"Stale" is not the same as "bad". Imagine if all your family had chocolate cake for dessert every other night, and you had to settle for fruit from the fruitbowl all nights. After a while, they'd get sick of chocolate cake, be unimpressed with it, but you would JUMP at a slice instead of another banana and apple.
The CW DC "universe" (Smallville, Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning)
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Fuzzy Necromancer
- Overlord
- Posts: 6322
- Joined: Wed Mar 15, 2017 1:57 am
Re: The CW DC "universe" (Smallville, Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning)
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
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Worffan101
- Captain
- Posts: 1047
- Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:47 pm
Re: The CW DC "universe" (Smallville, Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning)
alright, I have nothing better to do than rate the seasons so far:
ARROW:
Season 1: *insert Immortan Joe "MEDIOCRE!" gif*. Merlyn and Diggle are great characters and the former a compelling villain, and Stephen Amell is both a capable performer and gorgeous eye candy, but Laurel's character is severely hindered by the attempts to turn her into Mary-Jane, and Ollie is way too edgy. Not to mention that there were some really goofy in a bad way moments. Plus side, later seasons made much hay out of this season's fumbles. The flashbacks were pretty good, though.
Season 2: Rocked. I love Sara, I love Deathstroke, Manu Bennet kills it as a madman with the skills to match a superhero, the Deathstroke costume is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and the flashbacks over the first two seasons really sold the emotional connection between hero and villain.
Season 3: It was OK-ish until "The Climb", "The Climb" had that one kickass shirtless fight scene for the pleasure of those who are into the male form, and after that gut-punch of an episode everything went down the tubes. Ra's al Ghul was a mediocre at best villain, Nyssa wasn't allowed to develop her own identity or agency as much as I felt necessary, and the Olicity drama started to suck all the fun out of things.
Season 4: Suuuuuuuuucked. Just white-hot garbage with only a couple of halfway decent spots. Olicity drama sucked. Damien Darhk was poorly-written and McDonough's performance was ill-suited to the story they were trying to tell. Also, killing off Laurel I felt was ultimately a cheap solution to what had been a poorly-constructed and written character, which both angers me that they killed her and angers me that they failed to make a proper Black Canary the way she SHOULD have been. I'm sorry, I just prefer the comics version, where Ollie and Canary are paramours and co-parents. Oh, and the way this season raises the stakes to absurd degrees just sucks.
Season 5: Prometheus rocked. Calling out season 1 Ollie rocked. The writing was better, the choreography rocked, the morality was well-thought-out, and Lian Yu, with its haunted Deathstroke looking for redemption (and kicking ALL the ass), driven, emotionally fragmented Oliver fighting basically evil Batman, matured, regretful Nyssa finally getting a little chance to grow into her own, and that gut-punch of a final battle with Prometheus, all made for a fantastic ending. Best season except for season 2 yet. The episode Kapushion still gives me shivers.
Season 6: Started binging on Netflix, not a huge fan. Choreography and writing already worse in episode 1. Trying to be too edgy again.
FLASH
Season 1: The standout of the entire universe and the reason why people outside of nerds still care about the franchise. Eobard Thawne is simply the best villain that this 'verse has produced bar none, and Tom Cavanagh's electric performance combined with Grant Gustin's solid Flash makes for an excellent dynamic. Also, I like Joe West a lot.
Season 2: Zoom will never be anything more than a pale shadow of the Reverse-Flash. The first half of this season was OK, but I didn't really like the finale very much. Harry Wells is pretty good, though.
Season 3: Barritar sucks. The "Iris is gonna die" hook is decent but they overplay the relationship drama, methinks. Joe is still the best secondary character. Cavanagh kills it even though H.R. is kind of an annoying asshole. Also, stop making poor Barry suffer and screw up! He deserves better, damn it.
Season 4: Haven't started it yet but I'm eagerly anticipating a season where the main villain is a smart guy instead of a fast guy.
