of what his ordeal was and the Arrow has become firmly established as the city's hero, the flashbacks have become a crutch on the show. The creative team are utilizing it as a parallel a present day story with something that took place years ago. And nowadays it's taking away from valuable present day storyline character development and plot advancement.

#6. Too Many People Knows Oliver's Secret

Diggle. Felicity. Sara. Roy. Laurel. Thea. Nyssa. Ra's Al Ghul. Slade Wilson. Have I named them all? It's embarrassing that Detective Lance hasn't figured it out. It's quite lame that they have a character where secrecy and lying to protect his loved ones is part of his personality yet so many people know about his dangerous alter ego.

#5. Lies & Secrets

"More secrets." "I'm tired of the lying." "I lied to you to protect you." Seriously it's 2015 and television shows are still writing these tired and clichéd lines in a superhero show. Just once I wish the protagonist would say, "Yes I lied to you because you don't need to know everything." It's lazy trope by the writers and considering they know certain characters are on a need to know basis there are better ways to write these interactions. It was refreshing as hell to see Thea's reaction to learning Oliver's secret vigilante life or when she was told that she was Sara's killer. They didn't go back to tired "more lies" but instead she felt relief and actual gratitude. To make me not remove my season pass on this show they have to do away with this lame dialogue.

#4. Felicity-Ray Ship

Nooooooo~! As much as we want Felicity Smoak to be in a loving relationship, Ray Palmer is not the person we want her with. The man stole Ollie's company for Pete's sake. Look if the Arrow can't be with Felicity because what he does puts his love ones in danger, fine. But do the audience have to bear witness to them flaunting Felicity's happiness with another would be crime fighter?

#3. No Olicity

Funny thing happened on the way to the Oliver Queen-Laurel Lance "ship". Arrow's fanbase fell in love with a smart, spunky blonde by the name of Felicity. Unlike the needy and often times useless Black Canary 2.0, Felicity Smoak proves herself in each episode as a worthy love interest for the emerald archer. When she figures out how to help Ollie save the day we root for her. When she gets on her moral soapbox with an impassioned speech to talk some sense into the gang, we side with her. And watching her eyes water in despair as she came to the realization that the man she loves will not be returning home, we felt her pain. The writers seem hell bent on keeping to the source material which means NO Olicity, and, at least for this viewer, it's a bad decision.

#2. Arrow's Girlfriend Laurel Lance

Keeping in line with the CW's portrayal of other comic book love interests, the creative team of Arrow has gone about making a wholly unlikable love interest for our protagonist. Except aren't we supposed to like her so when she ends up with our hero we're happy about it? Laurel is just as grating as Lana Lang was and, now, Iris West is now. We all know canonical Black Canary & Green Arrow end up together, even married for a time. However, to delay Ollie and Laurel from being a couple, in the process, the writers have turned the audience against Laurel and actively root for anyone to be by our archer's side. But why? It's as if the writers of these comic shows think the entirety of the show's audience are male. (Newsflash it isn't!) Worse that this male demographic has some issues with women in our personal lives and that the only way we'll tolerate this women infiltrating our comic shows is if we they're written in an unlikable matter so that we can hate them. It's as good an explanation as I can think of why the writers of these shows continue make "hatable love interest" characters like Laurel. Here's to us, loser geeks who can't have healthy relationship with women.

#1. Characters Acting Stupid

Really stupidly. It all began in episode five when Merlyn, along with Thea in tow, made his way back to Starling City. Cornered by Nyssa from the League of Assassins, Malcolm is taken down and in the custody of Oliver who decides...to let him go? Are you serious? The man is responsible for the deaths of 500 people in the Glades and never stood trial for their murders and Oliver doesn't bring him to justice because Merlyn uses the logic of "I'll just escape." So~! Ollie couldn't put him through the inconvenience of having to do so. This season of Arrow has seen a number of characters do stupid things for the sake of advancing the narrative toward something epic in the series finale. But their path arriving there ridiculous with scenarios like: having Felicity upset that it took Oliver too long to get back to Starling City despite the fact he left to a fight to the death with Ra's Al Ghul. Or how about the wholly untrained Laurel getting her assed handed to her because she must cope with her sister's death somehow. Or...sigh, you get the picture. The level of asinine things there having their characters do is bordering on Heroes Season 2 level of stupidity and we all know that show never recovered.

You heard it here first. Season three is where Arrow has jumped the shark.

In all seriousness, I disagree with nearly all of this partially because the last thing I give a crap about in shows are pairings. Roy is actually one of my favorite characters because he tries to keep things focused on business, something the others lose focus of. This author is obsessed with shipping, therefore the one character not in a relationship who currently has no interest in a relationship confuses and angers them. How dare Roy still care about Thea even if he isn't dating her. It's almost like real life and stuff.

Also, #1 makes me think the author wasn't actually paying attention to what characters were saying or catching their motivations.

Finally, I'm not sure the writer actually knows what "jumping the shark" actually means. It isn't the point in which the show "gets bad", it's the point in which you realize the show has reached a point where it has overstayed its welcome and will never be as good as it once was.

All of those are things the show has already done since season 1 (and has gotten better at since then) or is relationship stuff which is purely subjective and has no bearing on the fact that it doesn't affect the main plot.

No wait, if Oliver starts dating Felicity then Ra's al Ghul will understand he was mistaken in his quest to wipe out mankind and will happily deliver himself to the law. But because he's not (and he's not dating Laurel, either . . . so the Laurel hate is misguided here) then Ras will never be stopped. This is how drama works, apparently.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That article was a good laugh.

