First, it’s important to note that I’ve seen none of ‘Arrow’ or ‘Flash’. That’s not because I dislike them or think the CW should stay out of the superhero business after ‘Smallville’ or any number of other Cranky Internet Person reasons; it’s just because there are only so many hours in the day and I’m still eight episodes behind on ‘Agents of SHIELD’ and two episodes behind on ‘Agent Carter’ and a full season each behind on ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Jessica Jones’ and something like four episodes behind on ‘Doctor Who’ and it is fully possible to think that a series sounds cool these days without having even a chance in Hell at seeing it any time soon. I wouldn’t even have seen this, except my roommate was watching it while I was in the room. So I’m coming in cold at the CWDCU.
(I also haven’t seen ‘Breaking Bad’ or ‘The Sopranos’. Just to give you a full idea of how behind I am on shit.)
With that said, the premiere episode does a pretty good job of expositing everything in an entertaining and straightforward way. 150 years from now, Vandal Savage is going to take over the world, the Time LorrrerrrrrMasters don’t want to interfere, and so the DocterrrrrRip Hunter steals a timeship and goes to stop him with the help of a crew of superheroes with easily identifiable character hooks. It’s a decent set up for the series, executed with a nice turn of speed (let’s face it, would any of this have seemed less contrived if they’d spent longer setting it up?) and some good work from Arthur Darvill, who’s saddled with a lot of the load-bearing dialogue.
That said, there are problems here. I’m already not loving Hawkman (yes I know “because fuck Hawkman”, but I actually liked his Silver Age incarnation where he was a happily married space cop who just used medieval weaponry to avoid letting advanced tech fall into the hands of criminals) and his habit of literally convincing Shayera to resolve all their difficulties by letting him beat her up until she stops disagreeing with him. No, seriously. That’s what happened.
Also beyond fucking creepy is Professor Stein’s decision to roofie Jefferson Jackson so that he can take him along on the time journey. It’s creepy primarily because the implications of it are brushed off–Stein denies that he roofied Jackson when called on it (and also where did he get the knockout drugs he put in Jackson’s drink? He certainly seemed to have them close to the liquor cabinet, which ew ew EW!) and his apology later boils down to, “I’m sorry I drugged and kidnapped you, but in my defense, I wanted to do this and you said no.” To which Jackson responds with, “That’s okay, now that I’m trapped on the timeship with a murderous temporal bounty hunter after my head and no less than two hardened criminals and one murderer around, I feel great about this!” It’s highly unconvincing.
That said, Heat Wave and Captain Cold are a lot of fun (although the director seems to be letting Wentworth Miller play his part in a totally different tone than anyone else, which is jarring and sloppy) and White Canary seems to have hidden depths that might get explored later. Not thrilled with Casper Crump as Vandal Savage–that’s a part I feel needs a lot of gravitas, and he seems a little bit weaselly–but I will forgive him everything if there’s a bit later on where you find out he gave JMS the idea for the Shadows in B5. Oh, and Brandon Routh is a total non-entity as the Atom, but I’m not sure how much of that is him and how much of it is just smart screenwriting.
The plot covers a lot of useful ground while still leaving plenty for the full season, and I gotta say, I kind of liked this. I may watch more episodes, assuming I have the time after catching up on ‘Agents of SHIELD’ and ‘Agent Carter’.
…and ‘Daredevil’. And ‘Jessica Jones’. And ‘Arrow’. And ‘Flash’. And ‘Breaking Bad’, and ‘Lost’, and…
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Having watched all those shows. I’d say Jessica Jones and Daredevil should take priority. They’re just so well produced and bring a lot of maturity to the MCU. Plus Kingpin and Kilgrave are 2 of the 3 best marvel MCU villains (Loki still at no.1).
I tend to enjoy Arrow and the Flash more than Agents of SHIELD, though I did really enjoy Agent Carter.
The Flash is really the best of the four. It is fun watching the Flash use science and running fast to save the day Can I run on water? Can I run up walls? Can I run so fast I phase through a wall or travel through time? To which the answer is always “Yes you can Barry”.
Arrow is a hot mess to get into, I’d even consider skipping the first few 1-3 seasons. This season is pretty dumb but if you want costumed (finally) properly named superheroes fighting a massive evil organisation HIVE led by a glorious magically power Neal Mcdonough as Damien Darkh watch it. It’s just fun.
