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You Oughta Know: Mr. Terrific

With comic book adaptations on almost every channel and streaming service, fans will meet many new characters with extensive backstories. We’re here to introduce these characters to help lessen the learning curve.  Star City has to be the luckiest place on the planet, aside from the rampant crime and terrorism. After all, the city is home …

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Arrow, Ep. 4.02, “The Candidate”

Arrow, Season 4, Episode 2, “The Candidate” Written by Marc Guggenheim & Keto Shimizu Directed by John Behring Airs Wednesdays at 8pm (ET) on The CW On the heels of an abundantly familiar Arrow premiere, “The Candidate” found itself in a tough position. How does a show re-tell a story it’s already told? Turns out the answer …

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Dragon Con 2015: A report from Hotlanta

An international crowd of over 70,000 people packed downtown Atlanta to experience Dragon Con over Labor Day weekend. The annual sci fi, fantasy and gaming extravaganza, which was celebrating its 29th consecutive year, featured more than 400 guests from film, TV, comics, literature and other media forms. Before last weekend, I hadn’t been to a …

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Why You Should Start Watching: Arrow

Arrow quickly became one of the most exciting action shows on television, with strong fight choreography anchoring a careful attention to story and world-building. Led by a strong central performance from Stephen Amell, the show has displayed a penchant for solid casting, from Caity Lotz as Sara Lance to Michael Jai White as Bronze Tiger, building a universe that’s fun to visit week in and week out.

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Matt Ryan to reprise the character of Constantine for The CW’s ‘Arrow’

The 2014-2015 television season saw DC comics launch numerous television series based on their existing properties, having already found success previously in the medium with The CW’s Green Arrow-centric series Arrow. While two of their series, The CW’s Flash and Fox’s Gotham, gained renewals from their respective channels, the NBC series Constantine did not receive the …

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How Genre Shows are Getting Female Representation Right

Shows with female leads or co-leads now have a strong presence on network television, as representations of women in lead roles has grown in leaps and bounds over the past few years. The complexity and multi-dimensionality of these roles varies greatly, however, and on more than a few network shows, female leads continue to be idealized …

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Arrow Ep. 3.23 “My Name Is Oliver Queen” ends the season with a dull thud

Remember back in the beginning of season two, when Oliver discovered after Tommy’s death that he was still a vulnerable human being, and had to protect his city as an agent of good? Remember how the show went out of its way to show that Oliver still had a heart? Apparently Arrow did not, because the big revelation of “My Name Is Oliver Queen” is Oliver being reminded by Felicity that his heart is what makes him special – not only repurposing a story this show’s already told multiple times, but doing so in a way that seals the fate of what was once the show’s best character, ending the show’s tumultuous third season with a whimper.

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Arrow, Ep. 3.22: “This Is Your Sword” is so far gone

I’m struggling to find a place to start with Arrow at this point in the season. Everything’s so convoluted and undercooked, plot points and conversations are flying by at a rapid pace, and as the show increasingly fractures itself between Starling City and Nanda Parbat in this back half, the less any of it feels like its hitting a meaningful place. The climatic moments of “This Is Your Sword” are perfect examples: one features Oliver poisoning the entire crew, even though the entire episode preceding it establishes that Oliver’s been faking it the last few weeks, and the whole opening line with “I was Oliver Queen” is just Arrow having some fun. The other is a wedding between Nyssa and Oliver that still makes absolutely no sense to me – and unfortunately, there’s not much preceding it to slow the show’s massive tumble into mediocrity this season.

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Arrow Ep. 3.21 “Al Sah-him” can’t seem to learn from old mistakes

Since the show’s pilot, Arrow has always been concerned with what’s coming next; the next big threat, the next big story twist, the next possible antagonist. Infatuated with teases (remember how long it took them to inform us what “the book” actually was?) and littered with allusions of what is to come, Arrow understandably has trouble rooting itself in the present, delivering on the promise of the challenging heights it builds for itself to ascend. Season three has been example after example of that: and “Al Sah-him” is no different, continuing last week’s trend of piling on the twists and misleads, to the point that everything loses any coherence under a microscope.

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Arrow, Ep. 3.20: “The Fallen” crumbles under the weight of its own absurdities

On some level, I’ve got to admire Arrow’s audacity this season. They’ve really carved themselves out a monumental task, attempting to juggle all these different dramatic balls at the same time – and at this point in the season, begin whittling them down so they can all fit neatly next to each other by the end of the finale. “The Fallen” are major steps in this direction – however, the sheer amount of nonsense “The Fallen” throws at the audience over the course of 42 minutes is jarring, bringing seasons-long stories to a head in an hour that feels both revelatory in how it pushes the season ahead, and restrictive in how it removes agency from its characters in pushing them to these important, new places.

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