Just released by the CW, a look at the helmet that Diggle, part of Team Arrow from “Arrow,” will wear this season.
The helmet makes me think of Magneto. And it looks like it would get knocked off easily.
There’s a danger in trying to turn a character created for a TV series into a comic hero.
Of course it worked for Harley Quinn, created for the Batman animated series.
I’ve noted here before that the geeks have inherited the earth. When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, we prized Famous Monsters and Marvel Comics but were looked down upon by adults for our reading materials; were happy with those lame Marvel superheroes TV cartoons that were very limited animation versions of classic comic books; and thrilled at the random superhero who made his way to TV or movies, even though most of the time the live-action versions weren’t very good.
Now, in any given week, I can watch “Agent Carter” – really good limited series that finished its run a few weeks ago; hope it comes back – “Agents of SHIELD,” a show that’s found its way, and most particularly “Arrow” and “The Flash,” two CW series from the same producers who have taken two characters who might have peaked in the Silver Age and made them intriguing and fun.
Through “Arrow’s” three seasons and “Flash’s” half-completed first season, they’ve introduced so many great comic-book characters – Ray Palmer/Atom, Black Canary – two of them! – and so many bad guys, including Ra’s al Ghul and Gorilla Grodd. Grodd, for Grodd’s sake!
“Arrow” has always done well when its made its Green Arrow character a substitute for Batman – in the comics, the character originally was a Batman copy. Arrow in “Arrow” has just been asked to succeed Ra’s as the leader of the League of Assassins. It’s an offer that Ra’s made to Batman and it only heightened their conflict over the decades.
Meanwhile, “Flash” has just introduced Grodd. Yes, a telepathic, hyper-intelligent gorilla from a race of telepathic, hyper-intelligent gorillas. “Flash” is much more fanciful than “Arrow” anyway, but the introduction of Grodd takes the series even more into the realm of comic-book sci-fi than it already was.
And, in the process of all this, “Arrow” and “Flash” began building the world in which these shows live.
There’s a lot that’s been said about universe-building in Marvel’s movie and TV universes, but Warner Bros/DC is doing this on TV about as well as it can be done, not just with “Flash” and “Arrow” but with their next plans.
CBS – CW’s sister network – will air a “Supergirl” series this fall and we’ve been told it will share a universe with “Arrow” and “The Flash.” I guess we’ll see if that means cross-network cross-overs. It’s rare but it’s happened before.
Potentially more exciting are CW’s apparent plans to spin off some characters introduced on “The Flash” and “Arrow” into their own series. Plans to have Atom and Firestorm and at least some version of Canary and other characters sharing a weekly series not only sounds like a small-screen “Justice League” or “Brave and the Bold,” but is so damn fun.
We’ll see how all this plays out, of course. The CW shows are doing well but “Supergirl” could tank. Will Superman be the 800-pound gorilla (sorry Grodd) absent from the room, like Iron Man was when “Agents of SHIELD” debuted?
Can too many heroes – or superhero shows – spoil the soup?
When did winter finales and midseason finales begin? And what did we ever do before they existed?
I ponder this question after having watched the last episodes of “Arrow” and “The Flash” and “Agents of SHIELD” and “The Walking Dead” until January or February – some of them a couple of times now – and thinking about when this trend began.
If you’re not sure what trend I’m talking about: Sometime in the past few years, TV shows, which normally do not air fresh episodes in much of December or January, began calling their last episode before taking a break for a few weeks a “winter finale” or “midseason finale.”
Shows take breaks from new episodes for a few reasons. There’s apparently an ingrained belief that viewers aren’t watching during several weeks before and after Christmas, so there’s no point in burning off new episodes. I question this thinking and point to “Doctor Who,” which gets a new episode on Christmas Day itself each season. But those Brits are different all the way around.
So rather than just limping off our screens for a few weeks, after a Christmas-themed episode that aired just after Thanksgiving, series began airing a climactic episode – well, as climactic as an ongoing TV series ever is, given the need for an ongoing storyline that can run for several seasons – with a dramatic cliffhanger. (Almost literally, in the recent case of “Arrow.”)
And they began calling it a winter finale or midseason finale. So it feels important, you know.
I believe AMC and the producers of “The Walking Dead” might have started this trend. But “Arrow” and a lot of other shows have embraced it whole-heartedly.
