Depending on where you are living, and in what time zone, The CW’s premiere of Arrow just wrapped, and it is time for you to flood the comment section with your thoughts.
After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the Pacific. When he returns home to Starling City, his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his ordeal on the island. While Oliver hides the truth about the man he’s become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as the boy he was. Most particularly, he seeks reconciliation with his former girlfriend, Laurel Lance. As Oliver reconnects with those closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow – a vigilante – to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society, and restore Starling City to its former glory. By day, Oliver plays the role of a wealthy, carefree and careless philanderer he used to be – flanked by his devoted chauffeur/bodyguard, John Diggle – while carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under cover of darkness. However, Laurel’s father, Detective Quentin Lance, is determined to arrest the vigilante operating in his city. Meanwhile, Oliver’s own mother, Moira, knows much more about the deadly shipwreck than she has let on – and is more ruthless than he could ever imagine.
Did you watch it? What did you think? Throw the slings and arrows of outrage, or unleash the dogs of praise and satisfaction…
15 Comments
I thought it was great. Even though it is in its own universe. Can’t wait to see how far it goes and how dark he goes.
Tried to watch, but with the problem my local CW has with captions (less than half show up, even when on a cable package, the rest are either non existant or a jumble of random letters) I couldn’t follow and gave up. Hopefully I’ll either be able to find another place to view it with captions or the captions issue will be fixed by the next time it airs.
Overall, I thought it was very good. There were some spots that I had thought were weak initially, but were ultimately resolved by the end of the episode.
With the limited format of a one hour show, the creators did a good job of cramming a lot of different plot threads without seeming too cluttered. This comes at the cost of cutting out some the groundwork that should have been laid into the foundation.
For my own preferences, I would have liked to have seen some more of the island that plays such a key role in the story, of which we see next to nothing. This is particularly vexing, because of the tantalizing clues given that indicate the island wasn’t deserted. One hopes that flashbacks to the island will play a role in future episodes.
I would rate it a generous 4 out of 5 stars. Initially I would have given three and a half, but upon reflection, the intriguing hints and teases gave it that bump.
The Islan will apparently be in every episode
This reminds me of a ripoff between Green Hornet and Cast Away. We can complete the circle if Oliver’s chauffeur is named Kato and Oliver’s love interest is a volleyball named Wilson.
By the way, “After a violent shipwreck?” What other kinds of shipwrecks are there? I have yet to see a boat crash gently into an iceberg.
Lovey: “I say, did you get extra ice cubes in your gin & tonic?”
Thurston: “Why yes, they just flew out of the sky and landed in my drink when the boat made that ‘tink’ noise.”
Ship’s tannoy: “AWOOGA! AWOOGA! This is your Captain, the ship is sinking! But please, finish your drinks, it might take a while.”
You obviously know nothing about Green Arrow. The GA origin dates back to the 40s. Arrow is definitely not a Cast Away ripoff.
I liked the beginning of this a lot. Mostly, it seemed like they were putting the major pieces together for the rest of the season. I did feel like the way the episode’s villain was “handled” seemed a little too convenient. If he’s going to ruin these people who’ve ruined Starling City, crossing them off the list after one episode (where they’re the B story) makes it feel too trite. Hopefully, they’ll expand that. Also, the Diggle character is going to need a lot of advancement, or he’s going to become the bad comedy relief. “How will Ollie escape Diggle this week?”
I really like how Amell made Oliver feel forced in the social situations. The guy, even when he’s trying to play nice, seems like he’s one flinch away from taking everyone out. And that’s going to add a neat layer to the character. Also, I was a bit surprised to see how easily Ollie kills. In the comics, it was a big deal when he killed Prometheus. Here, the body count seems like it’s going to be high. Maybe that’s an aspect of his time on the island.
I was able to catch this last night.
I like what I see so far.
People got pretty down on this from the star saying, its Batman just for TV. My response is what’s wrong with that? We have yet to see a good vigilante TV show, and personally I thought there was enough of a difference to make it worth watching. I even liked the Robin Hood aspect of stealing from Hunt and giving it to the people in the class action suit. I think the strength of the show is the Actor who plays Ollie.
My wife was a big fan of Hartley from smallville, and has said she would hate this show from the beginning cause it isn’t him. Halfway through the show she leaned over and said “Ok, I’ll admit this, this Ollie has much better moves, and could probably kick Smallville Ollie’s ass.” And by the end of the show she was excited about the next one.
I thought the show last night was good, had a lot of elements that were taken from the comics, (speedy on drugs, martial arts training, the island backstory, different types of arrows being used) and of course there are a lot of criticism that this character is a lot like Batman. That criticism has been there since the 1940’s. To the other spoilerite’s point, I don’t think if a name is crossed off the list, that that character can’t do his or her best to get put on another list of Arrow’s. It was the first episode, and it has a lot of promise, and a ton of inspiration to draw from in the comic books, so I will be watching as long as it airs.
The show is going to draw comparison to Smallville, and that can be good or bad. Smallville was on for 10 years, and made a lasting impression. Im all for more superhero shows on TV, for a world that just made Avengers into a billion dollar movie, I will take more on the small screen if they are willing to make that available as well. This is a weekly show, and since Smallville introduced a lot of characters from Superman’s world, I would hope that we see a lot of characters from Arrow’s world. Green Arrow has been drawn as a dark character, attracted to the darker woman, so last night’s episode was a great start to this series.
As a comic fan i enjoyed the small throwouts in the episode such as Deathstrokes mask, his “best friend” being the TV version of the evil archer Merlyn, the trick arrows. Any if anyone has read the GA comics, due to the amount of scars and training that could npt just be from survival on the Island i am thinking that he somehow got massive amounts of training from someone while here, like he did towards the end of the comics’s run. Where else could the mask come from?
Enh!
Did no one else catch the Mike Grell reference?
I caught it and loved it, along with the Andy Diggle reference! It made me very happy.
I loved the pilot episode. Amell is great in the role.
The second episode got even better. Kelly Hu was wasted though. Hope she will appear again in future episodes.
Can’t wait for Deathstroke’s debut though!