The 9 Best Superhero Shows on TV

I published this over at Medium. Click to read!

Review: The CW's LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

★★☆☆☆

Ain't hubris a bitch? After the astonishing successes of Arrow and The Flash on The CW, most of the creative team behind those shows go for a hat-trick with DC's Legends of Tomorrow—essentially a small-budget Avengers wannabe, combining several of those previous show's best recurring characters, and a few of their lamest. It's a big, bold, brave decision to make something like LoT; it also takes a special kind of stupidity on the evidence of this ridiculous premiere.

Autumn 2015 TV - Part One

We're a few months into the 2015/16 television season, so I just wanted to run down all the shows I'm watching, how I think they're getting on, and my degrees of continued interest in them.

'Agents of SHIELD' (season 3) - ABC.
Season 1 became good halfway through. Season 2 turned bad halfway through. Season 3's proving to be a real bore from the start. It seems someone decided what we really want from AoS is lots of people with superpowers, so they're going big on the whole Inhumans angle. I just wish the show didn't feel like a live-action X-Men more than a spy-fi show that could tackle a lot of different subjects and ideas. Unsurprisingly, the best episode (so far) concerned an hourlong flashback to Simmons stranded on an alien planet, having to survive until rescue arrived. While it was probably inspired by The Martian novel, or knowledge of the film adaptation, it was something you don't see TV do very often.

Watched: ARROW, 4.1 – "Green Arrow"

I enjoyed season 3 of Arrow for what it was, but it was the least impressive run of the three. The Ra's al Ghul storyline outstayed its welcome, the addition of billionaire Ray Palmer (in an ersatz Iron Man side-plot) proved to be more of a distraction and prolonged setup for Legends of Tomorrow, and then there was the ridiculousness of everyone now becoming highly-trained mask-wearing vigilantes.

The CW launching a superhero team of ARROW/FLASH side characters?

The twin successes of ARROW and THE FLASH for The CW has resulted in a huge surge of interest for comic-book properties on U.S television. It also helps that Marvel's big movies continue to be popular, and are inspiring their own small-screen spin-offs. Today, The CW announced their intention to create a superhero Avengers-style team-up show, again developed by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim—the core writers behind Arrow and The Flash…

And this one will combine Arrow's Ray Palmer/The Atom (Brandon Routh) and Sarah Lance/Black Canary (Caity Lotz), with The Flash's Firestorm (Victor Garber) and Leonard Snart/Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller). No idea why Robbie Amell wasn't included in that list, seeing as he plays the physical half of Firestorm. Is he being recast, or was that a mistake?

ARROW, 3.12 - 'Uprising' • THE FLASH, 1.12 - 'Crazy For You'

ARROW – 'Uprising'

★★☆☆

It amuses me how Arrow regularly applies ideas from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy; cleverly disguised by mixing plot-points together or splitting one character's role between various members of Arrow's cast. The recent arc with Oliver Queen challenging Ra's al Ghul to a fight to the death, which left him (apparently) dead overseas while his precious city was left to the mercy of a burly English supervillain? Tweak a few details and it's just The Dark Knight Rises—which likewise featured a resolution where citizens helped Batman's allies take back their city by force.

Superhero Saturday: AGENT CARTER, ARROW, THE FLASH and GOTHAM

There's a lot of superhero/comic-book television shows around right now, so I thought I'd dip into four of the most popular ones, which are all approximately halfway through their seasons...

AGENT CARTER – 'The Blitzkreig Button'
We're halfway through this new comic-book drama, so how is Marvel's new show faring? After a good start, I'm beginning to feel less and less interested in anything going on. Some of that is an unfortunate byproduct of Agent Carter being a prequel—so it has no imperative ties to anything happening in the 21st-century set Marvel movies—and it's partly because I find its 1940s era a little drab and monotonous. I do like Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter; particularly the fact she's a "superhero" in the sense her alter-ego's a telephonist treated like a second-class citizen, but she's actually saving the world in secret. It's an amusing social spin on a hoary trope. Although it gets overplayed by the show, which hammers the 'battle of the sexes' angle all the time. James D'Arcy is also very good as her associate Jarvis. But am I eagerly anticipating the next episode? No. Would I care if Agent Carter was axed? No. It needs a shot of adrenaline, pronto. ★★☆☆

Mini-Reviews: THE AFFAIR, AHS, CONSTANTINE, THE FLASH, SLEEPY HOLLOW, WALKING DEAD, etc.

Reviews of television shows have been sparse over the past few weeks (apologies), so this little batch of mini-reviews will have to suffice...

