Arrow, Episode 2 - Who's Still Watching?

Pilots are pretty unique episodes. They usually tend to stand out from the rest of the season or run of a show because they have one purpose - to attract viewers. Usually they either fail horribly (cough, Beauty and the Beast, coughcough) or work pretty well. Since Arrow's was the latter, I was curious to see how the second episode followed up.

There was one big thing that I was on the fence about in the pilot and once I was able to get around my initial qualms about the show, I found it to be incredibly glaring in the second episode. I had no idea what to make of the acting, specifically the lead. I couldn't decide if Stephen Amell is either an amazing or terrible actor.

The question started last week and the acting issue became more apparent in the second episode. When Amell is playing Ollie Queen, he's stiff and bland. He makes a lot of awkward smirks. You really can't help but think that he was hired to be a pretty face. The character really falls flat... until you realize that he's playing several different parts...

There are at least 3 different roles that he's tackling: Ollie Queen, Arrow, and Ollie Queen in flash backs and all three of these characters are pretty different. Present day Ollie Queen is the one that drives me crazy. He's emotionless and flat. However, this can be explained by the fact that he's been living on a deserted island for five years and is probably pretty scarred. We haven't seen a lot of Arrow yet. He's spoken occasionally but it's in that solid, justified Batman kind of way. However, the flashbacks to younger, pre-accident Oliver Queen are almost like a completely different character. The mannerisms, the expressions, even the tone of voice almost make you think it's a different actor all together.

It makes me really happy that they have these flashbacks and continue to have them. It makes for a more well-rounded character AND let's you see that Amell is more than a pretty face. At the end of the episode when Oliver realized he was going to have to act like his pre-accident self in order to mask his secret, he again completely transformed into the immature playboy that was completely unique from the Oliver Queen in the rest of the episode. That was when I settled the acting talent question once and for all. This guy is good.

Aside from that, the show is growing on me. I was having trouble with that hurdle but once I got over it, I was able to appreciate the rest of the show. I said in the last review that I would really like it if the show continues to use flashbacks to explain what happened to Oliver on the island that transformed him into Arrow and gave him the skills he now possesses. This episode solidified that they are indeed going to continue with that which I think is vital to making this show more complex than just a "hero catches bad guys" story.

I'm excited to see how it goes. It seems like they're still filling some back story and setting the show up which has made it move a little slower, but I have high hopes.

CW's Two New Geeky Shows

Last week the CW premiered two shows that definitely flashed on my geeky radar. Both made me a little wary but the plots piqued my interest and I figured it would be good to give them a shot. I had a few slots open on my weekday tv schedule so there really wasn't much to lose. Both shows had the distinct possibility of being amazing or completely terrible... so let's see how they turned out.

Both reviews include extensive plot summary so beware of spoilers. However, they are both on the pilot episodes so even with spoilers, it's all need-to-know information if you want to get into the show(s)!

Beauty and the Beast

Even though this show premiered second, I watched it first because I thought it was sure to be the better of the two shows. I had no really no intention of watching this show originally. I love the Disney movie of my childhood and the Once Upon a Time interpretation of the story, so I was pretty content with where the fairy tale laid in my eyes. Plus, seeing advertisements of a not-so-ugly beast really made the show come off as just another crappy CW melodrama.

Until I actually read up on the plot... The show was to take a new angle on the tale as old as time. This beauty was more than a damsel in distress - she was actually an NYPD detective who comes across a man who saved her life ten years earlier. She learns that he was part of a failed military experiment that has left him (hardly) deformed and will super human powers. He has faked his own death so they don't come after him and he needs her help to stay hidden. Wow! A Beauty and the Beast story where she helps save him as much as he saves her? That doesn't sound so bad.

I was wrong.

The story has so many flaws, I'm not even sure where to begin. First of all, for a crime drama, the cops' actions just don't really make sense. While solving the opening mystery, they jump to a ridiculous number of arbitrary conclusions. My favorite is when they find a pregnancy test in a public area of the victim's workplace and assume she is pregnant even though this doesn't come up in the autopsy and they mention that it should have. You'd think that would be a flag that test belonged to someone else... The main character's actions are just so off the charts, that it was borderline ridiculous. She gets a search warrant for a building and then goes without her partner. There she finds a man that is supposed to be dead who is the only suspect as his fingerprints were at the crime scene and does not arrest him because he had a news article about her mother's death and more or less asked her not to. Then, there is a scene where she is attacked on a subway platform that inexplicably has no one there besides herself and the attackers. Despite this, the beast is there and saves her life again, killing three people. They both flee the scene even though she is a cop and could easily be linked back to the crime in about 20 different ways.