LEGENDS
Season 1: Grimdark, focuses on the wrong things, takes itself way too seriously, and Rip Hunter is just a boring character in that unique way that superficially "cool" characters who come out of nowhere and act like superior assholes are. Also the Hawks are wastes of space. However, Sara and Snart have a good dynamic, as do Heatwave and Snart when they're not being made to play out some tired grimdark crap, Ray and Heatwave have an actually neat friendship dynamic, Firestorm remain as enjoyable as ever, and Sara starts to redefine her identity in a good way. All in all, a failure and one that should be abandoned as much as possible (especially the one-note failure that is Vandal Savage, despite the actor's perfect looks and skills at sneering nastily), but showed signs of promise.
Season 2: Utter hilarity. Sara sleeping her way across time to get over her ex is hilarious with how this is juxtaposed with the rest of the team constantly getting in trouble and scuffed up, I like Heatwave's arc, Ray actually manages to be sort of interesting for once, Nate and Amaya are OK, Firestorm are still fun, and the Legion of Doom are just the kind of hammy evil that we need for this (recasting Thawne for Legends, I think, was a good idea all things considered). Just good clean fun and the closest to a live-action comic book we're likely to get.
Season 3: I hate that they broke up Firestorm and killed Stein. But otherwise, Legends knows what it is, and that is hilarious fun. I like that they gave Sara a new girlfriend before the sleeping across time thing got old, but I still was holding out a candle for Nyssa to join the Legends and be the straight man to everybody else's collective short man.
Season 4: Psyched to binge it on Netflix!
Supergirl
Season 1: shaky start due to Laura Benanti (a standout performer whose character had an interesting and sympathetic backstory) leaving the show halfway through, and the backup big bads were crap. Some tonal clash between the Cat Grant stuff and the other stuff, but I love Calista Flockhart and her "fuck y'all, I'm the boss" character. She's a great surrogate-mom type mentor to Kara, too. The writing wasn't quite up to snuff overall, but when they gave Benoist, Leigh, and Harewood a chance to flex their chops, all three killed it. Red K, Martian Manhunter--all good performances.
Season 2: OK, this one's tough. It WOULD have been an improvement, with Lillian Luthor as a superior arc villain, one of my favorite actresses playing Lena Luthor, the stellar Alex-is-gay arc, and what I actually felt was a GOOD decision to make Kara into a reporter and then have her learn the hard way all that that entails. BUT. There is one, annoying, inescapable problem with this season.
Manhell.
Manhell is a fucking tumor on the plot who will not go away and makes everyone he touches grab the Idiot Ball. Manhell is a manipulative, nasty, self-centered, gaslighting prick. Manhell is everything about lazy Mandatory Het Romances in a nutshell. Manhell drives me UP THE FUCKING WALL with his uncanny ability to be absolutely and completely intolerable on the level of Thadiun Okona whenever he interacts with Kara or their relationship is brought up.
Yes, he turns into a bland but decent sort in the last couple of episodes for some reason, and then at the end of season 3 when he finally gets a moment away from Kara he manages to be almost likable, but that still doesn't excuse two seasons of this fucking annoyance being an ass, and more importantly, you know what? The show's called Supergirl. Not Mon-El and his girlfriend, the blonde. I fucking hate Manhell and wish he would be killed off on-screen. For reals.
Season 3: Reign is goofy but the actress plays the Jekyll and Hyde tropes well. Pity they killed off the other Worldkillers too fast then clearly had no clue what to do with the rest of their time. Kryptonian witches were garbage. Alex's plot is frustrating but I understand that they had to break her and Maggie up due to the latter's actress wanting out; still, not a fan of the baby-crazy angle. Otherwise, it was OK I guess.
Look, I love Supergirl. I like Benoist's portrayal of the character, I like Harewood's Martian Manhunter a lot, I fucking love Alex Danvers. But they need to get the fucking writers' room in gear and produce something more unique and with its own identity. The Flash is the "weird villains and time travel drama" show. Arrow is "gritty realistic". Legends is "we made this on LSD". Black Lightning is "the one made for black people". Supergirl SHOULD be the "girl power and gays" show, which to be fair they TRIED to do especially in season 1 with the girl-power angle, but they've sort of lost their aim. Hope season 4 can correct that, and not make Lena re-enact Lex's arc from Smallville.
