The CW’s popular series, Arrow, started off with great promise. It was the story of one man’s mission to protect his city. However, after following the stellar first season, it became clear that the producers had more comic book-like ambitions for the show. Season 2 introduced Barry Allen, and officially kicked off the rest of the CW’s Arrow-verse, which now includes Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl.
The showrunners certainly had their hearts in the right place (and executive producer Andrew Kreisberg even admitted that Arrow was a show they made to get to the Flash), but somewhere along the way, the thing that made Arrow such a great show was lost. No longer was it about a man’s solo journey for redemption. All of a sudden, he was taking on assassin organizations, and ever five seconds, his secret identity was revealed to yet another character. Nowadays, everyone’s running around with him in the streets, and the show’s become near-unrecognizable.
Ever since Season 3 ended, fans have been hoping for a return to form for the show, but as things went on and on, and the Arrow-verse expanded to included such cheeseball fare as Legends of Tomorrow, it seemed like things were too fargone to backpedal.
In an interview with IGN, Arrow executive producer Wendy Mericle expressed their intention to take the show back to its darker origins.
“The show was always meant to be a gritty crime drama at its heart. And then Flash came along, and oh my gosh, we have meta powers. And then Damien was, well, we haven’t done magic on the show, let’s try to do that. I think for Season 5, just because it is an answer to Season 1, and we are sort of closing this chapter out, we did want to go back to our roots and figure out what is specific to this show. What is our universe? Go back to, ‘What is Arrow?'”
They’re taking necessary first steps by making Season 5’s villain, Prometheus, a non-magical entity.
“[He’s] not going to have magic, no powers. He has a very personal grudge and axe to grind with Oliver and he’s going to come at him in a really interesting, sociopathic kind of way.”
And lastly, this coming season of The Flash is set to throw a wrench in the entire universe. If Barry Allen goes back in time to change everything, how much of an effect will it have on Arrow?
Mericle was a bit ambiguous on that. It almost sounds like they don’t really know at the moment, but should the opportunity arise for them to retcon something, they’ll be able to do so and simply cry “Flashpoint!”
“Flashpoint provides an interesting jumping off point for all the shows this year, in that we have this reset button available to us if we want it,” Mericle said. “We’ve landed on a few things, but the door is open. That’s the fun part. You can play with it in whatever way, shape, or form you want to. I think it will be small in some ways, and big in others.”
With the exception of Flashpoint, I’d say this comment has me relatively excited for the new season of Arrow. In all honesty, I’m one of those fans who adored the first season and fell off near the end of Season 2, and nothing I’ve heard from friends seems to indicate I should come back. Should the showrunners follow through with this promise to take the series back, I may very well find myself watching Arrow yet again!
What about you? Does any of this sound promising? Let us know your thoughts down below!
Arrow returns to the CW on October 5.
Don’t forget to share this post on your Facebook wall and with your Twitter followers! Just hit the buttons at the top of this page.
SOURCE: IGN, Fat Man on Batman