The Flash - Stupidest man alive

[red snow]

5 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

Is anyone surprised at how bad any of these DC/CW shows are?.... They've always ranged from barely watchable to utterly atrocious....I've never watched them because they were "good".... I watch them because I'm a nerd and they're about superheroes.... My wife and I goof on them in real time like we're Crow & Tom Servo....

They were a lot of fun in both their first seasons (although Arrow was a bit darker back then). I've always maintained The Flash only works as long as the entertainment outweighs the stupid but I'd say it was balanced but teetering in favour of stupid these days. I don't know exactly what happened with Arrow for me - it wasn't like the last episode I watched pushed me over the edge, I just realised I couldn't be on with the show anymore. Season 3 and the realization the show was going downhill/not going anywhere was probably what did it. I don't really watch much in the way of 22-eps-a-year shows anymore but i'd guess the problem is those types of shows don't have much forward momentum - they prefer to remain near the status quo. Which is funny as that's my problem with superhero comics.

[red snow]

7 minutes ago, Jon AS said:

I don't really buy into the idea of genre fatigue. The problem with the comic shows on TV right now is that they all have mediocre writing dragging them down (except for iZombie, that show's biggest problem is the procedural formula), the concepts in and of themselves are decent enough, certainly no worse than the police procedurals that have been a mainstain on TV since pretty much forever.

 

I don't either - I think it's just a hipster/grumpy person thing. They'll keep saying it until they are ultimately correct. The netflix shows demonstrate superheros can be done well and I have pretty high hopes for "legion" given that it's helmed by the Fargo show creator and that FX have a strong track record of handling different genres.

I think over-saturation is what's tiring me out. Too many shows with the same procedure and the crossovers while fun when contained are really annoying when they seem to intrude on the main show (both Arrow and Flash have suffered with their constant set up of Legends). And I really do only have so much time for TV and I simply can't justify 5 hours of DC 2 hours or Marvel and lucifer/izombie. I guess that could be considered fatigue. My cinema budget isn't really an issue - I probably see an average of 12 films a year (+ more for home viewing). My bias is towards things that look good on a big screen/action (my home TV is good enough to enjoy other films) so superhero films do pretty well. Marvel/DC would have to release a lot more films a year for it to impact on my film going. But TV is a very crowded place these days and it simply requires more time. I've got 12 hours of Daredevil to watch mext month and unless they really drop the ball with season 2 I'd much rather spend that week watching 6 more epiodes of Daredevil than Arrow,Flash, LOT, Supergirl, Agents of SHIELD/Carter and Gotham.

[Mladen]

16 hours ago, red snow said:

1. I don't think I'd dislike her as much as Laurel. I thought they actually made better use of her this week and it felt like they could use that for her to be more involved in an organic way down the road. She is supposed to be a meta journalist, right? Heck she could be the one compiling data on all the victims of wacky accidents that night.

The thing is that you could easily take out Iris out of equation and nothing changes. Same with Laurel, BTW. There is potential to make her useful, but second season in the row, they are not doing it. And there is only so much of her we can see and tolerate.

31 minutes ago, Jon AS said:

Iris on the other hand gets very little to do. This last episode was an actual improvement for her, with the writers remembering that she's got that journalist thing and that they could use it. Contrary to Laurel, they don't really try to build her up at all, apparently believing that as long as our alleged hero is in love with her and will ultimately end up marrying her we will care enough. On top of that they undercut her character time and again through her own father. On a better show this would be deliberate and the payoff might be worth it, but I'm pretty sure the Flash writers don't even realise they're doing it.

But isn't Barry done with love? Meh... 