BLACK LIGHTNING
Season 1: The CW Does Luke Cage. I thought it started shaky but rapidly became a very effective and topical show. I particularly liked Black Lightning's family, and thought that the Big Bad was appropriately scary and evil. The evil-government angle was a bit rote but fit well with the topical, racially charged nature of the show. One of the better CW shows so far, for sure.
ARROW:
Season 1: *insert Immortan Joe "MEDIOCRE!" gif*. Merlyn and Diggle are great characters and the former a compelling villain, and Stephen Amell is both a capable performer and gorgeous eye candy, but Laurel's character is severely hindered by the attempts to turn her into Mary-Jane, and Ollie is way too edgy. Not to mention that there were some really goofy in a bad way moments. Plus side, later seasons made much hay out of this season's fumbles. The flashbacks were pretty good, though.
Season 2: Rocked. I love Sara, I love Deathstroke, Manu Bennet kills it as a madman with the skills to match a superhero, the Deathstroke costume is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and the flashbacks over the first two seasons really sold the emotional connection between hero and villain.
Season 3: It was OK-ish until "The Climb", "The Climb" had that one kickass shirtless fight scene for the pleasure of those who are into the male form, and after that gut-punch of an episode everything went down the tubes. Ra's al Ghul was a mediocre at best villain, Nyssa wasn't allowed to develop her own identity or agency as much as I felt necessary, and the Olicity drama started to suck all the fun out of things.
Season 4: Suuuuuuuuucked. Just white-hot garbage with only a couple of halfway decent spots. Olicity drama sucked. Damien Darhk was poorly-written and McDonough's performance was ill-suited to the story they were trying to tell. Also, killing off Laurel I felt was ultimately a cheap solution to what had been a poorly-constructed and written character, which both angers me that they killed her and angers me that they failed to make a proper Black Canary the way she SHOULD have been. I'm sorry, I just prefer the comics version, where Ollie and Canary are paramours and co-parents. Oh, and the way this season raises the stakes to absurd degrees just sucks.
Season 5: Prometheus rocked. Calling out season 1 Ollie rocked. The writing was better, the choreography rocked, the morality was well-thought-out, and Lian Yu, with its haunted Deathstroke looking for redemption (and kicking ALL the ass), driven, emotionally fragmented Oliver fighting basically evil Batman, matured, regretful Nyssa finally getting a little chance to grow into her own, and that gut-punch of a final battle with Prometheus, all made for a fantastic ending. Best season except for season 2 yet. The episode Kapushion still gives me shivers.
Season 6: Started binging on Netflix, not a huge fan. Choreography and writing already worse in episode 1. Trying to be too edgy again.
FLASH
Season 1: The standout of the entire universe and the reason why people outside of nerds still care about the franchise. Eobard Thawne is simply the best villain that this 'verse has produced bar none, and Tom Cavanagh's electric performance combined with Grant Gustin's solid Flash makes for an excellent dynamic. Also, I like Joe West a lot.
Season 2: Zoom will never be anything more than a pale shadow of the Reverse-Flash. The first half of this season was OK, but I didn't really like the finale very much. Harry Wells is pretty good, though.
Season 3: Barritar sucks. The "Iris is gonna die" hook is decent but they overplay the relationship drama, methinks. Joe is still the best secondary character. Cavanagh kills it even though H.R. is kind of an annoying asshole. Also, stop making poor Barry suffer and screw up! He deserves better, damn it.
Season 4: Haven't started it yet but I'm eagerly anticipating a season where the main villain is a smart guy instead of a fast guy.
LEGENDS
Season 1: Grimdark, focuses on the wrong things, takes itself way too seriously, and Rip Hunter is just a boring character in that unique way that superficially "cool" characters who come out of nowhere and act like superior assholes are. Also the Hawks are wastes of space. However, Sara and Snart have a good dynamic, as do Heatwave and Snart when they're not being made to play out some tired grimdark crap, Ray and Heatwave have an actually neat friendship dynamic, Firestorm remain as enjoyable as ever, and Sara starts to redefine her identity in a good way. All in all, a failure and one that should be abandoned as much as possible (especially the one-note failure that is Vandal Savage, despite the actor's perfect looks and skills at sneering nastily), but showed signs of promise.