So basically Arrow sucks because it's not giving some fans the pairing that they want to see? Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I mean, clearly this show was always about who's dating who, and the idea of costumed heroes fighting crime was just a side thing for shits and giggles.

Also, Oliver and Laurel have literally shared no romantic interest in each other since season 1, so....WTF is up with #2?

Seriously, though, I can counter all of those points. For one thing, it'd be ridiculous if the people close to Oliver didn't find out his identity after so many times that he made some excuse to leave and then the Arrow appeared. Honestly, I'm surprised that it took Thea so long to come into the fold, and in general, I find the whole secret identity trope to be a rather contrived and dated aspect of comic book superheroes. I'm actually glad that the MCU movies have avoided that so far.

As for saying that death means nothing on the show: Tommy, Moira, and Sarah say hello....or not, because they're dead.

As someone who's not typically a fan of flash-backs, the ones on this show are great, and more than just a crutch, because they are actually important to the plot, and Oliver's character arc.

And as for characters acting stupid, he only gives one example of that....which is also flat-out incorrect on his part. Oliver doesn't put Merlyn in prison because he needs his help to fight Ra's and the League of Assassins. That point has literally been covered so much on the show that I don't know how anyone could possibly miss it. But, apparently this guy did, probably because he was too busy fretting over Oliver not hooking up with Felicity to pay attention to anything else going on.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The secret identity thing has been bypassed for the symbol. It happened when Lance could have learned Arrow's identity and chose not to. At that point it became clear that whoever Green Arrow is, it doesn't matter anymore. Whoever learns his identity at this point is inconsequential.

I also really like the flashbacks in this show as they add shades to Oliver's character and opens up the world more. Personally, I'm just wondering how much longer they can run with it, since they can only do it for two more seasons.

As for saying that death means nothing on the show: Tommy, Moira, and Sarah say hello....or not, because they're dead.

Not to mention Robert Queen as well as his fellow members who Merlyn killed in season 1.

This just seems to be whining that Oliver didn't die after his duel with Ra's. And again, if you didn't want him to die so he could be with Felicity . . . well, why would you want him to die?

Silly.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I also meant to point that out but forgot. Detective Lance flat-out said that he doesn't want to know. Once again, this guy just loves to ignore obvious details for the convenience of his complaints, which, once again, are mostly about shipping.

Ironically, the one thing that he did mention that I actually happen to agree with is that Iris is a poorly written character so far, and that isn't even relevant to Arrow, since she's a character exclusive to The Flash.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I'm not the biggest fan of Laurel, but she's hardly Oliver's love interest, especially right now. Which leads me to this:

The writers seem hell bent on keeping to the source material which means NO Olicity, and, at least for this viewer, it's a bad decision.

This shows complete ignorance on the history of the Green Arrow. The writers aren't tied to the source material at all. If they were, we wouldn't have gotten:

Oliver Queen not being a cocky schmuck
Thea Queen
The entire redemption arc of season 1
Slade Wilson ingesting Mirakuru leading to the great story arc of season 2
Roy's fall under Mirakuru which is essentially a replacement for his drug habits in the comic
95% of the events in the flashbacks
Tommy and the end of season 1
John Diggle
Anyone knowing Oliver's identity, therefore no Team Arrow
Sara's story arc
Ray Palmer and the Atom showing up
The election arc which ends in the death of a major character
The Flash crossover / Barry Allen showing up at all
Pretty much every episode so far

Oh, and Felicity wouldn't even be in the show, so no pairing for the writer.

To say they're limited by being tied to the source material is flat out wrong.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Wow. 

I, uh... don't know what to say.

[Peanutbutter]

Wow. 

I, uh... don't know what to say.

I do. And it's two words.

Spoiler

NOT CISCO!!!!!!!! 




(By the way, Not Cisco and The Flash actually both trended on Twitter. Good to see a lot of people have gotten into this show.

[close]

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Alright, this show just picked up big time. This episode is on a level of quality comparable to some of the best Arrow episodes, which is saying a lot. Here's to hoping that they manage to keep it up for the rest of the season.

[Spark Of Spirit]

And all it took was for the real Weather Wizard to show up. 

In all seriousness, this episode changes everything. If they go back on anything it's gonna seem like a cheat, but I doubt they will.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It was great to see them flesh-out Deadshot's character, and Cupid actually made for a pretty good edition to the Suicide Squad.

As for the clash between Arrow and Atom, while it could've been handled better, I'm just glad that they got such a cliche and predictable plot point over with quickly, rather than dragging it out. Now that Olliver and Ray are on the same page, it'll be interesting to see them team up against The League. But first it looks like Olliver will need to deal with the Starling police force, and especially Detective Lance, turning against him after what the League has done in his name.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I'm hoping Lance doesn't stay mad at him for too long. He tends to get really petty when he's mad at someone. Though you would think with the amount of copycat archers in Starling City that they wouldn't be too quick to turn on him. But after the mayor has been attacked who knows what'll happen next?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, in Lance's case the copycat killings gives him an excuse to go after the Arrow again. The real reason that he wants to is because he blames him for Sara's death, so that's the real conflict at hand, here.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Poor Roy got thrown against the fence and then left there by Oliver. Speedy's always getting dumped on.



Liar!

[Spark Of Spirit]

I think it's safe to say the Flash got awesome pretty fast. Season one has just been getting better and better.

Now we're understanding more and more about Thawne.