Arrow, season two, The Scientist
Dec. 5th, 2013 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessArrow
Yesterday was an unexpectedly exciting day for me, not always in a good sense (a school shooting at a nearby high school which added several police cars to my little trike ride home from Target), so exciting that I pretty much missed for several hours that Nanoism had accepted and published a little untitled twitter story of mine, which you can read here. It won't take long, I promise.
And then there was Arrow, which offered another game changing episode last night, and suddenly made my life look completely dull by comparison. Clearly I need to start wearing a green hood.
The first season of Arrow avoided any hint of supernatural or super powers; villains and, er, can we really call Oliver Queen of last season a hero? Did last season have any heroes except very arguably Roy? Anyway, I digress – the point is that last season, everyone was human. The show wallowed in grit and dirt and realism. This was all great –
-- but it kept the show from going epic until the season finale, when the show dragged in a not terribly realistic device that was supposedly capable of setting off earthquakes. Let us handwave a lot. And I do mean a lot.
However unrealistic the device was, however, it did give the show the opportunity to go epic: to force Oliver Queen/The Hood to save an entire city – and fail. At least in part.
It forced Oliver to think about becoming a hero.
Meanwhile, the CW, cheerfully noting that pretty much all of its successful shows have some sort of supernatural element, decided to build on the success of Arrow by expanding into the DC universe, somewhat the way Smallville did, with the possibility of developing more shows.
Immediate problem: Batman was out of the question, partly for rights issues, partly because the Oliver Queen of last season was in some ways Batman light. Though impressively, Oliver Queen of both seasons is not nearly as good as Bruce Wayne is as the playboy billionaire and charm part, in part because although various versions of Bruce Wayne have gone through hell, they have not really gone through the hell this show decided to put Oliver Queen through – and Oliver Queen has a family. Anyway.
That meant going back to superpowers. Not Superman, cause Smallville. Aquaman had been tried and sunk. So –
Flash.
Which also had been tried, years ago, ending after one unsuccessful season, but people (me included) still had some fond memories of it and it could be argued that the show failed in part because of lousy scheduling. (It initially aired on Thursday nights, back when NBC's Must See TV Thursday nights actually meant something.) In any case it had not been a complete disaster.
So, why not launch a Flash spinoff?
Which meant that Arrow had to shift from gritty realism to superpowers.
The show has been doing this slowly throughout the season, mostly throwing in hints in the island backstory bits that Weird Science Is Going On, Dudes, and it Just Might Change the Shape of Your Skull. (Seriously for a deserted island this place has a lot of things going on.)
Last night, the first superpowered villain popped up. He is Super Strong, able to pick up large concrete objects and hurl them through metal doors without a qualm. He is also able to throw very good looking vigilantes right through windshields and doors without, remarkably, leaving a single wound on these vigilante faces. Let's give him a round of applause.
Let's also give a round of applause for the skepticism from the other characters. Diggle thinks this means vampires and is not thrilled by that thought. Possibly because he's seen The Vampire Diaries and is worried that this show could get even more love triangles. Quentin immediately points out that super powered beings don't exist and that we all need to work on another explanation. Oliver is a little less skeptical, but as it turns out, he has reasons: he knows that some super powered humans do exist, it's just that they have bleeding eyes and they die and it's very sad.
And, of course, the show introduced young Mr. Barry Allen, our potential Flash, giving him lots of Moments, including one where he is by a shelf of chemicals when suddenly, a lightning rings out behind him! I laughed. (Since he isn't in his own show yet, Barry Allen remains normal; also, given that Arrow has really not at all subtly been warning us of an upcoming dangerous explosion I'm pretty sure that the explosion will be what gives Barry his powers – assuming that happens next week. Which it might not.)
And it worked.
Except for a rather dull scene involving a party, which frankly didn't work well in the context of an episode with motorcycle chases and people bleeding out from their eyes and John Barrowman sexing out of his eyes, the show ramped up the tension and the stakes and Oliver shot Roy in the leg, yay! Ok, so that last bit has nothing to do with superpowers, and Roy is growing on me – the fact that the show has found him something to do may have something to do with it, unlike their treatment of a certain other character.
But mostly this worked because the show took the time to lay the groundwork for this. Not just in kinda endless promos reminding us that THE FLASH WAS COMING YAY and the show would be arriving IN A FLASH HA HA and Oliver might need a FLASH OF HELP ha ha, but in the little details: the mutated skulls back on the island. The discussion of creating superpowered humans. The fierce way everyone on the island this season is fighting for objects and powers that have never been completely defined.
That's how you can build up to your big reveal, and your game changing moments: hints. Words. More hints. Images. And leave your audience going, cool! Instead of, uh, how did that guy break into here again? And your moment where your camera zooms on your fallen hero, with the love interest clasping his face in her hands (sorry, show; even if I didn't know that Barry Allen is only on for a couple of episodes before heading to his pilot, I wasn't buying this) – and the syringe in his leg, suggesting that he, too, might be developing superpowers.