So that’s why we see characters die or “die,” why villains are sometimes dispatched, why secrets are exposed.
And why we’re left wondering not only what happens next but how they’re going to top this in the spring, when their regular old season finale airs.
“SHIELD” left us hanging in its mid-season finale but promises something fun in the interim, at least, with episodes of the new prequel series “Agent Carter” beginning in January.
For the rest of these shows, we’ll wait and wonder. And marvel (no pun intended) at how networks and production companies have trained us to expect the middle of the season to end with a bang.
I couldn’t be happier with Marvel’s big-screen comic book releases so far, as dubious as I am about DC’s supposed slate of superhero movies.
But on the small screen, DC is kicking all kinds of butt.
Of course there’s “Arrow,” beginning its third season this fall. The second topped the first and introduced even more DC comics characters, like Black Canary. This fall “Arrow” will bring scientist Ray Palmer to the small screen and Brandon Routh – Superman from “Superman Returns” – will play the scientist who is secretly the Atom.
Of course, “Arrow” spin-off “Flash” will be doing its own world-building when it debuts this fall, as it introduces not only all the Scarlet Speedster’s characters but also Firestorm.
Meanwhile, “Constantine,” about the supernatural adventurer from the “Hellblazer” comic, debuts this fall and the trailer for the debut included a quick look at the helmet of fellow DC hero Dr. Fate!
Not only that, but the producers of “Constantine” have indicated they will introduce other DC supernatural characters, including Jim Corrigan, the cop who becomes the Spectre.
Meanwhile, “Gotham” will be a prequel to the Batman saga and while I’m not crazy about that – “Smallville” ended up being way to timid about flying and capes for my taste – they’re introducing early versions of a lot of characters and will, each week, be teasing the character who will eventually become the Joker.
For us longtime comic book readers, it’s an exciting time.
I’m not sure anybody could have guessed just a couple of years ago that Marvel and DC would be represented on our TV screens weekly by two top-notch dramas.
Yet here we are.
“Arrow” and “Agents of SHIELD” had strong next-to-last episodes this week and look to have some high-stakes finales next week.
What we know and what we can guess about each, including who might die:
Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury – now sporting shades, as we saw at the end of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” – appears in some manner on “SHIELD” next Tuesday in the finale, “The Beginning of the End.” There’s a quick shot of new-look Fury in the promos.
What else might happen? We’ll see some sort of showdown between Coulson’s ex-SHIELD team and Hydra operatives Garrett and Ward.
And I bet we’ll find out at least something about the true nature of Skye, particularly after the comments about how here parents were – literally – monsters in this week’s episode.
Who will die? Garrett I think, although I hate to see Bill Paxton go.
On “Arrow,” the second-season finale, titled “Unthinkable,” will feature Team Arrow against Slade Wilson’s little army of Deathstroke clones. The League of Assassins (League of Shadows) returns to help Black Canary.
Who will die? I hate the thought of this, but I think Caity Lotz’ Canary will die. She’s considered herself unredeemable for a few episodes but this week saved a child from a burning building and was hailed as a true hero.
You know what that means.
I’m not one of those fans that has to declare a victor in the war between Marvel and DC. They’re both doing well – if very differently – in particular areas outside comics, including live-action movies and TV and animation.
Marvel’s big-screen universe is firing on all cylinders through a timetable that, if we’re to believe a recent interview with mastermind Kevin Feige, is loosely planned through 2028. The producers of Marvel movie outliers like the “Spider-Man” and “X-Men” series are trying to build their own universes, although that could be a challenge. I still wish we’d see the universes combined on screen someday.
As for DC, Warner Bros. is flat-out struggling to build a cohesive movie universe. The “Man of Steel” sequel featuring Batman – with Wonder Woman and Cyborg and possibly other characters in supporting roles – could be cool or it could fall as flat as “Green Lantern.” And DC has just announced that director Zach Snyder will follow the “Man of Steel” sequel with a “Justice League” movie.
DC’s plans feel a little rushed, with none of the universe-building that Marvel has engaged in with its “Avengers” lead-ins and follow-ups. But maybe it’ll turn out nifty.
On TV, there’s no question that “Arrow,” the second-season CW adaptation of Green Arrow, is the best superhero series ever.