No, I totally get what you want to say. I just can't wait for the epic melodrama when Flash realizes he needs love in his life. It will be so pathetic we will need a whole new thread dedicated to it

 

[red snow]

The problem with Flash and Arrow is that the writers can't handle a large cast. So you have all this rotating dead weight. I've said before how the Flash would probably be far better with Cisco, Joe, Wells and Barry as they seem to be the characters they are most comfortable with. They could have easily had Caitlin in Cisco's role but I think they realised they were maybe heading for a repeat of the Felicity vs LAurel debacle and they resolved this by giving Caitlin nothing to do (there was a weird vibe with her and BArry in the karaoke/drunk episode last season). It boils down to the fact the writers seem to think the female characters' main purpose is to be a love interest of another character which is a real shame. Cisco seems to lead a life where his dating situation isn't his only deal. We never see Joe or Wells lamenting their single status or having stories on them dating. This is then amplified when it's clear from their handling of Barry they can't even do relationships.

1 hour ago, Risto said:

No, I totally get what you want to say. I just can't wait for the epic melodrama when Flash realizes he needs love in his life. It will be so pathetic we will need a whole new thread dedicated to it

 

Just wait until we get the speech about the "speed of love". I bet that's where he finds the ability to br faster than Zoom.

[Red Tiger]

9 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

Ugh.  I thought we were at least at episode 15 or 16, but this week was just 12... I don't know if I can handle another 11 episodes for this season.

That's another problem right there, this season is moving slow as fuck. They should have revealed who Zoom is by now, Jay's dying thing should have been said sooner, we should already have been to Earth 2.

[red snow]

16 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

That's another problem right there, this season is moving slow as fuck. They should have revealed who Zoom is by now, Jay's dying thing should have been said sooner, we should already have been to Earth 2.

It's a bit embarassing when this show of all shows is slow. But the season so far has been pretty aimless. Other than villains of the week popping through earth-2 the lack of interest from team Flash is shocking. How comes no-one else has stumbled upon these portals? Why isn't Iris being used as a character who could argue "people deserve to know about this".

Instead we seem to have had Legends set up and an utterly pointless love interest. Those two things are largely to blame for why the plot hasn't gone anywhere. Did we need the return of Reverse Flash last week? Not really but it's like the showrunners knew they needed something to bring people back. There's still the fact that no-one on Team Flash has even asked who Zoom might be - why not? Surely knowing who he is might help them defeat him? They could at least find his earth-1 counterpart and see if that version is a meta or not - given their treatment of prisoners they'd have no issue using a person as a guinea pig. I'm not saying the team should be thinking it is one of them (although we know that it's going to be one of the characters we usually see eg main team or Daddly Allen, Eddy Thawne) but they should show some level of curiosity. But that ties in with their general lack of interest. Which is odd for a team consisting of scientists. They used to be more interested last season but apart from Wells (who is distracted by his daughter) the others don't have much reason to show no imagination whatsoever at the possibilities of multiple worlds. Basically there is a tendency for the characters to just be moving parts in a plot. I'm not expecting "the wire" but that is pretty poor even for casual tv.

[Red Tiger]

2 minutes ago, red snow said:

It's a bit embarassing when this show of all shows is slow. But the season so far has been pretty aimless. Other than villains of the week popping through earth-2 the lack of interest from team Flash is shocking. How comes no-one else has stumbled upon these portals? Why isn't Iris being used as a character who could argue "people deserve to know about this".

Instead we seem to have had Legends set up and an utterly pointless love interest. Those two things are largely to blame for why the plot hasn't gone anywhere. Did we need the return of Reverse Flash last week? Not really but it's like the showrunners knew they needed something to bring people back. There's still the fact that no-one on Team Flash has even asked who Zoom might be - why not? Surely knowing who he is might help them defeat him? They could at least find his earth-1 counterpart and see if that version is a meta or not - given their treatment of prisoners they'd have no issue using a person as a guinea pig. I'm not saying the team should be thinking it is one of them (although we know that it's going to be one of the characters we usually see eg main team or Daddly Allen, Eddy Thawne) but they should show some level of curiosity. But that ties in with their general lack of interest. Which is odd for a team consisting of scientists. They used to be more interested last season but apart from Wells (who is distracted by his daughter) the others don't have much reason to show no imagination whatsoever at the possibilities of multiple worlds. Basically there is a tendency for the characters to just be moving parts in a plot. I'm not expecting "the wire" but that is pretty poor even for casual tv.

