It contains some mild spoilers!

2021/09/06

See also BLOG First Watch Season One

I have to say I have been enjoying myself with the first two seasons! More than I expected anyways. Season two definitely was better than the first season, for one because the season one villain, Vandal Savage, because he was disastrous if you ask me (explained in previous season one blog). Villains of season two aren’t my favorites either but at least Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough), Malcolm Merlyn (John Borrowman) and Eobard Thawne (Matt Letscher) (aka Legion of Doom) are way more interesting than Vandal Savage ever was. Why these are still not my kind of villains, because they still remain fairly 1-dimensional. These characters make me laugh at times, have some fun villainy statements, are good actors, but there really isn’t much more to them than that, which remains a shame. I think I have to get used to this for the remainder of the series.

As I said in my season one blog, this is the only CW TV show I watch. I dropped Arrow and The Flash fairly early on,  and I haven’t (yet) watched any of the other CW shows. So it was a long shot to try and watch this but till now I am curious for more but for me it is not yet something special, it is fairly generic, the stories, the characters….but it is fun, popcorn fun. What I also like about the design of the show, one overarching story over the season, which means no filler episodes and the fact that they are a bit shorter, 16-17-18 episodes, is also a plus to me, keep the story contained over fewer episodes which, again, means less filler.

In the second season we see a few characters from season one not return, for reasons of spoilers I won’t mention who but the team also is increased with two members. First one is Nate Heywood aka Steel, played by Nick Zano. Fairly quickly Steel became a more interesting character than most of the other characters on the show. The second new comer is Amaya Jiwe aka Vixen, played by Maisie Richardson-Sellers. I really had to get used to her, at the beginning I only found her to be annoying, but luckily over the course of the second season she became less whiny and more interesting.

By now, Sara Lance, is the most interesting character but Professor Stein and Ray are also fun and interesting characters. Mick Rory, I don’t know what to think of him, he has been more fun, has the best lines but remains fairly….stupid so it seems. Jefferson also made some big improvements character-wise over the course of the second season. Rip Hunter, Rory from Dr. Who (just now I realize that his first name is Mick’s last name in this show!) , I really don’t know what I think of him, he says it himself not once but twice, that Sara is a better captain than he ever was. During the 2^nd season he becomes increasingly more annoying to watch but in the latter episodes it becomes slightly better again, but he will never become a favorite of mine. Snart comes back a few episodes but he is back (picked up by Legion of Doom with time travel) to his old self from before he joined the team, which means, annoying and not really interesting.

Episodes:

Out of all 18 episodes I only find two episodes which, for me, where a bit mediocre, first one is episode 11, “Turncoat”. Probably it is not even mediocre, the story is rather engaging but the final moments is what I have a huge problem with. (spoiler!!) Rip shoots Sara and runs off with a piece of the spear. Jefferson goes after him, he is angry because he was there when Rip shot Sara and he has Rip at gunpoint. Sara runs after Jefferson to try and stop him from killing Rip. But WHY is the only option to kill him? You can wound him perfectly fine so he can no longer escape. Giving what’s at stake, that would be very logical to me, shoot him (Rip) in the foot and let Gideon heal him again. And the legends would have the piece of the spear again. I found the writing here lacking, lazy even! There were so many other options, for instance, let Jefferson aim for the foot but the gun gets jammed. So many solution but this was for me by far the weakest solution.

Is also wasn’t fond of episode 12, “Camelot/3000”, but this probably has to do with the ending of the previous episode, it is a continuation of episode 11 and because it ended unsatisfactory to me, I guess I couldn’t enjoy the follow-up episode. This episode also confirms what I was thinking about, Sara is becoming more and more Kirk from Star Trek TOS, fraternizing with women on more than one occasion! 😊The Legion of Doom also show me in this episode, they are perhaps fun adversaries but there is little to no depth in these 3 characters.

The second season as a whole I think is quite entertaining, some nice twists, a cross-over episode 2x07, Invasion, with the arrowverse, shame that the other episodes are not on the Blu-ray set, so you are dropped in a middle of a story, luckily the final chapter so you see how it ends but it’s far from perfect. The best episodes for me are 2x13, “The Land of the Lost”, where we see Gideon, the ships computer, for the first time as an actual person. Episode 2x14, “Moonshot”, a mission to the Moon, a wonderful scene at mission control where Professor Stein begins to sing to distract the room of people from the screen. It really is a lot of fun, Victor Garber really has comedic skills as well. And the season finale, 2x17, “Aruba”, where the team goes back to 1916 again and they need to avoid there other selves who have been there already.

Episode 16, “Doomworld”, is also an entertaining episode where you will see some references made to other TV shows. Rip Hunter's cakes contain references to Arthur Darvill's previous role as a companion on Doctor Who. One is topped with a bow tie, referencing the signature fashion item of the Eleventh Doctor. Another is composed of antique clock faces similar to those featured in the Twelfth Doctor's opening credits sequence. And Snart and Rory talked about being put into prison and make escape plan, "just like the old times". Probably intended as a Prison Break (in which they are the main characters) reference. This last reference also happened earlier in season one (see Blog).

Final Word:

Having seen two seasons now I think it is safe to say that I find the show entertaining, but it is not like it is the next Babylon 5, or Star Trek: DS9 to me! It is of course still early, only two seasons. I really hope the villains will get more interesting but I fear that won’t be happening. Still, it is, as I wrote earlier also, popcorn fun, just watch it like that and it can be entertaining and I think the show is intended like this. There are other shows to watch if you want more depth, more soul if you will.

Screencaps taken from Kiss Them Goodbye