And over on ABC, “Agents of SHIELD” – after a first half of this debut season that felt like wheel-spinning or slow burn, depending on how charitable you might be – is building to what might be a genuinely thrilling climax.
Both series have three episodes left this season. Here are some thoughts:
“Arrow”: After setting up Slade (Deathstroke) Wilson as the good-guy-turned-bad-guy this season, the series has let Slade run rampant on Oliver Queen and his city, family and team. Last week’s episode ended with Slade killing Oliver’s mother, Moira, in a cruel mirror to the “choice” Oliver was given by Ivo on the island.
What we want to see: More DC characters – including Ravager, pictured above, who appears in “City of Blood,” the next episode – more twists, more peril, more return visits from past favorites and more triumph for Team Arrow.
What we don’t want to see: An easy way out for anybody.
“SHIELD”: Spinning off events in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “SHIELD” finds itself in a world where SHIELD itself is in shambles. The agents are on the run, striking back at enemy organization HYDRA and building alliances. All the while, they’re dealing with the treacherous Agent Ward, who has turned out to be a HYDRA agent and has been killing SHIELD agents right and left.
What we want to see: Well, we already know Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) returns in this week’s episode, “Nothing Personal,” and Samuel L. Jackson is supposed to return as Nick Fury in “Beginning of the End,” the season finale set for May 13. So we’re getting return visits from some favorites. We also want more revelations, including more big-picture tie-ins to the movie universe.
What we don’t want to see: The redemption of Agent Ward. We want him and Agent Garrett (the great Bill Paxton) to continue as our favorite HYDRA turncoats into the second season.
The longterm big picture for both series – if “SHIELD” returns for a second season – could be fantastic. “SHIELD” will be building toward the May 2015 premiere of “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
And although it’s unlikely, it’s possible Warners will tie “Arrow” to its big-screen franchise in some way. Warners could do a whole lot worse – and likely will – if it ignores the universe created for the small screen.
It always feels like a new TV season when “Mad Men” starts up again on AMC. It’s not of course; we’re in the awkward part of the calendar when some shows have completed their seasons, others have a few episodes left and some – “Sleepy Hollow,” in particular – are long gone.
Here’s some thoughts on what I’m watching or watched until just recently.
“The Walking Dead.” This season, after staging a battle at the prison that saw Hershel and the Governor die, seemed to build to a climax in the middle of its year. The last half of the season was made up of really-pretty-good character pieces. The finale, with Rick and the gang playing into the hands of the Terminus cannibals, was shocking in that it was not bombastic. Curiously, it made me look forward to next October more than almost anything else.
“Agents of SHIELD.” This small-screen Marvel flagship series struggled early in the season. I wonder if the “slow build” story the showrunners are maintaining now is really the case – if so, they didn’t do it very effectively – or if, like many other series, it just took them a while to hit a stride. With recent episodes, including tie-ins to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “SHIELD” is finally clicking. I hope it doesn’t falter again in the final episodes of the season.
“Dallas.” I miss J.R. I miss Larry Hagman. But the series is good, soapy fun.
“Arrow.” It’s possible I’m not enjoying any series on TV more than this take on the classic DC hero. The cast is really good, the stories are fun and the show is stuffed with comics characters. What’s not to like?
“Justified.” One of my favorite series, “Justified” had an uneven series at best. Lawman Raylan and outlaw Boyd and their supporting players were good, but the messy Crowe family story just didn’t do it for me. Next year is the final season and the last scene of this past season forecast the story: Raylan vs. Boyd. Can’t wait.
“The Mindy Project.” This Mindy Kaling comedy is funnier than I ever expected. I wish it would run for 10 years.
“Community” and “Parks and Recreation.” With only one episode left this season – and its future uncertain – “Community” has bounced back this year with the return of controversial creator Dan Harmon. It’s so odd and inside baseball that it’ll never grow in viewership. I just hope it hangs on. And “Park” has grown from a series full of oddballs to a series with characters I really care about.
I’ve probably forgotten something. With “Mad Men” back tonight and “Orphan Black” returning April 19, we’ve got more weeks of good viewing ahead.
But you know what? I think I miss “Sleepy Hollow” more than anything.
Like some kind of aligning of planets, the seven or eight days we’re in the middle of here is a heck of a week for episodic TV.
