Arrow

[The Doctor]

So.....How is everyone feeling about what happened on Arrow last night? Or is it too soon still?

[Jack Malone]

Apr 7, 2016 8:42:14 GMT -6 The Doctor said:

So.....How is everyone feeling about what happened on Arrow last night? Or is it too soon still?

Stuck with the show through its subpar third season to find the very beginning of Season 4 extremely promising. It slowly went downhill as the season progressed and quickly became my least favourite, and now I'm done with it. Short of the character who they killed off coming back, I won't be watching anymore. 

[Brian Melanson]

SPOILER: Click to show

Yeah, I'm with Jack on this one. He's the one who got me into the show, got me to love Dinah Laurel Lance, and she was torn away from us. I might not be a huge comic book reader, but I know how important the Black Canary is to the story of Green Arrow. And just to completely disregard 70+ years of comic book history just to satisfy tumblr fans is wrong. I'm just gonna pretend that S3 was the series finale and that Diggle/Thea/Laurel are the sole protectors of Star City.

[The Doctor]

@diiabeticdude202
Trust me, Im still not over it. They did a bunch of stuff during S3 and this season that they might not be able to come back from at this point. And tbh, I wished you worked on Arrow. At least you respect the characters and dont make crazy ass decisions.

@bri898
Im sorry Brian. Laurel was a great character and It sucks you stopped being a fan. To be honest, they tried to make Felicity more important than they should have while screwing over the one female who needed the spotlight more. Hopefully youll keep up with the Flash

Also, what was the point of putting Felicity in a wheelchair? And giving her a codename, if she was just going to quit like 2 episodes later? I LAUGH at the stupidity of it all

[Alex Matthews]

I'm going to add in my 2 cents here, for what it's worth:

I still consider myself a fan of "Arrow", "The Flash" and similar genre shows, but I don't watch any of them as religiously as I used to - now I either wait for the DVD or I Netflix them. Currently the only show I'm watching 'live' via streaming is "Supergirl", and even then I only just caught up on the last few episodes.

"Arrow" has always been a show I've had a certain ambivelance towards - as many of my posts in this thread have commented, I find it's over used the Batman mythos, and introduced characters I felt didn't need to be, when Green Arrow himself has such a long history of his own. Season 1 I felt was very guilty of this. I will add, I never had any real issues with Diggle - he worked for me, being the confidence and partner that Oliver needed in Season 1, as well as a voice of reason, and when Felicity first joined, she reinforced that, and helped turn Ollie away from being a vigilante into a hero. It all got screwed up when she started getting all 'lovvie-dovvie' about him, and then he started to reciprocate.
Season 2, however, began to redeem the show in my eyes a little, especially with the reintroduction of Sara Lance and her origins/tale as the 'Canary'. Given how Laurel's journey was taking her and turning her against her friends and family, I wondered if maybe they would move to kill Laurel off and let Sara taker her place as the comic book 'Black Canary'. However, instead Laurel redeemed herself, climbed out of the gutter she nearly fell into permanently and earned her place on Team Arrow. But Season 3, with it's heavy use of not just a tried and true Batman storyline of Ra's Al Ghul wanting the show's hero to be his successor, it really drove me away, and I found myself more and more just reading up on what happens, as opposed to watching it, whereas "The Flash" and "Gotham", I was and still am completely hooked into.
When Season 4 came along, I did what I usually do - I didn't watch any trailers, but did occasionally watch clips on Youtube. I found myself, despite my earlier concerns, looking forward to the premiere of "Legends" even if the show did still worry me with the amound of characters they seemed to be throwing at it, especially Sara. As a fan of "Constantine", I was pleased that they did the pseudo-crossover by having Matt Ryan come back in the role of John C, but it wasn't enough to make me watch the season.
Then... the shooting storyline happened, and lo and behold, the show's resident computer genius ends up in a wheelchair! Hmmm! Where have I seen that before?! Then, following close after that, we find out Felicity is actually the daughter of Noah Kutler, a.k.a. 'the Calculator' - so in fact, she's not really Felicity Smoak at all, but now she's being based on the comic book character of Wendy Smith, a.k.a. 'Proxy', who happens to be the protege of 'Oracle'! But then, praise be to 'modern technology', the producers do a U-turn and allow Felicity to walk again! Come on, "Arrow", what happened to the show having that 'gritty realism' you were so proud of during the first season?! Just because we know have a hero who can shrink his supersuit doesn't mean you have to go complete hi-sci-fi!
And now, we come to the most recent 'crime' the show has committed - the death of Laurel Lance, something I considered could happen at one point, but given the effort they went to turn her into 'Black Canary', I didn't think they'd ever do that now. So, we've lost Roy and Laurel, two characters who have always been there for Ollie during thick and thin in the comics, and instead have an 'original' cast of supporting characters? WHY?!?! I mean, I pretty much lost interest in 'Olicity' after the second season, I much prefered her with Ray in the 3rd season, or even her sublte near-romance with Barry. And besides, I always shipped 'Dollie', but the producers/writers said that they explored that in Season 1... AND?!?! These two characters have had plenty of other love interests but always found each other again, one season does not do justice to their story, especially since he was keeping his life a secret from her!