Season 2: Utter hilarity. Sara sleeping her way across time to get over her ex is hilarious with how this is juxtaposed with the rest of the team constantly getting in trouble and scuffed up, I like Heatwave's arc, Ray actually manages to be sort of interesting for once, Nate and Amaya are OK, Firestorm are still fun, and the Legion of Doom are just the kind of hammy evil that we need for this (recasting Thawne for Legends, I think, was a good idea all things considered). Just good clean fun and the closest to a live-action comic book we're likely to get.
Season 3: I hate that they broke up Firestorm and killed Stein. But otherwise, Legends knows what it is, and that is hilarious fun. I like that they gave Sara a new girlfriend before the sleeping across time thing got old, but I still was holding out a candle for Nyssa to join the Legends and be the straight man to everybody else's collective short man.
Season 4: Psyched to binge it on Netflix!
Supergirl
Season 1: shaky start due to Laura Benanti (a standout performer whose character had an interesting and sympathetic backstory) leaving the show halfway through, and the backup big bads were crap. Some tonal clash between the Cat Grant stuff and the other stuff, but I love Calista Flockhart and her "fuck y'all, I'm the boss" character. She's a great surrogate-mom type mentor to Kara, too. The writing wasn't quite up to snuff overall, but when they gave Benoist, Leigh, and Harewood a chance to flex their chops, all three killed it. Red K, Martian Manhunter--all good performances.
Season 2: OK, this one's tough. It WOULD have been an improvement, with Lillian Luthor as a superior arc villain, one of my favorite actresses playing Lena Luthor, the stellar Alex-is-gay arc, and what I actually felt was a GOOD decision to make Kara into a reporter and then have her learn the hard way all that that entails. BUT. There is one, annoying, inescapable problem with this season.
Manhell.
Manhell is a fucking tumor on the plot who will not go away and makes everyone he touches grab the Idiot Ball. Manhell is a manipulative, nasty, self-centered, gaslighting prick. Manhell is everything about lazy Mandatory Het Romances in a nutshell. Manhell drives me UP THE FUCKING WALL with his uncanny ability to be absolutely and completely intolerable on the level of Thadiun Okona whenever he interacts with Kara or their relationship is brought up.
Yes, he turns into a bland but decent sort in the last couple of episodes for some reason, and then at the end of season 3 when he finally gets a moment away from Kara he manages to be almost likable, but that still doesn't excuse two seasons of this fucking annoyance being an ass, and more importantly, you know what? The show's called Supergirl. Not Mon-El and his girlfriend, the blonde. I fucking hate Manhell and wish he would be killed off on-screen. For reals.
Season 3: Reign is goofy but the actress plays the Jekyll and Hyde tropes well. Pity they killed off the other Worldkillers too fast then clearly had no clue what to do with the rest of their time. Kryptonian witches were garbage. Alex's plot is frustrating but I understand that they had to break her and Maggie up due to the latter's actress wanting out; still, not a fan of the baby-crazy angle. Otherwise, it was OK I guess.
Look, I love Supergirl. I like Benoist's portrayal of the character, I like Harewood's Martian Manhunter a lot, I fucking love Alex Danvers. But they need to get the fucking writers' room in gear and produce something more unique and with its own identity. The Flash is the "weird villains and time travel drama" show. Arrow is "gritty realistic". Legends is "we made this on LSD". Black Lightning is "the one made for black people". Supergirl SHOULD be the "girl power and gays" show, which to be fair they TRIED to do especially in season 1 with the girl-power angle, but they've sort of lost their aim. Hope season 4 can correct that, and not make Lena re-enact Lex's arc from Smallville.
BLACK LIGHTNING
Season 1: The CW Does Luke Cage. I thought it started shaky but rapidly became a very effective and topical show. I particularly liked Black Lightning's family, and thought that the Big Bad was appropriately scary and evil. The evil-government angle was a bit rote but fit well with the topical, racially charged nature of the show. One of the better CW shows so far, for sure.