This pilot just completely baffled me. This was some of the worst, hole-filled writing I have ever seen. The show  took a pretty cool sounding premise and destroyed it by not being thoughtful in the writing. With so many popular crime shows on TV, it's so easy to see how many problems there are with the logic in this show. The whole thing seemed incredibly rushed and I need a bit more effort so this was definitely the first and last episode of Beauty and the Beast for me.

Arrow

I almost didn't even want to watch this after the last one. However, I figured I should at least give the pilot a chance... and I'm so glad I did.

The story starts off with Oliver Queen, a ship wrecked billionaire, using a flaming arrow to light a fire and signal the ship that will save him from the island he is stranded on. You quickly learn he has been stranded for five years and his father died in the accident that left him deserted. The doctor that inspects him correctly foreshadows that this Oliver has likely been changed by the island where he has lived for so long.

Throughout the episode, Oliver has flashbacks to the shipwreck which teach the viewer that Oliver's father was involved in some shady dealings when he ran the Queen company. He wants Oliver to survive the crash in order to fix the corruption that he started and then takes his own life so that Ollie can use the supplies to survive. It is clear that there are still many gaps about what else Oliver learned during the wreck and on the island and hopefully the show continues to use flash backs to fill in this information.

Now back home with his wealth and resources, Oliver is able to set up a secret base that he can use to create high tech weapons and set up powerful computer systems that he can use to track down evil and corrupt criminals in order to restore justice to society using primarily arrows.

If you think this sounds just like Batman meets Robin Hood - you pretty much nailed it.

I really love super hero movies, but wasn't an avid comic book reader so I knew just about nothing about Arrow going into this show. I figured the character was just the DC version of Hawkeye and that wasn't terribly far off. What I wasn't expecting was an archer version of Batman. However, I really like Batman so I'm okay with that. I'm excited to see where this show goes. They set up a lot in this pilot. There are many avenues to go down for future villains, recurring villains, deeper back story, future side kicks, and potential love interests. The writing gives a lot of information in the pilot while barely scraping the surface and I'm very excited to keep watching.

Arrow is on Wednesdays at 8pm and Beauty and the Beast is Thursdays at 9pm. Both shows are on the CW.

The L.A. Complex: The Best Show That No One is Watching

...except me.

To be fair, the CW really didn't promote this show very well. I think I had heard about this summer series once before I accidentally stumbled upon it one Tuesday when nothing else was on. I was pretty lucky that I tuned in about 15 minutes into the first episode and it didn't take much to get me hooked.

The show tells the story of several young adults, living in the same apartment complex in L.A., and trying to make it in show business. The show does a great job of showing the different sides to making it in the industry from a comedian, a rapper, musicians, a dancer, someone who just landed a dream role, and two actresses competing for similar roles despite a noticeable age difference. The variation in the characters talents allows there to be a variety of story lines rather than constantly falling back on "I'm going on an audition today."

The first episode introduces the viewer to most of the characters. You begin with Abby Vargas who is leaving her native Canada (most of the characters are Canadian as that's where the show is produced) to try to make it as an actress in LA despite being completely broke. She quickly realized she will need to compete against Raquel (played by Jewel Staite from Firefly), an actress that had been well known but hadn't landed a role in ten years (the irony is not lost on this girl).

The show deals with many other issues that come up when trying to get a Hollywood job. From lacking the talent to succeed in your desired industry to dealing with the issues of being on the down low, the show tackles some heavy story lines. One of the most interesting plot lines occurs when one character has to repeatedly ask herself what she is willing to do to get ahead in her career.

This isn't your typical CW prime time manufactured teen drama. It gets gritty and dark and shows a better side of the behind the scenes of the industry than shows like Entourage have. Sometimes it's not all glitz and glamour. Show business is tough business and the LA Complex portrays the complexities of it. I didn't want to spoil anything so I'm not going to go into details but I can guarantee at least one of the story lines will shock you time and time again by going places that many television shows don't have the guts to.

The show just kicked off it's second "season" (the first was only 6 episodes) but previous episodes area all available on Hulu if you want to play catch up.