THE AFFAIR (season 1). I fell behind the U.S airings on Showtime, so I'm playing catch-up now. I'm still enjoying this relationship drama a great deal, although a part of me's beginning to wonder if the narrative gimmick's more trouble than it's worth. It was a fun idea to split each episode into two halves (each from the perspective of Dominic West or Ruth Wilson's character), but I find myself more invested in West's "angle"... and yet it could be the "wrong one". But is there a singular truth? Maybe both versions of the story works of fiction and the truth's an amalgamation? Sometimes there are differences in the story that make me scratch my head, because there's no point in either character intentionally lying about certain things (like whether their interviewing cop's married or separated). And the cop stuff's happening in the present, so it's not even a case of the characters remembering the past wrongly, which I thought was partly accounting for the differences in their recollections... so the show itself has two separate outlooks. Weird. ★★★☆

THE FLASH, 1.4 – 'Going Rogue' • ice and smoak

★★★★

Crossover alert! Arrow's beautiful boffin Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) makes the trip from Starling City to Central City in "Going Rogue", ostensibly to visit her friend Barry (Grant Gustin) after hearing he's out of his coma. As a confidant of The Arrow, Felicity's let into S.T.A.R Labs' inner circle about Barry's new powers, during a time when jewel thief Leonard Snart (Wentworth Miller) decides to up his game and defeat the city's new super-sonic do-gooder...

TV I've been watching lately...

We're fast approaching November and most of the new autumn shows have begun, plenty of old favourites are back, and the summer shows are a memory. But what am I enjoying watching every week, finding time to write about, or have given up on completely? Read on!

THE AFFAIR (Showtime, season 1). It's been a great two-episode start to this new Showtime drama starring Dominic West and Ruth Wilson as extra-marital lovers, with a unique flashback format that also bisects each episode into opposing perspectives on the same events. Even without those narrative devices, I'd like this The Affair in terms of the basic story and performances, but the twists are what makes this feel so compelling. And I was pleased the second episode didn't beat around the bush, so we already have an idea about why the main characters are being interviewed by cops a year after their affair began. My only vague concern is that it's hard to really side with West or Wilson's character, as each "part" of the tale casts one or t'other as the more dominant, mildly unlikeable one. Not knowing who to believe or trust is part of the show's mystery, of course, but it does mean the viewer's constantly unsure about anything... which makes it hard to settle into. ★★★☆

October 2014 Highlights - ARROW • CONSTANTINE • THE FLASH • GRACEPOINT • HOMELAND • THE WALKING DEAD • more!

It's October. Officially autumn. So what treats does the television have in store for UK and U.S viewers from now until Halloween? Let's look at the most notable highlights...

Digital Spy: 12 Fantasy Television Crossovers

Over at Digital Spy today, it's my latest article. This one fantasises about 12 "crossover" episodes of past and present TV shows, that would be extremely unlikely but incredibly fun to watch. Dexter meets Hannibal? Sherlock travels to Fargo? Justified visits True Blood? Click through to read more, and remember to share if you enjoy it!

SDCC 2014's Friday panels: ARROW, GAME OF THRONES & THE WALKING DEAD

Yesterday was the second day of San Diego Comic-Con, and below are fan-filmed videos of three panels for ARROW, GAME OF THRONES and THE WALKING DEAD. Friday also contained panels for Sleepy Hollow and BBC America's new sci-fi drama The Intruders, but those haven't sneaked online yet.

Trailer: ARROW – Season 3 (SDCC 2014)

ARROW debuted its third season trailer at San Diego Comic-Con yesterday, which gave fans their first look at new guest stars like Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) as Roy Palmer/The Atom, Karl Yune as Maseo Yamashiro, and Peter Stormare as Count Vertigo; plus the return of Caity Lotz as Sarah Lance/Black Canary, new flashback scenes with Oliver in China, and Roy in costume as sidekick Arsenal. Warning: contains spoilers for season 2 in the first minute's recap.

Updated with a longer version, previewing famous DC Comics villain Ra's Al Ghul.

Pilot preview: The CW's THE FLASH - super-fast, super-fun

Months ahead of its 7 October premiere on The CW, I take a look at the pilot episode of their new superhero drama THE FLASH.

Post-mortem: ARROW - Season Two

Having recently completed its second season on The CW, I remain singularly impressed by ARROW. While it's clearly an ersatz Batman, it has enough to differentiate itself from the Caped Crusader's more famous milieu. Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) has more allies, isn't so downcast/disturbed, and unlike Bruce Wayne has a family who are alive and able to complicate his dual life. A plain-spoken elderly butler pales next to a Machiavellian middle-aged mother, and a petulant half-sister who bears grudges.

Trailer: The CW's THE FLASH

Considering how awesome Arrow's become, hopes are high for spin-off THE FLASH—which, ironically, is adapting a superhero with considerably more public awareness than Green Arrow. How will this new show fare? We've already spent a smattering of episodes in the company of police forensic expert Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) during Arrow's second season, and the former Glee actor came across well.

It's April, and I'm watching...

It's impossible to review everything I watch on a daily basis these days, so here are my broad thoughts on the TV shows I'm still watching every week, have started queueing on my TiVo, or have sadly dropped from regular viewing, as of 2 April...

It's March, so I'm watching...

It's impossible finding time to review everything I watch on a daily basis, so here are my broad thoughts on the TV shows I'm watching every week, started queueing on my TiVo, or have dropped from viewing, as of 3 March...

It's February, so I'm watching...

We're over a month into 2014, so the new and returning shows are mostly up and running for New Year. Therefore, partly because I don't have time to review everything episodically these days, below is a broad overview of what I'm watching (and enjoying), and what I'm tending to queue on my TiVo (and will probably delete soon)...