Carrie Ann

I think Nick Zano is just fine for LoT. From what I recall from my secretly-beloved What I Like About You, he's charming and can play off of other people. That's about all I require on these shows.

Same. And @EmeraldArcher, I think your con sounds great. But the key problem with it is that in the moment, you can't enforce those "rules," practically speaking. As an event planner, I assume that your guidelines are probably exactly what most convention organizers and staff try their damnedest to achieve. But the talent aren't your hired staff, to whom you can give orders--they're your invited VIP guests and the actual draw of your event, and actors are notoriously difficult to wrangle. You can give them an itinerary and a very thorough list of expectations, but you have basically no leverage to get them to do what you want them to do--and they know that--aside from not inviting them again in the future (or in extreme cases, maybe, not paying them but I doubt most cons really want to get into that mess with rich people and their attorneys). In the moment, you are going to do your best to please and accommodate them, because that's what you do for your guests of honor to try to ensure they're happy, which theoretically will make your attendees happy. In this case, I think it sounds like the con accommodated every request made of them, and it still wasn't enough to get certain guests to hold up their end. Maybe they could have had better moderation for the panel, but honestly it sounds like the panelists were ignoring the moderator/translator anyway, so I'm not sure that would have worked.

No, I'm sure there are people who feel that way and act accordingly. My point was just that I doubt that type of person represents the majority of people making reports, or even if they are the most vocal, those reports seem to me to be supported by other people who are NOT predisposed to seeing that/calling it out. Does that make sense? I just think most people who went to the con hoping to see Emily were hoping to have a great experience with her, and they wouldn't have been looking for shadiness and relishing the chance to throw her under the bus or anything. Not sure who's saying she was just careless about the fans because I have definitely not read everything people are posting on Twitter, etc., but if that is someone's feeling based on their experience, I do think that's fair for them to express. I guess that's kind of my bottom line here. It feels like people are being told that they were wrong to have negative feelings or to express them, when everyone in this cast comes under criticism sometimes. It doesn't mean anyone else has to agree with the criticism.

I think EBR gets cut a ton of slack, and I think it's partly because there hasn't been much to side-eye her for, historically. In this specific situation, I think people are quick to jump to her defense because she almost never does cons, so she doesn't have a history of lateness and other rumored bad behavior, and therefore, it's easy to believe that this is overblown or just not a big deal. On the other hand, I strongly doubt that most people making these reports really headed out to the con with the notion of seeing some ~influence~ from KC, so that they would almost hope to have a bad experience with EBR. What I've read (including the link above) sounds to me like it is coming from people who really love EBR and were hoping to have a great experience with her (as some of them had in the past), but felt disappointed and put off by things that happened at the con. Many of the types of things people are voicing their disappointment about don't sound entitled or demanding to me; they sound like things that would turn me off of someone too. That W/E/K panel sounds obnoxious, and I would have left it feeling less fond of all of them. But of course, people have bad days or just bad moments. And sometimes there are other factors involved (like illness, anxiety, or whatever this paparazzi situation was), but without knowledge of any of those factors, the fans at the con had to go on their impressions and it sounds like for many of them, it wasn't so great. So it goes. I don't see anyone here or elsewhere claiming that EBR is a horrible person or anything.

My biggest thing has basically been that all the people on the team need to serve different purposes (both literally and narratively) and not just act as clutter in the lair/the field. I think Roy and Thea were good additions, in theory if not always in practice, because they can be mentees for Oliver (or Dig, not that they bothered with that much), which I think is good for his character development and is a different dynamic than he has with Dig or Felicity. I liked Sara a lot, but the "problem" with her on the team was really the problem with having a "real" BC on this show in the first place. She should have her own team, and run her own show, not just be a part of Oliver's team. I actually thought they did a pretty good job of showing that conflict in S2, eventually, even if her ultimate reason for leaving was more about the ~darkness~ specifically. I found Laurel's presence on the team to be superfluous at best. With Curtis, I just don't really know how that's going to go. I hope that they will find ways to differentiate between what he does and what Felicity does in the lair, as well as differentiating with Dig and Oliver in the field, without sidelining either.

I agree. There was buildup to something happening, and then...nothing. It really makes me feel like the initial plan was to end with reconciliation, and that plan was scrapped pretty late for some reason. My hope is that MG and WM were thinking ahead to S5 and at the last minute decided they wanted to write a getting-back-together arc for O/F then, rather than wrap it up this season when there was so much other stuff going on.

I'm not sure how many people would permanently end that kind of relationship, right at that moment, having barely talked about it. I think maybe that's what Stephen was getting at. And I'm not trying to take a poll here, because it really doesn't matter what any one of us would do, only what we believe Felicity would do. To that point, when she ended things so finally in 416 (more than 415, because I assumed, stupidly, that there would be more enlightening conversation to follow, but, haha nope), I wasn't completely convinced. I had a feeling I wouldn't be, because of how great their relationship was in 401-14 (minus 408 and most of 410). I just didn't feel sold that Felicity would have permanently lost all faith in Oliver, after years of seeing his growth, and after the months they were in a pretty great relationship. But...turns out she didn't. And honestly, as much as I hated basically every aspect of their breakup from 408 on down the line, I actually think that by the end of the season, the "quickness" made more sense to me. The writers did some work to show Felicity's underlying issues and tendencies--her mother's pistachio thing, Curtis drawing some parallels for her, her admitting that she was in pain and was wrong to say that Oliver could never change, etc. To me, those things indicated that she ended things so quickly and finally partially as a defense mechanism, to close up her little pistachio shell. She was extremely upset, overwhelmed by the enormity of his fuck-up and the fear that he really never would change. Once she had some time to absorb it, she didn't run back to him, but she did realize she was wrong about the most damning thing she said--that he could never change. If he can change, then the door is open again. Which is why it was pretty anticlimactic that they just went nowhere with that, on Oliver's side. He wasn't given the opportunity to prove he'd changed that we all thought he'd get. He didn't even indicate that he was going to try to win her back. They just...dropped it. Cool, great storytelling, Team.

