Arrow, Flash, Supergirl And Legends Of Tomorrow – Week 1 Roundup Arrow, Flash, Supergirl And Legends Of Tomorrow – Week 1 Roundup
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Everybody Just Needs Some Space The leaves are falling, temperature’s dropping, but the DC television heroes are back for you to enjoy indoors. This week saw the return... Arrow, Flash, Supergirl And Legends Of Tomorrow – Week 1 Roundup

Everybody Just Needs Some Space

The leaves are falling, temperature’s dropping, but the DC television heroes are back for you to enjoy indoors. This week saw the return of the four hit television shows whom share a space in what is known now as the Arrowverse. Each show has its many ups and downs throughout the years, but no premiere this year had any outstanding moments, but weren’t dull either. With a recurrent theme of people just needing some space, last season saw many beloved characters losing something valuable to themselves.

Supergirl S03E01 – Girl of Steel

The last season saw Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist), occasionally Supergirl, lose Mon-El (Chris Wood), the man who was supposed to be the love of her life. Due to Mon-El’s crazy mother getting a little overzealous with his relationship with Kara, she tries to destroy Earth, as non human mothers might do. Kara was ultimately forced to unleash a gas, harmless to humans, but fatal to the Daxamite race, which led her to sending Mon-El off, never to be able to return to Earth again. The loss has greatly affected her ability to lead a normal human life, and it is very apparent in the premiere episode.

The return is dealt with Kara not wanting to return to being Kara. She decides to take up the mantle of Supergirl almost 24/7, not paying attention to her relationships or her career. Besides Supergirl doing super things, a new power player is introduced, who goes by the name of Morgan Edge (Adrian Pasdar), who appears to be nothing but a human businessman. After he tries to redevelop land by launching missiles into the side of the city as a Supergirl statue is unveiled, Supergirl deals with the threat no problem. It is uncertain whether he will be a future threat or the big villain of the season, but the episode shapes Edge to be a very daunting man not to be messed with. More importantly, amidst the chaos, a random ‘human’ mother is forced to use super adrenaline to squeeze steel bars to save her daughter. There is no doubt there is a connection between her and Kara as the episode ends with her sharing a similar dream to that of Kara.

Legends of Tomorrow S03e01 – Aruba-con

Legends of Tomorrow don’t seem to be anybody’s favourite show, but produces a good standard quality every single episode. Last season saw the legends, once again, screwing up the timeline. This season leaves no gap and jumps the audience straight back where they were left off. A great change of pace from many of the other shows, who take a very slow and less direct approach to their premieres. However, before they can try to save the day, Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) does that time travelling thing he does, with an organisation he spent the last five years making, the Time Bureau.

The legends cease to be useful now, and they go their separate ways. A humorous depiction of what their lives would look like if they tried living with normal jobs, but obviously there wouldn’t be a show if they continued this. When Rory (Dominic Purcell) stumbles upon the renowned Julius Caesar (Simon Merrells), the gang gets together, even after father Rip’s disapproval and try to save the day. As usual fashion, they get the job done but with one minor mistake, Julius took Nate’s (Nick Zano) history book, revealing the cheat codes to his entire life. After a failed attempt to save the time universe by the adjustment bureau, the legends save the day in style with their unorthodox methods. It is obvious that they are less trained and highly inefficient compared to the bureau, but a wildcard always has its uses, as stated by Rip who seems to think a dooming threat is going to appear at the door steps very soon.

The Flash S04E01 – The Flash Reborn

After a more than disappointing season,  the season 4 premiere was by no means spectacular to excite anybody either. Season after season of a speedster arch enemy got stale very soon, and the writers have expressed that they are indeed going into a different direction. Season 3 left Iris (Candice Patton), and everyone else, saying goodbye to Barry (Grant Gustin) as he was forced to be a prisoner to balance the speed force of the universe.

Kid Flash (Keiynan Lonsdale) and Vibe (Carlos Valdes) did a fine job of saving the city for six months, not to mention Joe’s (Jesse L. Martin) amazing new sunglasses and super gun, making him very MIB-like. When a super samurai threatens the city and wishes to battle the flash, team kid-flash/vibe are left to do the only thing to do, save Barry Allen. After a sudden reintroduction of Caitlyn (Danielle Panabaker) back to the team, a naked Barry Allen emerges from a portal they concocted. It would have been a lot nicer to be able to see more development with the Killer Frost and Caitlyn character, obviously leaving a lot of questions to be answered throughout the season, but the sudden appearance as a good character from seeing Killer Frost did not feel natural.

After not remembering who he was, Iris puts herself into peril, and there is no better motivation to solving amnesia than when the love of your life is getting kidnapped miles away from you. In Barry fashion, he runs faster than ever before, saving the day. In a Scooby doo moment, he takes the samurai mask, unveiling nothing but wires. The end of the episode reveals a scary looking alien, using a lot more brain than brawn than any other foe Barry has ever faced.

Arrow S06e01 – Fallout

In what seemed like a very risky decision by exploding Lian Yu and killing off many characters in the season finale of Arrow last season, season six returns five months later where nobody important actually died. The stakes are getting lower with Arrow, even with a highly rated fifth season, which was very reminiscent to the glory Arrow days, the show is falling into a superhero curse where nobody dies and there is always a way out. It reduces the chance to get fully love any character, because if they die, they could either just resurrect, find a way out or come from a different multi-verse.

The episode follows Oliver (Stephen Amell) trying to reconcile with his son after his mother dies on the island. Neither the mother nor the son had any real role in the show, and its hard to relate to this story line of Oliver trying to connect with his son when we know nothing about his son. And in the big bad world, Black Siren (Katie Cassidy) has hired mercenaries to do dastardly deeds. At first it was thought she was just out to get the team, seeking revenge at Quentin (Paul Blackthorne) after leaving her to die on the island, when in fact she managed to get into the Arrow-cave to steal one of Curtis’ (Echo Kellum) T-spheres. Who knows what’s in store with her, or if there is a bigger player behind the scenes. At the same time, the Arrowverse news reveals a clear cut picture of Oliver in his green arrow suit, hood off. The last season has had an intriguing story line of balancing politics with vigilantism, and will be more so interesting to see Oliver’s mayoral duties with hopefully an increasing threat.

One thing that Arrow seems to do well compared to the other shows are its side plots. It is nice to see Rene (Rick Gonzalez) being able to get another chance to be with his daughter, and the intimate moment shared with Oliver and Slade (Manu Bennett). Slade has always been a fan favourite of the show, and when it was revealed he is going to Calgary to find his son this would undoubtedly excite any hardcore fan. This could be the start of connecting the anticipated Titans show, if they were to connect it to the Arrowverse.

Last season of Supergirl was arguably the best DC television show out of the four, yet the momentum did not continue through the first episode. It is always difficult after half a year to return, especially after so much happened to the heroes last season. Each show featured a massive lost to the characters, and each premiered showed them coming back, rejuvenated or possibly learning something new. Hopefully the villains of the shows will be as wicked as the opening episodes make them out to be.

Best of the week: Legends of Tomorrow

Worst of the week: Arrow

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Jon Dingle Editor

A film journalist, writer and a filmmaker in business for over 20 years. I am passionate about movies, television series, music and online games.