Why Arrow is worth watching (even though it's a CW show)

CW shows scare the crap out of me.

No, seriously. They legitimately terrify me. My loving and wonderful girlfriend (this compliment is to balance out the right bollocking that I’m about to give her favorite show) watches their show The Vampire Diaries and whenever I catch a few minutes of it, I have to spend the next several seconds pouring salt to my retinas to burn the images away. Vampire Diaries, however, is the perfect CW show because it exemplifies all of the things that CW does incredibly wrong that apparently still wins them viewership. It’s got inane dialogue, implied sexual tension between pretty much every character in the show, and a dramatic moment or a cliffhanger approximately every minute and thirty-six seconds, because that is apparently how long it takes someone to grab the remote control and fling it at high velocity towards the offending images – and that small “oh, what happens next?” feeling is the only preventative measure for such an act.

This solution actually works with all kinds of vampires. Try it next time Twilight's on.

The sad thing? It works!! More than once I have found myself glued to the screen because the blonde vampire can’t find her werewolf lover’s keys and … if he doesn’t have his keys, the whole bloody world will explode from a vampire orgy fest… You know, I think I may be remembering this episode wrong. My point is that you can’t help yourself become semi-addicted to the inane babble pouring out of the television because of some completely made up and unlikely consequence. But, the worst thing, the very worst thing, is what my girlfriend and I have classified as CW syndrome. So many shows do it now, but the CW has raised this unfortunate syndrome to an art form. Besides them all being vampires or werewolves or whatever else, all the characters on Vampire Diaries have an additional superpower. They are all supernaturally attractive.

The real reason why vampires don't go out in sunlight: all of their plastic parts melt.

The main cast of Vampire Diaries is a tour de force of attractiveness. The ‘older’ characters are even funnier: they’re not pictured, but they look like they’ve got about five years max on the teenagers and they are also superhumanly sexy. It’s not just their bodies either. Every female character is wearing miniskirts and tank tops and slinky dresses every single episode… and the men seem to forget the usefulness of shirts. Every single character, even the minor parts and the extras, is a man or woman who is far more beautiful than one could manage without a little TV magic. The whole thing is made even more ridiculous by the fact that a good portion of the show is set in a high school environment. Their perfect school dances or town celebrations (which seem to happen every other week) are never marred by any ugly men, slightly overweight girls, or weird guys that attend the prom in their Jedi robes. One can only assume that the whole high school is patrolled by very large burly men in suits who linger slightly off camera and violently deny fatties and uggos their legal right to a public school education.

"Lose twenty pounds, then you can have your math homework back."

                  So, is Arrow any better? In terms of the CW syndrome, a little. There are actually old people in Arrow as opposed to young people pretending to be old, though once again, it falls into the same traps. The Queen family are all very beautiful (particulary Ollie’s younger sister, whose only role in the show so far seems to be to whine and do drugs in short skirts), though admittedly, the presence of money makes this far more believable than in other shows. Ollie’s scars are notable as well: his experiences on the island have ruined and scarred his body, but luckily his torturers seemed to restrict themselves to areas that could be covered up by a t-shirt. Chris told me the other day that Ollie’s scars seemed like they were “painted by Michelangelo,” and he’s not wrong – half of the point of the scars is to make him more rugged and appealing, I guess.

                  Now while I could go on for quite a while about the flaws of the show and the little ludicrosies that it implicitly asks me to put up with, I’m not going to. That’s not to say they aren’t there – the show is pretty easy to mock and I may do another thing later where I point out the things that are wrong with it – it’s simply to say I forgive them because there’s one thing that Arrow is and Vampire Diaries isn’t: entertaining. It’s got a solid cast that don’t always just gape at each other biting their lips, a continuing plot that continues to unfold and draw me in, solid minor plots for each installment to satisfy me at the end of each episode, and a decent amount of stylish action. Ollie doesn’t run in, block a bullet, throw one guy and run back out. (Here’s looking at you, Smallville.) He runs, he fights, he sweats and he bleeds, albeit he does all those things in the sometimes laughably attractive style of the CW.

This is why you don't let your junkie ward tattoo you.

            Overall, we’re nine episodes in (with the midseason premiere airing the day after I’m writing this) and I’m still watching. Hell, I’m even looking forward to its return tomorrow, which also features veteran Bat- villain Firefly, because apparently Green Arrow’s rogues gallery can’t produce enough decent villains for even half a season. But, before I sign off, I’d like to write a quick wish list, just in the off chance that someone at CW is reading.

1)     Stop calling Dinah ‘Laurel’. It’s silly. Just call her Dinah.

2)     Give Ollie’s sister more to do. You’re seeding some sort of plot there but she’s quickly becoming annoying, so just make it happen already.

3)     Give Digg more screentime. He’s awesome.

4)     Don’t kill off all your villains… Your body count is pretty high for only half a season. Keep the action up, but give Oliver some scary recurring threats, like what you’re doing with Deathstroke.

5)     Be original! Not all of your episodes have to feature an already established comic book character; I’m perfectly OK with seeing some stuff you came up with to fit your world. Remember that some great comic book characters originated in other media. Work on getting your name added to that list!

6)     Vertigo! Vertigo!

7)     While I realize your show is running partially on the success of the Nolan Batman movies, don’t copy him so directly. You’re slowly developing your own tone and mythos, but speed it up and differentiate yourself.

8)     Get rid of the silly make-up. I think the plan was that it looks less silly than the sticky glue superhero mask that we all know and love, but it doesn’t. In fact, it looks far, far worse. It’s very difficult to take Oliver seriously, when there’s a big splat of green over his face in every action sequence.

OK, I think that’s all I have. Quick thanks to coghillcartooning.com, comicsrecommended.com, and thecw.com for the images and to all of you for reading what was mostly a rather pointless article. If you enjoyed this, please comment, tell your friends, etc. and check back in a few days for more articles and podcasts. Ta-ra for now.