by OL » Thu Mar 31, 2016 4:27 pm
I was never interested in it before, but I decided to give Arrow a try on Netflix. In the past I've always been pretty averse to any of the shows DC have come up with, mainly because they tend to take absolutely no measure whatsoever to ground themselves. They usually end up as cheesy, obviously teen-aimed exercises in goofy indulgence, with casts that are way too pretty to be believable as anything other than tv actors. Always hated Smallville when it was on, I couldn't get past the first few minutes of Gotham (and the commercials I see keep telling me I'm justified in avoiding it; ugh ugh ugh), and obviously Birds of Prey back in the day was just... awful. And another "no thank you" to CBS's Supergirl show.
But I started to hear some promising things about DC's newer batch of shows (Arrow and The Flash; no clue what Legends of Tomorrow is like). Found out that Geoff Johns had actually worked on some of this stuff, and I've always been a fan of his comics work. And when I was watching a BvS review by Kevin Smith, he mentioned having worked on The Flash a bit (I'm guessing as a director?). And hearing that made me perk up a bit.
I already knew from the onset that they might be cheesy and comicbook-y, but for some reason something clicked, and I decided that's no biggie to me anymore. And with so much of it available on Netflix already (at least 69 episodes of Arrow, and I think another 23 of The Flash), it'll at least give me something to spend some time with. Been needing something to watch lately.
So, since The Flash kind of spins off from it, I figured I'd start with Arrow and move from there. And yeah, it is indeed a bit cheesy and soap opera-y and goofy sometimes... but it is entertaining at least. I think I'm on episode 7 now. It feels vaguely like Daredevil, except not quite as bloody violent (which is ironic, since Daredevil refuses to kill, but Green Arrow does it all the time), which is just an effect of it being a basic cable show. Some of the action is actually pretty good. And so far the supporting cast is nowhere near as grating and annoying as the supporting cast of DD.
I do wish Arrow himself was a little more like the comics I've read; he's all broody and dark here, whereas I always understood him in the comics to be a bit more wisecracking, like Spider-Man with a bow. But I'm honestly not familiar enough with the comics for it to bother me much (only read a few story arcs and the Year One miniseries, which the flashbacks in this are actually pretty close to).
So yeah, it's nowhere near as bad as I always expected, and I'm actually pretty interested in seeing where it goes, as well as moving on to The Flash eventually. And I really want to see more of Deathstroke. Hopefully they don't waste his appearances too bad (like they did with Deadshot, who seems to have been a one-and-done single-episode villain).