And that doesn’t even count “The Black List,” which didn’t have a new episode this week, but entertained the heck out of me with the episode from last week I finally got around to watching.
Quick impressions (and spoilers if you haven’t seen):
“Sherlock” finished up this year’s three-episode run on “Masterpiece Mystery” with “His Last Vow,” a quirky finale to a quirky season. Over the past three weeks we’ve seen Holmes return from the dead after his rooftop encounter with Moriarty last season, John and Mary get married and Mary exposed as a rather deadly former government operative. In “His Last Vow,” Holmes and Watson run up against a loathsome news magnate who can blackmail Mary. With no other way to save his friend’s wife, Holmes kills the man and Mycroft prepares to send Sherlock off on a nearly-certain-to-be-fatal mission. But then … images of Moriarty appear all over London and Sherlock is called back to investigate. And we wait until next year to see what happens next.
“The Black List” – last week at least – gave us “The Cyprus Agency,” in which the federal agents – with the help of James Spaders’ Red – broke an insidious group that kidnapped women and kept them in comas as well as pregnant to provide babies for adoption. Didn’t we see something like this – with organs instead of babies – in the movie “Coma” 40 years ago? Yeah, but that didn’t have James Spader in it.
“Agents of SHIELD” raised its somewhat low bar again this week with “TRACKS,” a high-stakes adventure that found the agents on – or thrown from – a train as they try to foil the plot of a villain. More good scenes with the agents – even Ward and especially May – some good Marvel movie references (Blonsky’s cryogenic cell is obviously now the holding place for the monster from “The Incredible Hulk”) and the return of Mike Peterson (J. August Richards) as the comic book character Deathlok.
“Justified” upped the stakes also this week with more peril and more bad-assery for Art (Nick Searcy), more misery for Boyd and Ava and more danger from those scumbag bad guys the Crowes. But we gotta have the return of Constable Bob soon.
“Arrow” might have tied “Justified” for my favorite episode of the week. “Heir to the Demon” brought Nyssa, the daughter of Ras al Ghul, to town, seeking … well, not revenge on Black Canary. As a matter of fact, I totally did not see the true nature of their relationship coming. And neither did Oliver Queen. This series, the true TV embodiment of comic book adventure like “Batman,” just gets better all the time.
And then there’s “The Walking Dead,” which returns for the second half of its season this coming Sunday. With the destruction of the prison, the survivors are split up. We want to know what happened to Rick, Carl, Michonne, Daryl and Tyrese as soon as possible. And tell me Carol is coming back. I’ll be watching Sunday.
Heck of a week.
Just a few days ago, I was arguing here that “Arrow,” the current CW show about the early days of the DC Comics hero Green Arrow, might be the best superhero TV show of all time.
Last night’s “mid-season finale” episode of “Arrow” really backed up my argument.
(A word about mid-season finales or winter finales or whatever the networks are calling them: Shows like “Mad Men” and “The Walking Dead” take very deliberate breaks in the middle of their 14 or 16-episode seasons – mostly to avoid periods when networks think no one is watching, like the holidays, even though they’re wrong – and build to a strong climax for the final episode before that break. Although it would sound a little overblown on a sitcom, for example, mid-season finale seems appropriate for hour-long serialized shows that have built to a dramatic temporary stopping point. Like “Arrow.”)
“Three Ghosts,” last night’s “Arrow,” has as many dramatic elements as some season finales. And if you missed the significance of the title, it’s a reference to Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” During the course of the episode, Oliver is haunted by three figures from his past. Thankfully, the Dickensian undertones were decidedly undertones.
“Three Ghosts” had a lot on its plate:
Although the flashbacks to five years earlier on the island aren’t likely to be done, last night’s episode went a long way toward tying those events into the Arrow’s present-day Starling City action.
We learned the fate of a couple of characters. Maybe.
We saw the origins, I’m thinking, of at least two more. Cyrus Gold, one of Brother Blood’s “super soldiers,” might have bigger (and deader) things ahead for him. As the poem that Diggle discovered goes, “Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday …”
Although it was a surprise, we saw the origin of the Flash, the DC hero who’s getting his own CW series (most likely) next fall. Grant Gustin has been guest-starring the past couple of episodes as Barry Allen, a CSI from Central City. The network had said Allen would appear in only these two episodes before moving on to his own series pilot. I didn’t expect to see the accident – true to the comics – that turns Allen into the Scarlet Speedster at the end of this episode, but I was glad they did it.