Also, Oliver shot Roy in the leg. That is never going to get old.
Yesterday was an unexpectedly exciting day for me, not always in a good sense (a school shooting at a nearby high school which added several police cars to my little trike ride home from Target), so exciting that I pretty much missed for several hours that Nanoism had accepted and published a little untitled twitter story of mine, which you can read here. It won't take long, I promise.
And then there was Arrow, which offered another game changing episode last night, and suddenly made my life look completely dull by comparison. Clearly I need to start wearing a green hood.
The first season of Arrow avoided any hint of supernatural or super powers; villains and, er, can we really call Oliver Queen of last season a hero? Did last season have any heroes except very arguably Roy? Anyway, I digress – the point is that last season, everyone was human. The show wallowed in grit and dirt and realism. This was all great –
-- but it kept the show from going epic until the season finale, when the show dragged in a not terribly realistic device that was supposedly capable of setting off earthquakes. Let us handwave a lot. And I do mean a lot.
However unrealistic the device was, however, it did give the show the opportunity to go epic: to force Oliver Queen/The Hood to save an entire city – and fail. At least in part.
It forced Oliver to think about becoming a hero.
Meanwhile, the CW, cheerfully noting that pretty much all of its successful shows have some sort of supernatural element, decided to build on the success of Arrow by expanding into the DC universe, somewhat the way Smallville did, with the possibility of developing more shows.
Immediate problem: Batman was out of the question, partly for rights issues, partly because the Oliver Queen of last season was in some ways Batman light. Though impressively, Oliver Queen of both seasons is not nearly as good as Bruce Wayne is as the playboy billionaire and charm part, in part because although various versions of Bruce Wayne have gone through hell, they have not really gone through the hell this show decided to put Oliver Queen through – and Oliver Queen has a family. Anyway.
That meant going back to superpowers. Not Superman, cause Smallville. Aquaman had been tried and sunk. So –
Flash.
Which also had been tried, years ago, ending after one unsuccessful season, but people (me included) still had some fond memories of it and it could be argued that the show failed in part because of lousy scheduling. (It initially aired on Thursday nights, back when NBC's Must See TV Thursday nights actually meant something.) In any case it had not been a complete disaster.
So, why not launch a Flash spinoff?
Which meant that Arrow had to shift from gritty realism to superpowers.
The show has been doing this slowly throughout the season, mostly throwing in hints in the island backstory bits that Weird Science Is Going On, Dudes, and it Just Might Change the Shape of Your Skull. (Seriously for a deserted island this place has a lot of things going on.)
Last night, the first superpowered villain popped up. He is Super Strong, able to pick up large concrete objects and hurl them through metal doors without a qualm. He is also able to throw very good looking vigilantes right through windshields and doors without, remarkably, leaving a single wound on these vigilante faces. Let's give him a round of applause.
Let's also give a round of applause for the skepticism from the other characters. Diggle thinks this means vampires and is not thrilled by that thought. Possibly because he's seen The Vampire Diaries and is worried that this show could get even more love triangles. Quentin immediately points out that super powered beings don't exist and that we all need to work on another explanation. Oliver is a little less skeptical, but as it turns out, he has reasons: he knows that some super powered humans do exist, it's just that they have bleeding eyes and they die and it's very sad.
And, of course, the show introduced young Mr. Barry Allen, our potential Flash, giving him lots of Moments, including one where he is by a shelf of chemicals when suddenly, a lightning rings out behind him! I laughed. (Since he isn't in his own show yet, Barry Allen remains normal; also, given that Arrow has really not at all subtly been warning us of an upcoming dangerous explosion I'm pretty sure that the explosion will be what gives Barry his powers – assuming that happens next week. Which it might not.)
And it worked.
Except for a rather dull scene involving a party, which frankly didn't work well in the context of an episode with motorcycle chases and people bleeding out from their eyes and John Barrowman sexing out of his eyes, the show ramped up the tension and the stakes and Oliver shot Roy in the leg, yay! Ok, so that last bit has nothing to do with superpowers, and Roy is growing on me – the fact that the show has found him something to do may have something to do with it, unlike their treatment of a certain other character.
But mostly this worked because the show took the time to lay the groundwork for this. Not just in kinda endless promos reminding us that THE FLASH WAS COMING YAY and the show would be arriving IN A FLASH HA HA and Oliver might need a FLASH OF HELP ha ha, but in the little details: the mutated skulls back on the island. The discussion of creating superpowered humans. The fierce way everyone on the island this season is fighting for objects and powers that have never been completely defined.
That's how you can build up to your big reveal, and your game changing moments: hints. Words. More hints. Images. And leave your audience going, cool! Instead of, uh, how did that guy break into here again? And your moment where your camera zooms on your fallen hero, with the love interest clasping his face in her hands (sorry, show; even if I didn't know that Barry Allen is only on for a couple of episodes before heading to his pilot, I wasn't buying this) – and the syringe in his leg, suggesting that he, too, might be developing superpowers.
Also, Oliver shot Roy in the leg. That is never going to get old.