DC TV Weekly #9

This is how you know how good the crossover was, because right now I want every episode of every show to be a crossover. Now that everyone's back in their own shows, it feels like we're missing half the cast, and that makes me sad. Oh, and to add salt to the wound, this is the last week of episodes before the Christmas break, and that makes me even sadder.





The Flash 'The Present' Review
I feel this episode has two perfect examples of fan-service. Good example: Having John Wesley-Shipp and Mark Hamill sharing screentime as Flash and Trickster. Bad example: Anytime Tom Felton mentioned the Philosopher Stone. Something about that made me cringe every time. Also just to prove Savitar is even less interesting than anticipated, they literally give him the same backstory as Reverse Flash. But hey, it's Christmas so let's try and focus on the positives. I will say this was a very well paced episode, getting straight into the action, beating Alchemy very early on and saving most of the episode for character development and plot progression. We get some set up for future events, one friend to betray him, one to die and one a fate worse than death...yeah that has me hooked. We get a scene of Barry witnessing his own future where Iris dies, and honestly that might have been some of the best acting we've seen from Grant Gustin, and he was already one of the best actors in the Arrowverse. Wally gets some good development, he's officially Kid Flash, which means no more scenes of Joe telling him what he can and cannot do because yeahhh that is kinda hypocritical. Also the scenes of Jay Garrick and Barry Allen fighting together were awesome so hopefully we'll get the same with Barry and Wally. Julian and Barry's friendship actually does feel more naturalistic this time round, while earlier it did feel like they were rushing their development, though Barry revealing his secret identity did seem like a rash move. But overall this episode had a huge focus on character development rather than action, and that's always been this shows strength, and I think this might be the first episode in weeks where I wasn't annoyed by anyone. 8/10.

Arrow 'What We Leave Behind' Review
Does this technically make Prometheus the most affective villain Oliver has ever faced? I mean yeah, Deathstroke is probably always going to be the best, but it seems like Prometheus is doing the best job at actually beating Ollie, and besides, he's the only villain that doesn't want to destroy the city along with him, just Ollie. In that respect he's actually quite an interesting villain for the show, and particularly with this episode, he's shown just how good he can be at destroying Ollie's life. Also hey, Laurel is back, how do I put this? No. No-no-no. Absolutely no. Gosh dang seriously what the frick-frack-snick-snack-tic-tac-paddy-wack-give-the-dog-a-bone are they doing? I know there was a joke earlier on in the episode about people coming back to life every other Wednesday, but please, do not make this a thing. Do not bring Laurel back from the grave. Alternate timeline? Sure. Parallel Universe? Makes sense. Hallucination? I can dig it. But do not bring Laurel back from the grave, keep her dead, for the love of god. But hey, that's potential complaining for another day. To focus on what this episode gave us, it had Prometheus being an intimidating villain, we had plenty of emotional moments for Felicity and Curtis, and Ollie blaming himself...again...but this time it's warranted. Solid episode. 8/10.

Legends of Tomorrow 'The Chicago Way' Review
Holy shit, the Legion of Doom actually did something, and we got information about where Rip Hunter is, and it only took em half a damn season. Seriously, I know I said I'd prefer it if this show was just fun stand alone adventures, but if you're going to have a season long plot, at least commit to it. But apart from that we got a lot of character focus, the bromance between Nate and Ray...kinda just happened I guess, and the bromance(?) between Mick and Amaya, which is being paced a little better. Either way it's nice to see a lot of character focus. Also Victor Garber, man, if it wasn't obvious this guy was the best actor in the show, that scene of him talking about his new memories of his daughter completely sold me on this subplot that I was not happy about. But that being said, this felt the most underwhelming of the DC Mid-Season Finales. A lot of this felt like set-up that should have been done much earlier in the season and I'm really confused over the Legion time-wise. So this is obviously the modern Malcolm because of his missing hand, and Damian Darhk I'm assuming is the one we see after 1942, but that causes a whole mess of continuity issues, and is this the Eobard after Flashpoint? Some explanation would be appreciated please! But to wrap up, some nice character work and really good performances this week, but everything about the season long plot was either underwhelming or just plain confusing. 7/10.

Well, it's been a lot of fun talking about these shows, but sadly they're now on their winter break, which means so am I. Though lord knows I'll have plenty of DC Property to talk about in the meantime.

-Danny