During the CW presentation at the Television Critic’s Associaion, it was announced that Vixen is getting her own series set in the Arrow/Flash universe.
Before you jump up and down cheering about the news, there is a bit of a catch. First, Vixen is an animated series, which isn’t such a bad thing, as it allows creators to do a lot more with Vixen’s animal totem powers without the show devolving into a modern take on Manimal.
The part that seems like a bit of a downer is while the series will be set in the Arrow/Flash universe, and the characters from the television shows will appear in the Vixen, the animated series will run on CW Seed. What’s CW Seed? It’s the network’s online presence that the network plans on kicking off this fall.
With the success of The Legend of Korra, this isn’t a death sentence for the character and the show, but it does feel a little bit like a setback for female lead series. One thing that could change that view would be if CW runs bits and pieces from the series during the Arrow and Flash commercial breaks similar to the short subjects Cartoon Network does on DC Nation.
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I thought CW Seed had been around for awhile. They mention it a lot during certain shows when they mention online interviews and such. Is this just a retooling?
That said, I actually don’t mind that it is starting off online. There are a number of good online series that are just as good as (if not better than) what we can see on TV. I actually think they should use online distribution as a way to get more shows out there (or to continue some shows that were cut short).
I’m also completely fine with it being animated. As you said, that does allow it to better make use of certain aspects of the character, and I think having an animated series connected to a live-action series rather than an animated spin-off is something that should be done more often, particularly with series set in a sci-fi or fantasy type setting. There are a lot of things that can be done with animation that are either impossible, too costly or just too cheesy to do in live-action even with the special FX we have now.