Hey Everyone,
Paul here…
In Part 2 of our Fall 2019 TV Preview, we’ll be focusing on one of my personal favorite corners of pop culture, The CW’s Arrowverse. The Arrowverse, as it’s come to be known, began 8 years ago on The CW with the series premiere of Arrow, a dark, gritty take on the story of classic DC hero, The Green Arrow. The series premiere of Arrow was, at the time, the most watched episode of television in the network’s history (that record went on to be broken by The Flash and Riverdale). Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy was clearly a massive influence on the series in its first season. Even the most grounded and “realistic” superheroes, like Green Arrow and Batman, still require some level of suspension of disbelief. Having said that, the show’s first episodes showed us a world where there weren’t other superheroes, super powers didn’t exist, and any “crazy, comic book elements” you’d normally see in a story based on a long time DC Universe character, were absent in the first season. Boy, did that fucking change! When they introduced Barry Allen in Season 2, they began with super soldiers, from there we got The Flash, The first real super powered superhero in The Arrowverse. From there this universe has expanded to include time travel, meta-humans, aliens, the multi-verse, psychic gorillas, demons, alternate timelines, and literally thousands of other batshit crazy things. I think the smartest thing Arrow ever did was the show’s decision to stop trying to be a cheap carbon copy of Christopher Nolan‘s Dark Knight Trilogy and instead create their own identity by embracing some of the more in sane and out there aspects of the DC Universe. In this article, I’ll be previewing what we know about the individual seasons of the shows that make up The Arrowverse, as well is the up-to-date news about the mega crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths. The annual crossover is by far one of the most ambitious things ever attempted on television so it’s going to loom large over all of the shows for the first half of their seasons.
Arrow Season Premiere: 10/15/19
As far as what the final season will look like, Season 8 will consist of 10 episodes. 7 of the episodes will each act as an homage to specific parts of the show’s history from Season’s 1-7, while also tying up any loose ends associated with that part of the show’s journey. At the same time, the first 7 episodes will also serve to help set up Crisis on Infinite Earths, with Oliver traveling the world with The Monitor in an attempt to prepare for the coming disaster. Episode 8 will be Arrow’s installment of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Once the crossover has ended, the final two episodes, airing at the beginning of 2020, will serve as the show’s true series finale. A new trailer for Season 8 has been released, check it out below:
The Flash Season 6 Premiere 10/8/19
There hasn’t been much news from The Flash Season 6 since the first trailer for the season dropped during Comic-Con A few months ago. However, as we get closer to the show’s season premiere, more content is becoming available. Like this new trailer released today. Check it out, then I’ll can give you some of my thoughts:
I think it looks very cool. The Flash used to be one of my favorite shows, but I felt over the last few years, it had lost its way a little bit. I think the series can only benefit from tying into Crisis on Infinite Earths. After all, Crisis was first teased in the pilot episode of The Flash and no other show in The Arrowverse has more consistently referenced the event since. Barry Allen is one of the most significant and important characters in Crisis On Infinite Earths, so I think this is the perfect opportunity for the show to get back to the greatness it once had. It should also be mentioned that unlike other seasons, season six will have two big bags.
One for the first half of the season, the character Bloodwork played by Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes) and an unknown villain for the second half of the Season 6 in 2020. Considering that both The Thinker in Season 4 and Cicada in Season 5 were both pretty lackluster villains, I’m on board with any kind of new strategy to inject some life into the threats that Team Flash faces.
Legends of Tomorrow Season Premiere 1/21/20/Crisis On Infinite Earths begin 12/8/19:
Easily one of the coolest pieces of news concerning a member of the Legends Of Tomorrow cast, is the first photo of Brandon Routh (Ray Palmer AKA The Atom on Legends) as Kingdom Comic Superman! We already new Routh would be returning to the role that made him famous, just not quite the EXACT same Superman, but actually seeing him in the Kingdom Come Superman uniform is really exciting!
