Arrow Isn’t a Bullseye But Does Hit the Target
Being a fan of comics books, it was hard to miss when the CW network announced its latest foray into the world of superheroes. Arrow, named for the titular Green Arrow1, is a reimagining of the character into a world of nighttime dramatic action with all the tangled webs of relationships, secrets, hidden agendas, and people-who-are-not-what-they-seem.
Generally speaking, I couldn't care less about Green Arrow. He's a blatant Batman knock-off with a ridiculous (even for superheroes) gimmick who got a thin coat of relevancy in the 70s by becoming super liberal and explaining to Green Lantern that, no matter how colorblind he was to interstellar species on Oa, he was still a racist douche at home. Then GA proved it to GL with an interminable road trip in a pickup truck.
That said, there have been some enjoyable Arrows. The animated GA on Justice League Unlimited was pretty enjoyable as the cantankerous old man who wanted all these new heroes to get off his lawn. In one of the very, very few examples of Smallville doing something right, it took the lemons of not being allowed to have Batman and made lemonade out of a Green Arrow who basically acted like a smirking Batman having fun running around in his silly outfit solving the world's problems. In a more serious vein, the Mike Grell penned Longbow Hunters era was a very well written grim-and-gritty take on GA when DC was all about rolling out as many badly written grim-and-gritty takes on superheroes as they could get paper for.
And the trailers and previews for Arrow definitely looked like Mike Grell and Christopher Nolan had a bow-wielding love child. But, for me, that's a half empty glass and I was leery of wasting any more time on another DC misstep2 with a character I was already marginal about at best.
But then the pilot aired and I was hearing shockingly good things from a lot of corners. And then I heard some very negative things from other corners. I sadly found myself in a place where I was going to have to decide not to care about Arrow at all or sit down and watch the damn pilot.
Well, needless to say, a couple folks made sure I couldn't just not care, so I sat down and watched the damn pilot.
And it was pretty okay! In fact, there are seeds of real, honest enjoyment mixed in there! I'm actually looking forward to watching the second episode!
The Good News
This show is totally watchable! I typically have to make apologies for pilots, but this one did the job of setting things up (including a slightly ludicrous number of interwoven relationships, mysterious backstories, and flashbacks) while giving a viewer a satisfying A plot to chew on.
I have a big soft spot for ridiculous relationship maps on nighttime action dramas, and some of the Arrow blanks were filled in with cliches or in heavy handed ways. But in a day and age where most pilots for shows like this are two parters, Arrow does a remarkable job setting up the series.
I also really enjoyed almost all the casting, especially of Ollie. That's hard on me since I liked the Smallville Ollie so much, but the only big casting misfire I could see was in Laurel. She's pretty much a blank canvas right now with some Rachel Dawes filled in around the edges, but that may be because they haven't decided if she's going to wind up Black Canary yet. (I hope not...)
The fight scenes were well staged for an untested television show. The A Plot made sense (more or less, see below in the Bad News). There were plenty of teasers for secrets and intrigue, which are pretty much mainstays for a show like this. And Arrow did not look like a total douche while firing arrows at guys with automatic weapons. That's a tough one to make work!
And, last but not least, there's one for the ladies and 10% of the dudes. Ollie is one delicious slab of beefcake.
Plus, best of all: Arrow through a Deathstroke mask. ARROW THROUGH A DEATHSTROKE MASK, PEOPLE!
The Bad News
WiFi arrows are dumb. I mean, I laughed and enjoyed it, but that's just silly.
If they make Laurel, a knock off version of a character so uninteresting even a switch from Katie Holmes to Maggy Gyllenhall couldn't invigorate her, into Black Canary, a character that has utterly surpassed Green Arrow in depth and interesting hooks, then I will burn down their houses.
They did leave out one of Ollie's typically trademark character traits, that being his crazy, left-wing politics. That's not saying left-wing politics are crazy, but Ollie is the left version of right-wing militia members. I'm honestly not sure how you work this in without making it the point of the show, but I throw this bone to whatever a Green Arrow purist looks like.
Speedy as the younger sister and it's her nickname because she already uses drugs.3
The aforementioned melodramatic cliches and somewhat hammy introduction of same. Honestly, I consider this a good thing in small doses, which was the case for Arrow, but I put it here also for the sake of fairness.
Ollie airbrushed green over his eyes instead of wearing a domino mask. Because airbrushing over your eyes is less stupid than a domino mask. (Hint: It isn't.)
Ummmm...that's it. Really. If you like urban vigilantes, melodrama, and nighttime action dramas, then you will call this a win. Even if you hate Green Arrow.
So, the Arrow pilot didn't suck. Nobody is more surprised than I am. I'll let you know what I think of the next episode.
1 Although the chromatic nomenclature was deemed too juvenile for this representation of the character despite his predilection for verdigris garb, Starling City is apparently way more grown up and serious than Star City.
2 I'm not going to get into a big thing here unless somebody really asks nicely, but two of those Nolan Batman movies are amazing pieces of film that are terrible, terrible Batman movies. The third one is just a terrible movie. It isn't even all that pretty. Therefore, the Nolan Batman movies are missteps in terms of being Batman movies. I don't care how much money they make, I don't care how masterful an artist Nolan is, they fail as movies about the character of Batman.
3 This almost made it into the good news. I mean, it's been decades of comics fans left amused at the irony so it's definitely time to bake the irony right in. So while I'm torn, I lean toward Good News but I recognize it's cheesey enough some might put it in the Bad News. After the last footnote, I threw you a bone.
