Friday, October 18, 2013

Reactions: Arrow and the Tomorrow People

Watched episode 2 of season two of "Arrow" and the remake of "The Tomorrow People".

"Arrow" seems to be struggling a bit this season. While they've returned to fast-paced action in the second episode, there's just really stupid stuff going on that's above-and-beyond the levels of a CW show. Examples:
  • Caricature rules, even added ironically, are not appropriate (Felicity as Oliver's secretary? Diggle as Oliver's driver? WTF?).
  • Laurel's sudden zeal to take down the Hood is feeling forced and contrived. It was more convincing when her father was leading the charge.
  • Roy and Thea are... just... painful. They're a migraine in TV format.
  • The Island flashbacks are seriously going into "Lost" territory. And I don't mean that as a compliment.
  • The Queen Consolidated politics is making me yawn. Corporate takeover. Oh how... exciting. Oh the public hates the Queen name. *Yawn* I'm sorry, what were we talking about?
There were good things. Kelly Hu's character, China White, got a little more action. I like bringing in Michael Jai White as Bronze Tiger. Good fight scenes.

Still, I would like to see them get away from the cliches a bit. Of course there was something that would keep Oliver from attending some kind of benefit. Of course the politician was going to turn on Oliver and lambast him. Yawn. If the writers really want to impress, have everything turn out okay and then have some villain swoop in and do something horrible.


"The Tomorrow People" remains bland entertainment. I'm curious where they find these actors. Abercrombie and Fitch? I like the effects and keeping true to elements of the original series, such as the fact that the superpowered people can't kill. I find it nearly-impossible to like any of the characters. The only character who appears to have any kind of personality at all is Aaron Yoo's character, Russell Kwon. And he's still a bit of a cliche as the token non-white-guy-who-plays-the-smartass. Still, I'm loving Mark Pellegrino's cartoonishly-evil Dr. Jeddikiah Price. He's so gleefully psychotic! Maybe I need to root for him...

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