Speaking of The Atom, a new bit of casting news broke today, reports surfaced that actor Osric Chau, Best known for playing Kevin Tran on one of my all-time favorite television shows supernatural, will be playing DC character Ryan Choi in the upcoming Crisis Crossover. According to EW.com, Ryan Choi is an Ivy Town University Physics professor with a “key” role to play in the crossover event. In the comics, the character is a protégé of Ray Palmer who takes up the mantle of The Atom alongside Ray Palmer and in his absence. This makes a lot of sense because unfortunately Brandon Routh will be leaving Legends of Tomorrow by the end of this coming season. So you can see why they would want to have a character in place to become The New Atom, if need be. Osric Chau looks great on supernatural and I’m sure he’ll fit right in with the Legends cast. Right now he’s only being reported as a recurring guest star role in the crossover. But don’t be surprised if he ends up becoming a part of The Waverider crew on Legends.
Another interesting last-minute addition to the ever growing cast of this massive and ambitious event will be Ashley Scott reprising her role as The Huntress from the short lived and god awful Birds of Prey series in the early 2000’s. Considering how many characters are involved in this project I have a feeling that appearances like this one will be closer to a cameo status then a significant role. More like just a fun wink and nod to the audience, but we’ll see.
Even though it had been heavily rumored to the point that most people considered it a foregone conclusion, last week it was confirmed, 100%, that Tom Welling would be returning to play Smallville’s Clark Kent in Crisis. A pleasant surprise is that Smallville’s Lois Lane, Erica Durance, will also be returning in the crossover. Unfortunately, Michael Rosenbaum will not be reprising his iconic role as Lex Luthor in the project. He was approached about appearing, but for his own reasons, declined to participate.
I think what’s really interesting here is that it’s very clear that Welling will be playing Smallville‘s version of Superman in the crossover. Which should be exciting to Smallville fans because despite all of the heroics we saw Clark perform across 10 years of television, we really only saw him as Superman for about 20 seconds in the series finale. It looks like his role in Crisis is a significant one, so multiple episodes of that Clark Kent in his prime as Superman will be really cool to see. It’ll be especially exciting to see Welling as Superman alongside Tyler Hoechlin‘s established and already beloved take on Superman in The Arrowverse, and Brandon Routh playing the Kingdom Come version of Superman. All three are pretty different takes on the character, so I imagine seeing 3 different Supermen in the mix will not only be thrilling, but it’s also a great way to show just how much of a threat The Anti-Monitor poses. Below I have two cool pictures, one is from the set of the currently filming Crisis on Infinite Earths and shows Tom Welling and Erica Durance reunited at The Kent Family Farm. I also have a fantastic rendition of what the Smallville Clark Kent could look like in the full superman costume, in this awesome piece of fan art. Check out both below:
Supergirl Season Premiere 10/6/2019:
Last but not least we have Supergirl. Supergirl has a tough act to follow after it’s phenomenal 4th season. I think it was probably my favorite Arrowverse show last year and that’s saying a lot. That was due in no small part to Jon Cryer’s unexpectedly spectacular performance as Lex Luthor. Luckily, he’ll be back for Crisis On Infinite Earths, so it’s pretty likely he’ll pop up in Supergirl Season 5, as well. As far as the story for Season 5, I have heard that this Season will be very much about Kara and Lena‘s relationship. That will be the main focus of the season. Will they repair their friendship? Or are they doomed to repeat the same pattern that Superman and Lex fell into? Along with the looming threat of Crisis On Infinite Earths, when it comes to villains this season, the secret society Leviathan will be making their presence known after their introduction in the Season 4 finale. J’onn J’onzz’s evil brother, Ma’alefa’ak. so it will be interesting to see how the show in ports that relatively new concepts from the comics. Another really interesting development on the show this season, is Supergirl will be introducing Atlanteans, like Aquaman Atlantean’s! It’s pretty fucking cool. With superman and Batman pretty soon officially becoming part of the hour of hers maybe we’ll get to see the arrow verse version of Aquaman?. This is not the first time Aquaman has been referenced, in fact there have been multiple references to The King of The Seven Seas in The Flash. Anyway you can check out the latest trailer below. And by the way? I ❤️her new costume :
Crisis on Infinite Earths will kick off on December 8 in Supergirl. Part 2 will hit Batwoman on December 9, before The Flash takes part 3 on December 10. Then on January 14, 2020, Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow will wrap up the crossover
Finally,
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-Paul
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