Breaking Bad should always be watched. And as someone who watched all of LOST. Don’t the destination sucks and so does the journey, just save yourself the time and pain.
Edit: I also gave up on Supergirl. I couldn’t stand Gotham. I though Constantine was slowly starting to have promise and then poof it was gone
Pretty good analysis of Legends. They are going to need to so some work to make Vandal Savage seem like a proper threat; the actor they have isn’t terrible, but doesn’t have the sheer presence you would want with such a villain.
The team feels like it is maybe one or two characters too large, and the Hawk squad seems to be the weakest link. Notably, they are also the characters with the least amount of backstory from Arrow/Flash. However, given their link to Savage, it should be easy – in theory – to build up their backstory and presence in the show… but Hawkman in particular is not particularly likeable, and their chemistry together is very much lacking.
Agreed that Stein drugging his counterpart was… really messed up, and got remarkably little discussion. Not sure if it is intentional commentary on Stein’s character, or just a very ill-considered plot device by the writers.
Breaking Bad is an absolutely brilliant work of art and I can’t recommend it enough but it is not for everyone.
As much as I enjoy the DC shows, if your that short on time I’d recommend the any of the Marvel shows first, particularly Jessica Jones.
Honestly, I like Flash and Arrow and watch them both each week, but I can think of several other shows currently airing I’d recommend over either one of them (The 100, Person of Interest, Brooklyn 99, Limitless, and Orphan Black just to name a few.)
The big failure of LoT is taking Captain Cold away from the Flash, where he belonged. Wentworth Miller was AWESOME and well-written there, and a lame spin-o show is just gonna ruin his character across the board.
I dunno, what you’ve described so far already feels like a major turnoff. I’ve got other shows to watch.
Legends of Tomorrow pleasantly surprised me in being pretty decent. It didn’t blow me away or leave me wanting more the way the Flash has, but neither did it justify the strong antipathy which I developed for it due to the series setup taking up much of the first part of this season of Arrow.
It’s not perfect; the degree to which Rip Hunter is straight up Doctor Who is a little eye rolling, Vandal Savage is, as you say, a bit too weaselly, and not only does Hawkman suck, but he actively weakens Hawkgirl (still can’t believe they’re not calling her Hawkwoman, btw) as a character. Having her do the whole “recovering memories of past lives” thing would be so much more interesting without having Hawkman there to mansplain things to her, and it would leave her free as a romantic lead.
@Wolfthomas
I’d actually go in the opposite direction re: Arrow and hold off on watching this season just yet. Seasons 1-3 are uneven, and I’d even recommend skipping most of season 1, but taken together they do actually form a character arc for Oliver Queen. My biggest complaint about season 4 so far is how utterly inert both the characters and plot feel. At times this season I’ve felt like I’m watching a particularly bad old school cartoon, and I’m starting to lose hope that the latter half of the season will pull things together.
You’re almost caught up with Agents of Shield, but you haven’t watched Daredevil or the Flash? Brother, you’re all mixed up.
Counterpoint: the destination of LOST is excellent, but I think the series works better watched-when-binged. Much like Battlestar Galactica, the ending excellently summates the themes of the series that may not always have been as clear when the show was watched broken-up across network television’s airing schedule.
@Lord Riven
I’ve felt similarly about both of those shows. The endings for both may not have been exactly what I wanted out of the series’ end runs, but they still felt very much a part of their respective series overall themes and intentions. Honestly though, even if I thought those endings were steaming piles, that wouldn’t have detracted in the slightest from the time spent with those characters up to that point. Adama is still Adama. Sawyer is still Sawyer.
Re: Wentworth Miller – that’s how he plays the character on THE FLASH, too. It seems out of place there as well, but not in a bad way, as a very deliberate decision to make the guy stand out as Barry’s most cunning enemy. Captain Cold on THE FLASH show is the smartest crook on the show,* so he gets away with being kind of weirdly detached and laid back. He’s unfazed by anything. It maybe works better if you’ve seen THE FLASH because they’ve done a great job of building his character over the past year and a half.
* Smartest *crook* mind you. Reverse Flash and Zoom are obviously smarter super-scientist bad guys but not really crooks per se. Still, even given that, it’s been established that Captain Cold is anyone’s equal in the savvy department.
