Arrow Review: How good is Arrow's aim now?

When I gave my review of Arrow's pilot back in August after seeing a special preview, I was very much encouraged by the show's potential. Now the show has had time to breath and flesh itself out with nine full episodes having aired. The show has also been picked up through to the end of this season at the least and that generally boads well for a series as a lot of them don't manage to get that far before being taken out, much like the Aquaman pilot or the much publized Wonder Woman show which appears to be getting a revival after a whole new team gets a crack at it.

So with the show's return coming on January 16th, I thought I would check in and see if my opinion has changed much since my initial assement. There were a lot of good things about that pilot, snappy dialogue, a well thought out premise, a willingness not to bank on the previous success of the Green Arrow character on Smallville. All of which is far from forgotten as you get into the proceeding episodes. What concerns me however is that the episodes don't seem to gel as easily as they did in the beginning.

Now I am well aware, that the pilot is not the show. Much in the same way that you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't guarantee the success of a show based on the strength of its pilot. However as any good TV executive will tell you the pilot is supposed to give you a sense of what the show is about. A well formed pilot then should be reflected in future episodes then. Unfortunately, it seems that the writers have stumbled on following up with a lot of those elements.

Most shows live or die on their ability to go one of two ways when it comes to storytelling. Either they have good strong episodic stories in which only the characters journies carries over from episode to episode as a subplot, or they have a strong character drama driven story as the main plot which makes the individual episodes' only purpose to drive the characters' journies forward as the subplot. Arrow seemed at first to have found something of a middle ground when it came to those two ways of telling stories. There was the strong episodic elements which was the list of names Oliver had to bring justice to, and the family drama which could inform the hero's journey.

It seems however that those in charge of the show were too concerned with being pigeon holed that they've tried to branch out way too early and haven't properly established the main story. They want the ability to go anywhere but they haven't quite figured out what their first desination is yet. In a world where corporate greed and the power of the 1% is of great concern to the public, a show about a vigilante fighting back for the little guy is perfect for the times. This article about the changing face of television springs to mind as the perfect reason why they should have stuck with that as the focus of the show, however instead they have taken to expanding the universe through guest star after guest star after guest star.

But The CW is known for its teenage drama driven stories and that really hasn't been properly explored in Arrow. What came off initially as a genuine divide in the Queen family's ability to connect with each other is now getting somewhat repetative subplot. Characters keep referring to the island Oliver was trapped on but that started to become somewhat tired after episode 2. If you want to go with your strengths and push the drama angle, why is Oliver not going after the drug dealer who supplied Thea with cocaine in episode 1? That serves both to clean up the city, allows for drama, and moves the hero's journey forward.

How good is Arrow's aim now? It's a little shaky but they're still focused enough to hit somewhere near the target. Despite what I see as issues with the show's basic structure I think that it still has some pretty solid elements that are worth sticking around for. They may not be as cohesive as they need to be in order to go long term, but they're a lot closer then many other shows have been at this stage in their series.

Moon Review: There are many sides to the Moon, which side are you on?

I love actors, no really I do. They have this quality about them that I like. Some might call it an intangible quality, but it’s very easily explainable. As a writer, it’s my job to create a character’s motivations. To know them inside and out so that I know how they would react in just about every possible situation imaginable. An actor has to find a way to understand those motivations and bring out the emotions they cause. The way I see it, writers and actors go hand in hand. When I see an actor take on a difficult role, it gets very exciting.

This was the case with Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Reynolds in Buried, and most recently Sam Rockwell in Moon. Another film in my long list of movies that I always meant to see but never got around to until now and again things are interesting. Where Moon is different from the previously mentioned films is that it used a visual effect to tell a major part of the story. Mainly that Sam Rockwell played several (two specifically) distinct versions of his character to play off of. This technique is one that is used often these days when dealing with characters who are twins or multiple characters.

