Friday, October 12, 2012

"Arrow"

I didn't hate the pilot of the new Green Arrow show, despite all the many reasons why I should have.

The narration was the first problem.  Stephen Amell is a beautiful pile of abs topped with an anonymously handsome face.  There is beefcake to be had.  The problem is, his voice is silky, baby-soft, and a touch... well... he has a lisp.  A really pronounced one that makes his hard-edged pronouncements about the rough years on his magical parkour island difficult to take seriously.

The writing is cheesy.  Like, Velveeta cheesy, not the good stuff.   It's needlessly melodramatic, with characters regularly possessed by the exposition fairy in a really ham-handed way.  The dialogue is just not that great, though they clearly tried to spruce it up with cultural references (for the kids).

The plot I will mostly forgive for now.  It's Batman meets Beatrix Kiddo, all the more so because they seem to have removed everything that made Oliver Queen *not* Batman so far.  However, Green Arrow was never not derivative, and clearly there's some ground that they could break if they can stop writing for the bottom half of their intended demographic's IQ pool.

I don't hold out hope, but I will give it at least another episode before I call it a wash.