So...
Thoughts on today's episode?
I felt kind of cheated. There wasn't much significant crossover team activity here, almost the entire episode was watching the Star City residents under the influence of the Black Mercy plant -- er, Dominator pod. So, a big feeling of "been there, done that."
Supergirl and Flash tag teaming Dr. Cyber should have been fun, but instead just made the Team Arrow recruits look like superfluous chumps.
No hint of any off-screen collaboration between Cisco and Curtis, which seems like a huge waste of an opportunity.
Tech fails: Felicity locates the prototype item they need and finds it's been stolen in under one second; Curtis' gizmo overloaded simply from being connected to alien tech, and then he acted like in retrospect it should have been obvious that would happen; three tech geniuses in the lair, and working together all they managed to accomplish is discover the abductees are off-planet.
Damon,
Yeah it did seem like an off day for the Tech guys, especially since I though Cisco and Curtis would have managed to do SOMETHING cool.
This wasn't a crossover episode like Flash was. It was more "Oh look Black Mercy and 100th episode while aliens show up."
But eh. At least the Waverider got to save the day.
The problem was that this crossover ep also happened to be Arrow's one hundredth episode. Hence it had to do double duty as a retrospective on the show's past 4+ seasons (hence the simulation that allowed them to bring back various dead characters), AND as a crossover. HOping the LoT ep tonight will be more like the Flash ep and give everyone a bit more to do.
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I don't typically watch Arrow, so was unaware this was the 100th episode. In light of that, it seems the writers did a very good job of moving the cross-over forward while providing a suitable, milestone episode. I only say "it seems" because I fast-forwarded through anything that seemed more to do with Arrow than the cross-over story.
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The problem was that this crossover ep also happened to be Arrow's one hundredth episode. Hence it had to do double duty as a retrospective on the show's past 4+ seasons (hence the simulation that allowed them to bring back various dead characters), AND as a crossover.
It helped that two of the 'crossover' characters (three if you count Damien Darhk) were past regulars on Arrow and thus could fit in to that side of the story, but yeah you could definitely see the seams from them juggling the two priorities.
Between that and nearly all of the brief 'crossover' material from the Supergirl episode being re-aired in the Flash episode this is more like a 2.5 episode crossover. Hopefully they will learn from some of the issues they're encountering with this cross-over and be able to do some more proper storytelling with the format in future seasons. Not having to introduce all the characters to each other / potentially new audiences should also make that easier.
Still, some good stuff in there and building a foundation for future interaction with all of the characters. With the reports of various characters (e.g. Snart) having signed to appear on any/all of the shows I wonder if they'll have Reverse Flash expand his role from time hopping bad guy recruiter to also include dimension hopping... e.g. 'dropping Damien Darhk off in National City to break out Live Wire so she can mess with the Waverider on LoT' type stuff.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I pretty much agree with this episode - it leaned too much on being episode 100 for Arrow and not enough on being in the crossover. It wasn't bad per se, just not what I wanted from the crossover episode.
As for featuring more of the Supergirl/Flash/Arrow main characters in crossovers, I read an interview with members of all 4 shows, and it sounds like this 4 part crossover really stretched the limits of what the actors could handle. The main characters in particular had to do their own show's episode like normal, and then at least another episode worth of scenes on the other shows. This could explain why there was minimal crossover in Supergirl, and not as much in Arrow as in Flash. It does look like tonight's Legends of Tomorrow will have a lot of crossing over though. Despite all of this, a big hats off to the production crew of all 4 shows, and the actors who put in extra long work weeks to pull this all off.
Seems like one lesson learned could be that to handle the logistics of a big crossover, they need to build an extra week into the shooting schedule.
I think Joel is right and I agree with everyone: this was less a cross over episode than a 100th episode of Arrow. Coupled that by this being the first time it's been attempted by these shows to do this massive of a crossover, I can think we can say it's decent to good.
Hopefully if they do decide to do the crossover thing again, they'll have learned a few things and maybe make stronger stories for both the shows themselves and the crossover.
I didn't even realize it was the 100th... O.o
I thought the balance wasn't BAD... but it did feel a little weak. The fact that Ray and Sarah were there and actually grew out of Arrow caused me to have to keep reminding myself that they WERE the crossover. The crossover was happening... and I kept forgetting, since so much of their stories were tied in with the earlier arrow seasons.
Tomorrow... part 4!! All in all, with THIS BIG of a cast, I think it's gone pretty well so far. I wish more of it had happened in Supergirl... or they hadn't just repeated her part in Flash... It just made Supergirl feel completely skippable. Hopefully next year a TRUE 4-part crossover.
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I like that Kara can now travel to and from the Arrow/Flash/Legendsverse with the gadget Cisco gave her.