The first time I remember this occurring is in The Nutty Professor with Eddie Murphy playing his character’s entire family with various prosthetics, but since then it has been used in movies like The Matrix, The Social Network, as well as TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville and the recently cancelled Ringer. This can be a really effective technique if used in the right way. It can also go horribly wrong if not done properly. Unfortunately I have seen both in the multitude of films and television that I watch.  When it comes to Moon, I think that it is used properly. Through most of the film I had my concerns, but as things progressed I was able to understand why they did it.

And that’s true of things not limited to the use of the doubling visual effect when it comes to this movie. The story centers around the character of Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell), a man on a three year contract to harvest the moon’s resources for clean energy that can be used on Earth. One of the main things that bugged me about the film is the idea of a single person on a moon base. If you’re going to put a mining camp on the moon why have only one person running it? This, along with most of my questions about the film, gets answered by the end and I am left generally satisfied with the story as a whole.

What really hits home for me more than anything though is the performance of Rockwell. He manages to make two versions of himself very much distinct in their mannerisms and approaches to the situations they face that you might almost believe they were entirely different people despite their obvious similarities. The only other character to play off is the full on robotic helper droid GERTY, played through voice work by the great Kevin Spacey. And even there Mr. Spacey is able to bring a certain amount of nuance to an inanimate object that has you questioning the robot’s motives much in the way that you did in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This movie is a perfect example of how acting can make or break a film. And in the case of Moon, I definitely think it makes the film.

There are many sides to the Moon, which side are you on? I honestly could tell you because they all make such a great case.

Does Arrow hit its mark?

The final pilot that I managed to see in the recent 4 day weekend of fandamonium that is FanExpo was Arrow, the newest show based on a DC Comics superhero character after the end of Smallville which chronicled the story of a young Clark Kent as he grows up to become Superman. Many attempts to get something else off the ground in television have been tried since the success of that show and so naturally they are often compared to Smallville and I am sure that many will be in the years to come. Attempts were made to do a Smallville spinoff of the Supergirl character which appeared on the show, as well as an unconnected Robin story which follows the same formula of a young Dick Grayson before he came to be trained by Batman. All of which seem to have fallen by the wayside. So the fact that Arrow managed to make it as far as it did is something of a feat in and of itself.

What I think contributed to Arrow getting itself off the ground is that it didn’t try to trade off the success of Smallville in the same way that previous superhero origin story attempts have. Despite the fact that the character of Green Arrow appeared in Smallville and would eventually become a main character in its final years, Arrow doesn’t seem to take the easy way out. It cast new actors in the roles of Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance when it could have easily brought them over and pleased the fans of both Smallville and many comic book fans as well, but it didn’t. The show attempted to stand on its own and tell its own story in its own way. For that, people should be grateful.

This is not to say that I am not a fan of the idea of a shared universe or that I don’t want to see what I like about characters I have followed for a long time represented on screen. I do. But as a writer I understand that this isn’t always the best way to go. Part of developing a TV show or a movie which has a built in audience is making sure you don’t alienate any potential new fans you can create by telling a story not steeped in too much history. That’s one of the fundamental lessons of a show like Smallville. The story of Superman is not a new story, people know the origin and they have seen it represented in so many different ways. Smallville took what that history and gave it a different tone, a different viewpoint, and weren’t afraid to have a sense of humor about it.

In watching the pilot of Arrow, I think that seems to be a lesson which the creators seem to have learned well from and taken to heart. They seem to have great respect for the character’s history in comics, as well as his importance on Smallville, but it’s by no means an ode to the fans who love him already. Fans of the character and of DC Comics characters in general will definitely appreciate the show and the respect the character is given, but there are all kinds of aspects which even a casual fan or someone who isn’t a fan at all can enjoy. You have the hero with the cause worth fighting for, an unrequited love story, the importance of family and the question of how that is defined, and most of all you have humor.

All of these elements are portrayed quite well by Stephen Amell, and yet the other characters are no less interesting or well thought out. Each of the characters have their own problems and their own struggles to face that don’t rely on Oliver Queen to be told, but ultimately I think what will make the show work is how his alter ego the Green Arrow will interject himself into those problems and help them solve them to come out better for it, much like the show seems to have done.

So does Arrow hit its mark? With pin point accuracy.