Arrow

This might be the first time I have actually started a thread here. I searched and searched, but I could not find a thread for the new Arrow TV show.

I came in with some pretty low expectations and found I really liked it. There were a number of things that resonated with me. I like that we will be slowly finding out the island over the course of the story. I liked the flash of Deathstroke the Terminator mask right near the start. I liked that the main character wasn’t all mopey over his ex-girlfriend. I like that he has a hit list and he seems to be hitting one per episode. I hope it keeps it up.

Yeah, the buzz has been surprisingly positive about this one. I keep meaning to watch it my own self.

I came in with low expectations also and they were fully satisfied. Complete garbage. The most appropriate word to describe it is “execrable”. I hated every single character on the show, the protagonist in particular but also his douchy friend, his druggie (but admittedly hot) sister, his borderline catatonic ex-girlfriend, his nancing step-daddy, and his predictably evil MILF.

Actually the only character I liked was the not-Sir Ben Kingsley villain, but he appears to only be the villain of the week.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if every villain of the week looked suspiciously like famous celebrities? Just hire impersonators for each one.

Next week not-Bill Cosby shows up in a lovely knit sweater with a dastardly plan to evict poor people from tenements! However will our annoying handsome hero address this with his 17th century weaponry? How will his standoffish expressionless Latina ex-girlfriend’s pro-bono law clinic be involved? Could there be OSHA violations? Maybe dumping toxic chemicals? I can’t hardly wait!

My son and I watched it to give it a try and we both really enjoyed our time in front of it. Pretty cool show that doesn’t have the “CW Vibe” I always got from Smallville. Will keep watching.

I thought it was a reasonably strong start, for a genre show. For me, genre shows are so much about establishing the mythos that the starts are always ridiculously weak. I never have high expectations.

Certainly good enough to keep watching.

Biggest huh moment: dude heart-shots the two body guards and we hear later that he “put them in the hospital”. I think they need to either make the guy ruthless or have him use net arrows or something. B.S. flesh wounds is a cop out.

You really thought Arrow was good? My friends and I nearly died laughing at the low-rent ridiculous debacle.

Shrug. Diff’rent strokes, I suppose.

On a side note, the actor playing the sister is 22 years old, so it’s OK to remote-lust after her.

You must be new to television if you thought THAT was a debacle. What’s your viewing history? The Wire and Arrow?

Yeah, I have seen much worse TV and much more painful shows and movies.

I do agree on the kill-shots that were not. Pretty sure if you catch a hunting arrow anywhere in the upper torso, it is all bad news. I would be fine if he was just flat out killing guys like that.

I think it will be interesting to see if they keep his “bodyguard” around.

I’m sure I’ve seen worse TV just not, you know, recently. Arrow was pretty, pretty bad.

Watch the Beauty and the Beast remake then tell me how awful Arrow is.

I liked it a lot. I thought the lead actor was convincing enough as a spoiled rich kid and as an angry but eager for redemption force of destruction. He’s not the world’s greatest actor but he gets the job done. His main forte seems to be bringing out the best in the other actors. I thought his friend, ex-gf, and sister all had pretty good scenes opposite him.

This show is what I think The Cape wanted to be. The level of bone snapping violence it contains is surprising but welcome, I hope they don’t tone that down. I’m not familiar with the comic so the part that puzzled me is that the masked superhero is the guy who originates the superhero myth, that’s odd. It would be like if Bruce Wayne was the guy who first went around telling everyone there’s a guy dressed like a bat fighting crime in the city.

It could work. Every week he’s knocked out in a stranglehold. By episode 7 he barely remembers his own name and has lengthy conversations with the hood ornament on the limo.

It seems like a pretty good way to divert interest from you being the dude. Didn’t Iron Man pull that shit with the “body guard” rescuing him all the time?

The criminal of the week bit is expected, but they do seem to have some material for serializing in the form of what was on that island. Tom Hanks sure didn’t come back as a dead-eye maniac, spartan reject. Must be more there than a bunch of coconuts.

Also, was Harry Dresden (the detective) the father of the love triangle sisters or did I mishear that?

Yup, you heard correctly.

…sigh…I miss The Dresden Files.

Now that was an entertaining show.

Oh lord me too, thankfully the books are still going strong. Dresden could’ve been the next Buddy if SyFy gave it a chance.

Put me in the column of people who came in with low expectations but was pleasantly surprised. I’ve been a bit perplexed that CW has been trying so hard to sell the Green Arrow franchise on the public for the past few years, but I think I read somewhere that they don’t have the rights to Batman so GA is the closest second to that property. I felt it was much better than any full season of Smallville.

The first season or two of Smallville wasn’t as painful as the rest of the show. Initially it relied on the great father/son relationship between Clark and Jonathan. It was less a show about a superhero then a drama about a kid who just happened to be isolated from everyone else because of his powers.

Then they slowly reduced Schneider’s role and eventually just let him go (which is understandable given the history in the comics, I guess) in favor of really awful adaptations of comic book characters in which leather jackets matching the colors of their book forms was supposedly cool.

I was a giant comic book nerd in my younger days and even I couldn’t sit through the final 3 seasons of Smallville.

And I own the dvd of Daredevil, people. Daredevil!

As I said over in the general Fall 2012 thread, I liked this one a lot more than I thought I would. I guess my standards aren’t up to stusser’s!

I’m interested in how the main dude got his fancy schmancy bow and arrows while lost for those 5 years. I think unfolding a lot of the backstory will give a good break from the traditional “foil the bad guy of the week” ruts shows like this can get in to.

Smallville was also just awful, although I agree it peaked in its first season.

That said, this was just the pilot, and shows often substantially change once they’re picked up. I hold on to hope that Arrow gets less ass-tastic as the season progresses.

I haven’t seen the show but from what I see on wikipedia about the cast it almost seems like they went out of their way to find actors with famous relatives. The ex-girlfriend is David Cassidy’s daughter and the little sister is Brian De Palma’s stepdaughter and was “discovered” by Spielberg when she was 7.