"Oh hey, here's a thingie the size of a Star Trek commbadge that can open dimensional portals, which we normally need a particle accelerator that takes up a few city blocks to do. It's powered by, uh, the tears of orphaned seal pups or something... Don't lose it."
Set,
I think Cisco figured out using tech from the Waverider to do that. At least that's the assumption I'm working on right now. I could be wrong.
Phantom,
Not sure there will be a next year's cross over so much as it might just be Supergirl visiting the Wave rider to get them to take her back in time to Krypton maybe. Just an idea.
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Based on the monster ratings they got (e.g. Arrow's crossover episode viewership was up 120% from where it has been averaging, Supergirl's episode had the network's highest Monday rating for ANY show in seven years) most are predicting that the 4-part crossover is going to become an annual thing.
Frankly, they'd be crazy not to.
They just need to work on their execution. If they think it through better they should be able to spread the work out over time rather than filming four episodes at nearly the same times.
As to story... my bet would be on Supergirl needing help. Especially if her show continues to air earliest in the week, it will make sense for her to kick off the next crossover. Having everyone travel to Earth 38 to help her would also simplify the sets, support casts, directing, et cetera. Could also potentially be a way to give Oliver a whole different perspective on 'heroing';
'Shouldn't we be broodingly skulking in the shadows? Wait... why are the police... and the fire department... and the news media... and random citizens... cheering us on and helping us?'
The Supergirl support cast were also the only ones who didn't get to interact with the rest of the shows at all this time around. Thus, it would allow for new interactions... Cisco, Felicity, and Winn would be interesting.
Tech fails: Felicity locates the prototype item they need and finds it's been stolen in under one second; Curtis' gizmo overloaded simply from being connected to alien tech, and then he acted like in retrospect it should have been obvious that would happen; three tech geniuses in the lair, and working together all they managed to accomplish is discover the abductees are off-planet.
I realize I'm a bit of a ringer since I work on stuff that goes into space, but with three supposed tech geniuses trying to interface two different electrical bits, shouldn't one of them had the thought to ring the alien bit out with a multimeter? Hmm, this thing puts out 800 volts, don't attach it to my 9V part...
I'll probably continue watching it, but the crossover is the only reason I watched any of Legends of Tomorrow and made the decision easy of whether to watch Arrow this season. I'm happy with both decisions, but the crossover is clearly doing its job on my habits, at least.
CB,
I realize that but it sounded like the executive producers, the cast and everyone was REALLY tired after doing that cross over.
I do agree though it should be more Supergirl focused than say Flash focused in some ways. Especially I agree that having Winn, Cisco and Felicity geek out together would be epic.
TarSpartan,
I guess they thought they have sufficiently compensated for alien tech devices. That or no one thought that Tech guy, Curtis, didn't know his stuff.
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Supergirl and Flash tag teaming Dr. Cyber should have been fun, but instead just made the Team Arrow recruits look like superfluous chumps.
That's because they are superfluous chumps. I wouldn't be surprised if it came out that Oliver deliberately picked the worst recruits he could for his team just to get Felicity off his back about it.
Whatserface is a traitor, Wild Dog is a f&*!-up of such proportions they need to invent a size category beyond Colossal to adequately describe it, and Curtis apparently got bumped on the head during the teamwork training Ollie set up and forgot he was a scientist. The only one who's even remotely competent and useful is Ragman/Rory-2, and it was a fluke they ever came across him.
I agree with Sun, Wild dog is a complete mess and it's wonder that Team Arrow isn't dead already. Evelyn's betrayal is pretty out there, but again I think she's just angry at Ollie for his stuff, less so the other guys.
But I mean in terms of Rory, the fact remains that other than the magic rags, he's pretty much as much dead weight as poor non-tech using Curtis. WHO SHOULD BE USING TECH!
Jason,
You, me and probably a dozen others feel that way, especially since he's like that in comics. No reason he shouldn't be in Arrowverse.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Fall/Midseason finale was excellent!
I agree. I certainly didn't expect the ending.
I particularly liked the flashbacks from the season 1 days. Were they from an actual episode, or (what I suspect), filmed new for this one and effectively were a mini-season 1 new episode?
If they were from an actual episode, then hats off to the writers for planning ahead.
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What an awesome retrospective this episode was! Wow, so good!
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Feral,
There's nothing to suggest that Prometheus couldn't be a character known to the Team. However it's unclear who that would be since we pretty much know the players now.
But I agree with everyone, great retrospective episode (even more so than the crossover one.) and I loved the whole "What the bloody hell?! BC?!"
My wife and daughter have been insisting that Laurel faked her death ever since it happened...
Personally, I think anyone familiar with comic book "death" who thought Laurel was permanently gone was doing it wrong.
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My wife and daughter have been insisting that Laurel faked her death ever since it happened...