Anyway, that went on a bit longer then I intended, apologeies for it turning into a near-rant. My point was to say I can completely understand why some people might be done with "Arrow" now, and I wonder just what the season ending and the fifth season might do to redeem the show in those viewers eyes, especially since Curtis Holt will be joining as a regular...

[Brady Brown]

Yeah, the death and entire grave storyline was pretty terribly done. The death itself was quite underwhelming and an absolute waste of an inspirational, iconic character just for the sake of "not following the comics" that makes me think this show is falling harder and harder into the ground each week and was not the Green Arrow show I signed up for.

[Brady Brown]

update: this show is still garbage

[Brady Brown]

Started an Arrow rewatch and man.... they did Katie Cassidy and Laurel so dirty. She was shining in season one.

[Alex Matthews]

Jan 25, 2017 21:49:51 GMT -6 Brady Brown said:

update: this show is still garbage

I have to say, I'm in complete agreement with Brady on this one.
I find that I can no longer watch episodes in full anymore, although I am partial to watching clips on Youtube. It was great to see Katie Cassidy back in any form, and Black Siren is a fun character, but she's nowhere near as layered as Earth-1 Laurel was, and I think the show has missed out on a big opportunity there. I mean, I hear the episode trailer pretty much gave it away as well? Sure, everyone was theorizing it was her anyway, but they were just that - theories! Why give the game away so early?!
For a show that prided itself on 'gritty realism' back in it's early days, it feels like now, writers/producers are taking the easy way out with stock, cutout 'good' and 'bad' characters. Where's the development these days? Katie is supposed to be signed on as a 'universal regular, right, appearing in all the shows? Well, we're nearing the half-way point, and she's only been on 2 episodes of 'Arrow' so far, and I find that disappointing. What's more, if they actually decided to bring back Earth-2 Laurel in the first place, why not actually develop her character beyond the whole 'evil twin' idea? I loved that we got that glimpse into her past - how loosing her Ollie pushed her towards darkness, that fateful move to Central City and becoming the Black Siren, but every other line after her cover was blown simply reinforced that whole trope of being 'evil' for the sake of 'evil'. Why couldn't the writers see their way into having her stay for a few episodes, show that maybe Siren wasn't just plain 'bad', and actually form connections with the team, maybe waver in her mission emotionally - it would have made the actual betrayal/reveal more gutwrenching for the regulars, and had the audience biting their fingernails as they wonder when/if Team Arrow would eventually figure it out.
There are times, I find myself hoping at some point, Ollie is going to wake up from this nightmare and step out of the shower and find everything the way it was back in S3...