I guess you could argue that we saw the origin of Green Arrow, too, since Allen’s parting gift to Oliver Queen was a green mask that he could wear in place of camo makeup. As the episode closed, Ollie donned the mask. Is he still Arrow? Or is he Green Arrow? He’s sure not “the Hood” or “the Vigilante” anymore.
The episode had something for every cast member to do and emphasized, with one exception, what a strong ensemble this show is built around.
By the end of the episode, the series has set up a much more compelling “Big Bad” than Brother Blood. I won’t spoil it here if you haven’t watched it yet, but it’s not surprising to anyone with some comics history under their utility belt.
Here’s looking forward to the back half of the season.
How can you – well, I, really – proclaim anything the best of its kind of all time when it’s still relatively new and hasn’t withstood the test of time?
Beats the heck out of me. But I’m inclined to call “Arrow” the best live-action superhero series of all time. And yes, we’re not quite half-way through the CW network show’s second season.
But the gritty and stylish Greg Berlanti-developed series, featuring Stephen Arnell as millionaire crimefighter and adventurer Oliver Queen, who uses gimmicky arrows and amazing trick shots to fight crime, is tops.
Believe me, I didn’t expect to go into this fall season liking “Arrow,” the DC Comics-based show about a Batman-style vigilante in its second season, better than “Agents of SHIELD,” the TV beachhead for the Marvel movie universe.
And yet …
Crowning “Arrow” might sound like heresy for people who loved the simple pleasures of the 1950s “Adventures of Superman” series or the camp 1960s classic “Batman” or even more recent ventures like “Lois and Clark” or “The Flash” or “Birds of Prey,” all of which have their strong points.
But no, “Arrow” is better than all of them, a truly satisfying experience for comic book fans.
I was a little worried about “Arrow” when it was announced by the CW a couple of years ago. The Green Arrow character had been a nice addition to the network’s “Smallville,” the 10-season show about the growing years of Superman and, for me, marked when the series finally got interesting. The Clark and Lex theme of the show was always good but the writers were just too coy for too long. And I have to say I was kind of ticked off when they never actually showed Clark in the suit, even in the final episode. It all reeked of superhero shame.
But despite some coyness of its own – “Arrow” instead of “Green Arrow” as a title – “Arrow” has the courage of its convictions. The series put millionaire Oliver Queen into a green hood right from the word go and put him on the path to avenging criminal activity. He’s surrounded by an engaging supporting cast.
And the series has aggressively set about building its own universe, adding characters like Black Canary, Slade Wilson, Huntress and, this week, Barry Allen, a young police scientist who’s not yet the Flash. The character, as played by Grant Gustin, is apparently destined for his own CW show. If it’s handled like “Arrow,” we’ll have another classic on our screens.
“Arrow” has some problems, certainly. But it feels like they recognized most of them early.
Chief among them is Katie Cassidy, cast as Oliver’s ex-girlfriend Dinah Laurel Lance, who comic fans know is destined to become Black Canary, a tough-as-nails hero and companion to Green Arrow.
But it’s almost as if the producers decided early on that the character and actress combination was just too … I don’t know, awkward? Cassidy seems like she would never for a moment be believable as a street-fighting gal. The show has introduced a new Black Canary, Dinah’s sister, played by Caity Lotz, and she’s more believable.
The cast is pretty uniformly good, from thinking man’s hunk Arnell to David Ramsey as Dig, Oliver’s cohort, to Emily Bett Richards as Felicity, Oliver’s Gal Friday and tech guru who deserves all the online worship she gets.
The show flips back and forth from Arrow’s exploits fighting crime in present-day Starling City (an inexplicable change from Star City in the comics) to five years earlier, when Oliver was shipwrecked on a not-even-remotely-deserted island and learned his survival skills.
The first season gave us an Oliver on a mission to clean up his city and willing to casually kill bad guys. The second season has Oliver pursuing a less murderous campaign. Heck, he’s apparently even about to start wearing the mask seen in the photo at top here.
All the while, “Arrow” is adding characters and mythology and feeling stronger and stronger.
keithroysdon 