It’s no
secret that The CW, oft overlooked because it lacks the artistic
edge and money to garner the prestige of cable yet is too niche to
commercially compete with the “Big Four” broadcast networks, is telling some of
the best
superhero stories in any medium right now. After a promising yet uneven freshman
season, Arrow found its voice in a
confident, entertaining and emotionally compelling second season, and its
spin-off show The Flash already
brimmed with energy when it debuted this past fall.
Though the two shows are tonally disparate (The Flash is bouncy and at times proudly cheesy, while Arrow’s brooding darkness is more
reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films), they work well together, as evidenced
by a pair of delightful crossover episodes that aired in December. Not only do
they share a creative team, anchored by creator Greg Berlanti, but they also
succeed for many of the same reasons: talented, charismatic actors; sharp yet
understated visual flair combined with efficient pacing; and perhaps most
importantly, plots driven by characters and their relationships to each other
rather than by MacGuffins or convoluted mythology. In a way, they benefit from
not having the enormous budgets given to big-screen ventures, because they’re
forced to employ action in the service of story instead of the other way
around, and even the set pieces, of which there are still plenty, dazzle more
through impressive choreography and stunt work than expensive CGI effects,
particularly in Arrow. They suggest
that comic books, with their installment-based structure, love of twists and
cliffhangers and sprawling ensembles of characters, are much better suited to
TV than film, where even the best adaptations still often feel cumbersome and
incomplete.
Though both shows readily
embrace their comic book origins, Arrow
especially spends a lot of time playing with various stock plot and character
tropes. There’s the brooding, traumatized hero, the loyal sidekick, the tech
support, the protégé, and various villains and fridged characters (usually
women) that primarily serve as, respectively, obstacles for conflict and motivation
for the hero. Of course, the writers are good enough that all of these
characters eventually become much more layered and interesting than a simple
description suggests, but for the most part, they don’t radically depart from
the superhero action genre’s conventions. While David Ramsey’s pragmatic,
no-nonsense John Diggle and Emily Bett Rickard’s Felicity Smoak, who has
evolved into the show’s moral center, have always probably been my favorite
characters, the most fascinating and thoughtful narrative arc throughout the
series so far belongs not to them or hero Oliver Queen, but rather to resident
token love interest Laurel Lance, who’s played by a very game Katie Cassidy.