I agree with every word. Im just tired of all these shows. Arrow peaked long and hasn't looked interesting at all to me, I don't like Legends of Tomorrow and there's no pull for me to watch it further and this show just refuses to hurry the fuck up.

[Jon AS]

While the setup of Legends is partly to blame, I think the insistence of having a season-long villain also hurts the show. It worked in both this show and Arrow's first seasons because of how much Thawne/Wells and Merlyn were tied into what Barry and Oliver were already doing, but Zoom has no presence except as a distant threat without clear agenda.

Why not break the season up into smaller story arcs? It would liven things up and might even allow them to foreground different characters for multiple episodes by making them the focus of one such arc.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Jon AS said:

While the setup of Legends is partly to blame, I think the insistence of having a season-long villain also hurts the show. It worked in both this show and Arrow's first seasons because of how much Thawne/Wells and Merlyn were tied into what Barry and Oliver were already doing, but Zoom has no presence except as a distant threat without clear agenda.

Why not break the season up into smaller story arcs? It would liven things up and might even allow them to foreground different characters for multiple episodes by making them the focus of one such arc.

Not to mention the fact he's another guy who runs fast which was last season.

Smaller arcs could have worked fine with Grodd and Captain Cold (which season one did in a sense, they at least built those characters stories over the course of the season). That and the rogues but Legends has screwed that up somewhat.

[Jaxom 1974]

On Friday, December 11, 2015 at 3:34 AM, Jon AS said:

[Jaxom 1974]

On Friday, December 11, 2015 at 3:34 AM, Jon AS said:

 

Oh my god, every time I try to post in this thread this quote box pops up...

I'm still more forgiving than the rest of you. And my long drawn out reasoning got eaten when I tried to type it up...suffice to say, comic books just have enough general stupid over all, that I can forgive it in my comic book shows a little easier. Sure I get frustrated at times, but I think they've done a nice bit of worldbuilding on the shows.  It mostly works for me.

I think perhaps the writers room suffers from too many writers actually. If anything.

[Jon AS]

2 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Oh my god, every time I try to post in this thread this quote box pops up...

Have you tried clearing your browser cache or something along those lines?

I'm not gonna lie, getting a tapatalk notification only to find nothing but an empty post quoting a 3 month old post of mine is ever so slightly disappointing.

5 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I think perhaps the writers room suffers from too many writers actually. If anything.

I haven't bothered to check how many writers are working on this show, but the flaws seem pretty consistent from episode to episode. How pronouned some specific flaw is any given week may vary, but the general weaknesses are almost always shining through somewhere.

[Jaxom 1974]

2 hours ago, Jon AS said:

Have you tried clearing your browser cache or something along those lines?

I'm not gonna lie, getting a tapatalk notification only to find nothing but an empty post quoting a 3 month old post of mine is ever so slightly disappointing.

I haven't bothered to check how many writers are working on this show, but the flaws seem pretty consistent from episode to episode. How pronouned some specific flaw is any given week may vary, but the general weaknesses are almost always shining through somewhere.

Yeah. Cleared the browser a couple times. Not a tapatalk fan either.

And I just believe that these shows can suffer from too many cooks syndrome, particularly if a writer is at ached to a particular character.  Is there not at least one dominant voice guiding the overall storylines?  

And yes, some acting can be wooden.

[Jon AS]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Yeah. Cleared the browser a couple times. Not a tapatalk fan either.

And I just believe that these shows can suffer from too many cooks syndrome, particularly if a writer is at ached to a particular character.  Is there not at least one dominant voice guiding the overall storylines?  