I am turning into a giant curmudgeon. I couldn’t get through more than 20 minutes of Legends of Tomorrow. But then again I hatred Arrow, hated Agent Carter, was bored by the second Avengers movie and I bailed on Agents of Shield after a few episodes. They were all just SO BAD.
I guess my bar for comic book related media has just gotten unrealistically high. Or my expectations are just overblown.
Jessica Jones and Daredevil were incredible though. Can’t recommend them enough.
Curious: did they explain why Rip Hunter needed to take the team to THE FUTURE to fight Savage? Couldn’t they just… go kick his but right then and there? Was it to limit ‘timeline interference’ or something?
They didn’t end up going to the future. They went to 1975.
@Tim O’Neil: Honestly, it feels like he’s giving a stage performance on TV–James Marsters admitted to having a similar problem in his early appearances on Buffy, putting too much energy into his speeches and gestures because he was pitching his performance to the people in the 10th row and not to the camera.
It feels even more jarring, though, when placed next to Brandon Routh’s self-deprecating nebbish turn. Sort of like putting Brian Blessed and Woody Allen on the same set. 🙂
Considering that Miller’s Captain Cold is a very popular character, I doubt there’s any incentive for him to change.
The difference in registers for different actors can work well when done right. The example I always go to – and I want to stress that I’m not actively comparing the two because LEGENDS is so far a weirdly mediocre show – is STAR WARS, a movie with so many actors doing so many different things that somehow works because having Harrison Ford and Peter Cushing in the same movie pitching their performances in two completely different timbres gives the film a weird kind of verisimilitude.
It even works within the same performance, with Carrie Fisher adopting a faux-British upper crust accent for the scenes where she’s more or less in her capacity as a Senator but then code-switching to a less formal language when she’s not dealing with Tarkin and Vader. (AND YES, I know the behind-the-scenes reason why she changed her accent during filming but it was a nice accident that added to her character, which Lucas built upon when he gave Amidala a similar kind of code-switching ability depending on whether Padme was speaking in an official or informal capacity.)
Normally, just mentioning STAR WARS is enough to derail a comments thread, but I mention it here just in passing. Miller doing something different can work, and does work, he’s one of the best things about the show so far.
Carry on.
What doesn’t work, logically, is that all the people Hunter is recruiting are “future legends” — if that’s true, the more missions they do for him, the greater the chance that they’ll mess up their timelines.
However, it would be a nice mid-season twist if they actually recognized this, and it turned out that the REAL reason he’s recruited them is because they’re all actually at the END of their timelines…
By the end of the first episode, Hunter admits he actually took them because they’re utterly forgotten in the future.
@Matthew Johnson: That’s pretty much the explicit hope of most of the characters by the end of the episode–they want to alter their timelines, so they can be remembered as more than just third-string nobodies with super powers. (Which is exquisitely meta, when you think about it.)
BTW, very glad that nobody’s in here trying to defend Hawkman’s “let’s solve all our problems through domestic violence” speech or Professor Stein’s roofie cabinet. I was a little worried.
It constantly amazes me when I see people praising Jessica Jones as I loathed it and gave up in disgust partway through episode 10.
To me, it felt like the show-runner/writer was trying to do a similar riff to what Daredevil made look easy: Showing you how the villains of the piece were complex and even somewhat/sometimes sympathetic characters, without ever shying away from the fact that they are bad, bad people.
That’s a really fine line to walk, and Daredevil made it look effortless, which is really impressive, IMO.
Jessica Jones, OTOH, utterly failed to make Kilgrave anything other than a pitiful, controlling creep. Between that and the way they have half the cast pass around the idiot ball in Episode 9 it was ruined.
Note: Jessica herself was really well played, as was Luke Cage and Malcolm (To a lesser extent, but he also had precious little to work with.)
Patsy was uneven (again, not given much to work with) and describing the lawyer as one-dimensional is almost understatement. So awful and pointless. Carrie Moss deserves so much better.
I thought that was the point with Kilgrave. He was like a “nice-guy” MRA type taken to 11. He wasn’t meant to be anything close to sympathetic except for brief moments that then made you feel sleazy. He was a different sort of villain, huge power but no ambition greater than his own physical pleasures.