Yeah, it was very suspicious that she was recovering, had some secret thing she wanted Oliver to do for her, and then suddenly she's dead.
Against this idea was the fact that it would just be unspeakably cruel... and potentially lethal for her father. What could possibly justify that?
However, even with the near infinite ways to bring back a 'dead' comic book character, the faked death does seem the most likely explanation to me. In which case, Oliver isn't surprised to see her alive, but rather to see her come out of hiding.
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That seems to be pretty common, regardless of network or genre, to be honest. Gotta lean on the low-hanging fruit of drama fueled by miscommunication, angst, and puppy-dog-eyes pining!
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Yeah, I don't buy Laurel's death as faked. But it's not a Flashpoint retcon, either (if it were, her presence would only surprise Barry.)
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I can't help but think that if Ollie DID help her fake her death.... it wouldn't have involved outing her identity and building statues of her.
That just seems... counterproductive somehow. Also when dad started drinking again.... he'd have HAD to let him in on it.
But then again, at the time, it totally seemed like a fake out death. I'm surprised it stuck this long actually....
I agree with Phantom, I figured it would last until the end of this season at least. But again, I'm glad we're getting her back...I think?
Unless it's my paranoid mind which is screaming "It's HR's imaging device!" and Prometheus doing a setup.
Feral,
There's nothing to suggest that Prometheus couldn't be a character known to the Team. However it's unclear who that would be since we pretty much know the players now.
Thomas Merlyn, ofc.
Nobody else finds it suspicious they've suddenly been talking about him a lot this season after not mentioning him for like 3 and a half years?
They kept him out of the 100th just to surprise people.
Sun,
It's a thought sure but there's still no positive proof that the actor, Colin Donnell, is leaving Chicago Med any time soon to do even a few episodes...
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I feel like if your going to come back from the dead you better see your poor grief-stricken alcoholic father before your ex-boyfriend just saying. (life advice for you all right there ^)
So resurrection theory put me down for time travel
Feral,
There's nothing to suggest that Prometheus couldn't be a character known to the Team. However it's unclear who that would be since we pretty much know the players now.
Thomas Merlyn, ofc.
Nobody else finds it suspicious they've suddenly been talking about him a lot this season after not mentioning him for like 3 and a half years?
They kept him out of the 100th just to surprise people.
That would be great if true, but the actor seems pretty committed to Chicago Med.
I actually think it's probably going to be the reporter that Ollie is hooking up with. That's kind of the last regular appearing character this season who doesn't have a good alibi (unless it does actually turn out to be Laurel's dad).
MMC,
A preview I watched which had a clip I'm assuming from the episode after "What We Leave Behind" had Dig and Ollie having a chat while he's in prison. According to that, the guy who "The Hood" killed who's kid everyone thinks is Prometheus, is actually FEMALE.
So which ever one of you mugs said "It's his daughter" Congrats on the no-prize prize!
If Prometheus does turn out to be a lady, having Michael Dorn voice the character is also a good dodge. And if Prometheus' whole MO is to utterly crush Ollie in every possible way until he's begging for death, getting close only to betray him fits into that really darn well too.
I grew suspicious of the lady reporter friend when Ollie dropped by her apartment and the camera lingered for a moment on the booze she was pouring: the Russian booze. Felt like a hint that she has more ties to his time in Russian than the one hot tip/photo she got a few episodes back.
MMC,
A preview I watched which had a clip I'm assuming from the episode after "What We Leave Behind" had Dig and Ollie having a chat while he's in prison. According to that, the guy who "The Hood" killed who's kid everyone thinks is Prometheus, is actually FEMALE.
So which ever one of you mugs said "It's his daughter" Congrats on the no-prize prize!
I'm sure it was male pre-flsshpoint ;)
Phantom,
Maybe so but it's a she for sure now.
Marik,
It didn't seem like it since it came just after Diggle was arrested...
Okay so no confirmation about that. Also I misheard. Diggle and Ollie were talking about the kid's MOM not the kid/Prometheus himself.
Also seriously Arrow writers? Another!! BC in the works? I thought having Black Siren was a bit much...
This episode at least, Curtis is using his brains not his muscles.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Okay so no confirmation about that. Also I misheard. Diggle and Ollie were talking about the kid's MOM not the kid/Prometheus himself.
Also seriously Arrow writers? Another!! BC in the works? I thought having Black Siren was a bit much...
This episode at least, Curtis is using his brains not his muscles.
Not sure why you're surprised that there's another BC in the works. Ever since they revealed what Laurel's last words to Ollie were, it was pretty clear that another BC was coming.
Maybe but I kept hoping it meant they'd find a way to bring Laurel back.
I mean since Sara is obviously going to be a Time Master.
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Feral,
Agreed. I'm glad he's starting to realize his skills isn't in fighting but with tech.