*Contains minor spoilers*
With a cool premise and a unique mix of characters, there was potential for this show to be a hit. However, early on it becomes obvious that the season would be a mess. It took too long in a short season for these characters to gel, and even then they never developed into the team that they could have. While Ray Palmer’s quirkiness worked great on “Arrow,” he comes off as a silly. He’s a genius and the most pure hero of the group, but he seems to screw things up more often than not. Both Hawkman and Hawkgirl lack personality, and chemistry. Rip Hunter also struggles to connect with the audience. It’s the shows anti-heroes/villains that work the best: Captain Cold, Heatwave and White Canary.
The show’s quest is to stop the immortal Vandal Savage before he can conquer the world. Which means randomly traveling to different time periods and failing because they need to stretch the story out for 16 episodes. To go along with this, we get a bunch of obscure rules about time travel that contradict themselves, are constantly broken with no ill-effects (unless it puts the heroes in a bind) and generally make no sense. With all the possible timelines they could visit, they seem to pick the most boring.
The special effects can be really cool, with all the character’s unique abilities coming into play. Unfortunately, it seems like the budget severely hampers how often we get to see this. You can probably count on one hand how many times Firestorm uses his powers, and Hawkgirl’s wings make even fewer appearances, and when they do, the vanish within seconds. Production wise, the sets are uninspired and at no point does the inside of the Waverider make me feel like I’m seeing the inside of a space ship.
The final part of the season finally gets interesting, with many plot twists that put the entire season into a new perspective, even if it doesn’t actually make sense. They are going to need a much stronger plot going into season 2 to take advantage of the improvements they made at the end of this season.
** out of *****