In the Arrow-Flash crossovers where they introduced Hawkman and Vandal Savage, Hawkman’s mansplaining seemed written deliberately to make him a bit of a jerk, and Kendra (Hawkgirl) said out loud that she didn’t like him. I was hoping that his jerkiness would be called out explicitly here (maybe even punished/ridiculed via plot), and I feel that’s still possible in future episodes.
Stein’s treatment of JJ, on the other hand, was both surprising and really disturbing. That the black character was kidnapped onto a ship as a slave to other people’s agendas, and that this is apparently being dismissed with no commentary, is pretty sickening.
I like watching Captain Cold’s machinations, and I hope Routh’s character and White Canary get some more development, but this is way down on the list of shows I’m going to make time for this spring.
Geek TV credentials: up to date on Arrow, Flash, Agent Carter, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, four episodes behind on Agents of SHIELD, one season behind on Doctor Who. Haven’t seen Legends of Tomorrow yet but it’s on the agenda. My thoughts…
I’m surprised people here seem to like Flash and dislike Arrow. Arrow has had its better and worse runs, but right now I’d rate Arrow much higher than Flash. On Arrow at the moment the hero has shown remarkable character growth, the villain has an actual agenda that’s not just revenge or mass murder, and the supporting characters aren’t stabbing each other in the back for contrived reasons. On Flash the most interesting and likeable character at the moment the alternate universe duplicate of last season’s big bad, IMO, and that’s a bad situation.
As for Legends of Tomorrow, I’m looking forward to Captain Cold, but I had almost forgotten that Heat Wave was in it. He’s had fewer appearances in the Arrowverse, and is mostly just a dumb hothead when he appears. Also, throughout Flash and Arrow I’ve been surprised by how much I like Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer. He’s perfect for the character and the character has been used very well.
The Hawkman thing isn’t a surprise, he wasn’t very likeable on Flash and Arrow either. I’m surprised you don’t like Vandal Savage, I thought he was handled well on those shows. I guess it just depends on what actually happened in the plot, which I might find out tonight.
I’m surprised and disappointed to hear about Stein. Definitely sounds out of character. He was a likeable guy. Although for the record, they’ve handled Firestorm a bit differently here than in the comics. In the comics they usually hamper Firestorm’s incredible power by putting an idiot in the driver’s seat, right? In Flash, they’ve made both people that make up Firestorm reasonably smart and just given Firestorm less power. Flight and fire blasts, but no transmutation. Maybe they’ve decided to give him the added handicap of adding conflict between his constituents.
For me the worst part of the roofie subplot was when Victor Garber begins an apology, but instead of “I’m sorry for what I did, and I regret it horribly, but all humanity is at stake”, we get “I’m sorry for what I did, but sorry not sorry, I just REEEALLLLY wanted to time travel cause it’s like SOOO KEWWWWWLLL!”
You know, thinking on it, I’m not sure what’s the worst possibility for why Stein has a decanter of drugged whiskey around. 1) He enjoys recreational narcotics so much he keeps it for his own personal use at work. 2) He has had other occasions where causing somebody who trusts him enough to accept a drink to pass out instantly in his office was to his advantage. 3) He knew how the argument would go so he bought some narcotics from his students–because if he wasn’t already into drugs, where else would he go to find them?–and added them to the booze in advance of the conversation.
@Candlejack: You and I are in total agreement there. My immediate thought was, “How the heck was he able to produce knockout drops so readily? And why is he so skilled at surreptitiously drugging drinks? NEVER MIND DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT JUST DON’T.”
It was a horrible misstep.
He’s a scientist in a comic book universe. Harmless instant knockout drugs are just two test tubes and a bunsen burner away. If you assume the conversation and drugging takes place the next morning before the meetup, that isn’t a problem.
I will accept this explanation for where he got knock-out drugs. But if, at some point down the line, the Legends need somebody drugged and Stein can’t whip up anything, I will have to withdraw support for the theory.
(On the other hand, past-Stein’s fondness for weed might indicate that option #1 was actually the right one.)
You mean his objection isn’t to the drug effects, but the smoke inhalation? That works. But comic book scientists also usually only do something once, then you never see it again. Especially the really plot breakingly useful stuff.