Hello, and welcome to the re-boot of Geek Peak! If you want to check out my opinions and discuss your thoughts on comics, movies, TV shows, Dieselpunk, literature, music, art, and just all storytelling avenues in general, you’ve come to the right place.
Much has happened since my last post, you know, weird life stuff. But I’ve realized that there is so much I want to share with you and that this is definitely the place to do so. I hope you get something out of my posts and please feel free to leave a comment and subscribe if something here speaks to you.
Okay so the first thing I want to talk about today are the CW super hero shows. Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow. The reason for wanting to cover them now is mostly because of the Elseworlds crossover last week. Well, Legends was not included in the actual crossover, but there was mention of the crossover in Legends and the way the timeline continuity flowed, it made it feel like they were involved, even if only just a little. For this post however, I will talk just about Arrow, Flash, and Supergirl.
Now past seasons of these three shows have been hit and miss but still largely engaging. Some seasons have been mind-blowing and over too quickly, while others have been more boring than usual and have dragged on way too long.
Some, like Supergirl have had very weird runs where part of the season if fantastic, then something weird happens that has no baring on the story but they somehow felt the need to force it to and it just winds up pissing fans off. Most of the “weird” seems to be characters or side plots that do not help progress the story at all and actually convolute the point of whatever story question they are attempting to answer, leaving viewers either confused, or just frustrated. However, the main characters in this show are quite fun and have very interesting and multifaceted backstories. That has not always been the case, and it seems that every hard-core viewer has at least one character that is the end all, be all and can do no wrong, as well as one they would like to shoot off into the sun to burn for all eternity. However, this season introduces new characters who are fantastically fleshed out already, and refreshingly relevant, and the writing has been solid.
The Flash seemed oddly slow last season even though there were new characters added and the villain seemed to be unstoppable, yet not as threatening as previous villains. Maybe it’s because even though the Thinker got his powers like pretty much every other meta, he seemed more realistic or plain than an interdimentional super villain with an air of otherworldliness. Somehow outthinking our heroes just didn’t feel as comic-booky, even though the Thinker was absolutely a comic book villain for the Flash. However this season, has been so fun with timey-whimy speedster family interaction and the timeline in a constant state of delicate flux. That being said, the villain here had some potential, but the line delivery the actor chooses is distracting at best, laughable and unthreatening at worst.
Arrow for me these past seasons has either been very edge-of-your-seat engaging, or I can have a nap through at least 60% of it and still be waiting for the point. And some have lived in that grey area in between. But this season so far has been all the former. The Longbow Hunters storyline is tight, every episode progresses the story by answering questions and throwing up new questions, which keeps the momentum exciting and satisfying. Speaking of satisfying, the choreography and stunts in the fight scenes this season have been jaw-dropping! These shows all have fantastic stunt people, and some of the actors have even been known to do their own on occasion, but Arrow is in the lead with outstanding fight scene direction and camera coordination for multiple action sequences that have left me feeling exhilarated.
Diyah Pera/©2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights reserved
The Crossover Event 2018:
Let me first just say that last season’s crossover was fantastic all the way through, and have been getting better and better each year. So I was very excited for this year, especially with the previews of Batwoman/Kate Kane, as well as images of Barry Allen in the Arrow costume and Oliver Queen in the Flash suit. The first 2 out of the 3 episodes of the crossover were, in my opinion, fun and exciting! Ok, the first one really was – it took place on The Flash. It was a great setup for what was to come and let me just add that Stephen Amell acted so much like Grant Gustin’s portrayal of Barry Allen, especially in the opening scene with Iris. His mannerisms, his nervous stutter, everything as on point and he pulled it off brilliantly.
Episode 2 was in the Arrow slot and wasn’t AS enthralling as the first, but still really good. I thought Ruby Rose did a great job of pulling off Kate Kane and Batwoman respectively, and honestly, I did not have faith that she could. I’ve read a lot of Batwoman and Detective Comics this year and I felt like she would probably not do the character justice, but I was wrong and I am glad. But the thing I was left with in that episode was a feeling that the show-runners had put too many plates in the air and did not have enough time in the one episode left to satisfactorily bring them all down and wrap it up nicely.
The final episode of the crossover happened to be on Supergirl and was probably the worst episode that show has had all season. SuperMAN seemed to be the hero on Supergirl’s show, and again, Supergirl didn’t have the strength/power to resolve the big problems that were plaguing the team. Even the mortal bad guy in the crossover, a wiry, sleazy looking man, had more resolve than our Kryptonian female hero. She spent most of the episode locked in a cell and when she got out, she couldn’t even hold a book, it took too much out of here. Albeit, it was a cosmic book, but still, WTF? The the scrawny scientist and Superman were the only ones who could possibly handle the book’s power and were the only two present who could figure out how to work it. So basically, Supergirl could’ve just gotten all the male heroes (and villain) some coffee and would’ve been just about as helpful…on her own damn show. Wow. Well, she and the Flash sped around the world in opposite directions to slow down time so that Superman could set things right with the book, but that still didn’t do anything to help the problem here. See, each show in the crossovers are supposed to move the main story along while also making the hero of whosever show it is shine a little brighter than the rest of the guest heroes for their particular show. The third act definitely did not live up to that standard and as a matter of fact, did the opposite and made Supergirl the least relevant character in her own show.
All-in-all, this year’s crossover started off great, and ended on its face. It’s too bad because there was great potential there. The denouement setup the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, for next fall. What does that mean?
*****WARNING SPOILERS*****
IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW PLEASE DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER INTO THIS POST
Well, I can tell you that in that storyline in the comic book world, The Flash and Supergirl die. Soooo is this the last full season for these two shows? Are the writers going to use some basic plot points from the Crisis on Infinite Earths’ storyline and create a new and different journey/ending for our heroes? Is Crisis going to be a short mini-series or even next year’s crossover event, or is it going to be a new series on it’s own in an effort to phase out Supergirl and Flash gradually by incorporating them into the new show?
I don’t have the answers yet, but what I can tell you is that this year’s crossover started out filling me with excitement and high hopes. But it left me feeling let down with a bad taste in my mouth. It was tight then unraveled terribly at the end. That being said, aside from the crossover event, this season of all four shows has really good and I’m actually missing my Sunday through Tuesday hero watchfests already! Each episode in each show has been consistently progressing the stories forward, engaging, fun, exciting, and most importantly – satisfying.
I could and probably will go into much more detail about each of these shows with specifics and points to make with lots of examples, but I didn’t want this first re-boot post to be too long (I know, too late). Please feel free to put in your two cents and let me know what you thought about the CW Crossover Event of 2018, or the aforementioned shows in general in the comments below. Thank you for reading!
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