Wasn't a trap. It sounded like you feel it's an unacceptable word to use. Others here seem to agree with you to different extents, depending on circumstance, and are unimpressed with Katie using that word to refer to either Emily or Felicity.

Cool, so you agree that it's shitty for Katie to say that?

I just don't see the point of Hypable or TVLine doing less-comprehensive versions of the same story as Vox, when Vox's was actually comprehensive, with clearly-laid-out guidelines for what constituted a "significant" death. It's just kind of embarrassing, IMO, but whatever gets those clicks I guess.

He also exhibited all the same entitled fan behavior when BvS came out, so he truly has no leg to stand on.

You said you were offended, which I assume was an overstatement, but tbh, your posts made it seem like you did have an issue with the comparison? Anyway, my only point of irritation about this news is that I was really hoping MM was the Big Bad for the season so that we could hopefully be rid of him by end of S5, without suffering through at least one additional season of characters acting OOC in order to accommodate his presence without killing him. It also would have been nice to have one less salary to have to pay, and maybe one less "Alpha Male" type in the cast. I'll hold out further skepticism until we hear more about the season arcs, hopefully by SDCC time.

Yeah, in terms of S5 seeming crowded or like too much is going on--I think we worry about that before every season, because every casting notice seems weighted the same way, when in reality, most of these roles will come down to not much screentime at all. I mean, we talked about Jeri Ryan's character and her daughter so much before S4 and that was one episode. OTOH, we have been right, historically, to worry about two areas of overstuffing. The first is w/r/t launching or supporting spinoffs, and I do think that the worst parts of 4A were related to launching LoT. The Sara thing was handled very poorly, IMO (though Constantine was fun), and the less said about the crossover the better. So far, we haven't heard anything about S5 that worries me in that regard. The second area of legitimate concern has been related to overcrowding in the team and in the lair, and in that case, I do think there's some reason to wonder about Curtis's role. But, I like him about 100 times more than I liked Laurel, so at least his presence itself won't annoy me. And honestly, I don't think they're setting him up to be anything other than a tertiary character on this show, and possibly someone who may end up on LoT in its third season. So I'm actually not that worried about that either.

I know we saw some data to this effect earlier in the season, but this Hollywood Reporter article/graph is really interesting. L&O:SVU is the only returning broadcast network show this season that posted increase in viewers, and Arrow is one of only three returning series that did not decline in Live+7 numbers.

I was having that problem earlier and I used the little flag to report the ad. Try doing that, if you want to. I had to turn my adblocker back on in order to use the site.

Oh yeah, I don't have this one in my feed either.

The forum didn't open until 2014. The site itself existed before then, but not the forum. Nothing was deleted when the forums opened after the beta (which I was around for, beginning in late 2013, I believe), so the earliest posts you see should be from 2014 or possibly December 2013. It just so happened that TWoP announced its closure very shortly after PTV's forums opened, and that's when heavier traffic started. Anyway, back to bitterness. ;)

I don't think the poster saw the BC; they thought they overheard "Black Canary arriving" on someone's walkie, IIRC.

This is my biggest problem with the season, and probably the series on the whole. They have more episodes than they really need to have and yet they cannot parcel out any story properly. They just wander aimlessly for eight episodes and then pile every bit of story into one big episode, and then twiddle their thumbs for another eight, etc. It's so frustrating. At the very least, they could use those filler episodes to deal with character/relationship development. Instead, they just want you to imagine all the development that must be happening in offscreen-ville. Ugh. @dtissagirl said it best: I feel whelmed. I'm grateful that I'm not actively angry about anything that happened, but I'm not excited about anything either. I hope they will give out some good info about Season 5 at SDCC, because right now I feel pretty indifferent about the show.

I think he said emoji, not emoticons (there is a difference, right?) ?? ETA: I posted that on iPhone, and the emoji show up there, but on PC, it's just empty boxes.

There aren't any mysteries unsolved, but there is one thing left up in the air at the end of S3 that the movie explains. The movie takes place nine years later though, so it's not very relevant by that point.

I mean, this is true insofar as the reason studios push a very late embargo date is if they think the movie is going to get bad reviews. If they think it will get decent-to-good reviews, they will go for an earlier date in order to build word-of-mouth. IMO, this isn't a matter of Michael Bay = Late Embargo Date, as much as it is Michael Bay --> Made a Bad Movie --> Late Embargo Date. And yeah, reviews are not often predictive of box office. I'm sure the studio already has a decent idea of what the movie will make based on the first one and on whatever they predict from their competition.

Isn't that actually pretty decent for LoT?

Sure--this is coming from someone who used to love the show, saw the first five eps this season and haven't watched since (but I kept up via social media):

Well, that explains why there were no Hawks in the sizzle reel. I had a feeling, but I'm really glad they did that. I wish more shows would be so quick to drop their dead weight characters.