And yes, some acting can be wooden.

Well, if it's only this thread then it'll be okay, as we're only 15 posts from the next one.;)

There should be clear oversight, but I have a hard time believing that "don't give Iris or Caitlin anything compelling to do" or "have Barry act more like a sociopath than a hero" are directives given to the rest of the writers.

[red snow]

2 hours ago, Jon AS said:

Well, if it's only this thread then it'll be okay, as we're only 15 posts from the next one.;)

There should be clear oversight, but I have a hard time believing that "don't give Iris or Caitlin anything compelling to do" or "have Barry act more like a sociopath than a hero" are directives given to the rest of the writers.

It would be kind of funny if they were the directives. I can sort of see the too many cooks thing where they may have freelance writers pitching episodes and the staff writers are supposed to iron out the wrinkles. At one point it maybe was one of the two guys who seem to do all the DC shows together? But as more shows are added to their plate they don't actually check them anymore and that fluidity is lost. I think it was something Whedon excelled at meaning that even a poor episode of buffy/Angel usually had all the characters behaving the same and with continuity and style maintained. I think that does make a huge difference with serial TV shows.

[Jon AS]

11 hours ago, red snow said:

It would be kind of funny if they were the directives. I can sort of see the too many cooks thing where they may have freelance writers pitching episodes and the staff writers are supposed to iron out the wrinkles. At one point it maybe was one of the two guys who seem to do all the DC shows together? But as more shows are added to their plate they don't actually check them anymore and that fluidity is lost. I think it was something Whedon excelled at meaning that even a poor episode of buffy/Angel usually had all the characters behaving the same and with continuity and style maintained. I think that does make a huge difference with serial TV shows.

That's my point though: the show is fairly consistent in its negative aspects. It's just that there's not enough good stuff to make for the flaws at the moment.

[red snow]

24 minutes ago, Jon AS said:

That's my point though: the show is fairly consistent in its negative aspects. It's just that there's not enough good stuff to make for the flaws at the moment.

That's a worrying way of looking at it but it would explain why the Arrow and Flash have similar problem. I'll just assume LOT (and potentially Supergirl too) have the same issues. I guess supergirl has a redundant make love interest instead?

[Jon AS]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

That's a worrying way of looking at it but it would explain why the Arrow and Flash have similar problem. I'll just assume LOT (and potentially Supergirl too) have the same issues. I guess supergirl has a redundant make love interest instead?

Legends isn't far enough along yet to establish clear patterns. They actually got rid of the most annoying (and most clearly romantic) relationship on the show by the end of the pilot. At least for the time being.

 

Supergirl is kind of a mess of a show. It's trying to be explicitly feminist, but it won't surprise anyone who's seen The Flash and Arrow that it's rather clumsy about it.

As for romance, the two main candidates for Kara are both regulars who know her secret identity and help her in her superheroing, so they have a purpose on the show beyond not telling her how they feel. Of course the downside is that this means that there's a love triangle. I have never been able to grasp the appeal of that particular trope.

[Dr. Pepper]

Ok, so Earth 2 was way funner than Earth 1 but geez, Barry is the worst person ever.  There was zero reason to allow Iris to continue believing he was her husband, especially after she began to kiss him and then later started changing in front of him.  He's just a step away from adding sexual assaulter to his list of villainous behaviors.  Then, of course, he can't even allow the real Earth 2 Barry to be with his wife when her father days.  Ugh.  Can't take it.

I wasn't ready for Reverb to die.  But I guess we at least know what sort of powers Cisco will eventually have.  

So, did I hear correctly and that Zoom didn't actually steal Jay's powers and it was the whatever serum that did it?  Why exactly aren't they trying to sell this to Zoom? 

[Bastard of Boston]

Fun episode tonight -- I like how they use the transitions through the multiverse as opportunities to drop peeks at things to come. Tonight, we got our first look at Supergirl within the Flash bubble.