Willowtree

http://www.newsarama.com/33209-u-s-avengers-batman-lead-january-comic-book-sales-to-a-mixed-start-to-2017.html GA Rebirth title on the 9th place.

I thought the comments to the GATV article were really interesting.....I know that Stephen Amell is only working four-day weeks this season, but I didn't know this was standard practice for some CW leads. Maybe we shouldn't be sorry for Willa, since she gets paid the same but lesser episodes? I really like her character and her acting, so I'd like to see more of her, but I'm not sure she's that disappointed with the current situation herself. It does give her time to do other stuff.

I'm sure that this has been posted already sometime in the past, but I'll (re)post is anyway, because it is astoundlingly accurate. at least when it comes to viewer numbers: http://rillacuthbert.tumblr.com/post/151450182766/arrow-s5-ratings-models The prediction for 5X10 was overly optimistic (even the pessimistic one/Oliver), but otherwise I think the chart shows what to expect in episodes to come. TBH, I don't believe that the presence of this or that character in the promos, or the highlighting of any particular character/storyline will affect the number of Nielsen households who will tune in to watch the show. IF (and that's a pretty big if!) online sentiments reflect the preferences and feelings of the overall viewership, there is no real across-the-board enthusiasm about the current direction of the show. It seems highly unlikely that "Arrow" will ever get back the approx. one million viewers it's lost since season three (which had a 2.7/1.01 average), especially if you consider that ALL Berlanti CW shows are losing viewers this season. http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/arrow-season-three-ratings-34284/

I'd say that the "mysteries" and "twists" of the Berlanti comic book shows are pretty lame in comparison to those that drive series like "Line of duty" or "The Killing", where the plotting is so intricate that you have to readjust your perceptions of who is "right" or "wrong", innocent or culpable, hero or villain, several times during the course of the series. The Berlanti-shows do not achieve this kind of complexity when it comes to plotting and character portrayal IMHO, and therefore their "game changers" and "reveals" fall flat most of the time. The mystery aspect was rather compelling in season one, with the slow unravelling of who were behind the Undertaking, and the revelation of Moira's and Malcolm's role in the conspiracy. In later seasons this aspect has been poorly executed and has added little to the overall narrative.

Nice BTS pics from the 100th episode: http://tinyurl.com/jucbgs3

http://tvline.com/2017/01/10/arrow-season-5-new-black-canary/

http://screenrant.com/arrow-katie-cassidy-laurel-return-flash-vixen/

Don't know if this has been posted yet.... http://www.cbr.com/berlanti-on-adapting-archie-into-riverdale-laurels-arrowverse-return/

When Allison Mack portrayed Chloe Sullivan on "Smallville" many of her fans predicted that she would go on to greater things in Hollywood once the show was over. Of course, her career didn't take off, which is a pity, because she was IMHO one of the best actors on SV. In fact, I find her more skilled and versatile than most of the female actors in the current Flarrowverse, including EBR (whose character is, in some ways at least, the "Arrow" counterpart to Chloe ). So, talent and fandom popularity isn't always a guarantee that an actress will have a bright television/movie career.

That was a really good scene. Too bad we didn't get to see Sara and Laurel interact more after Sara's Lazarus pit resurrection....or any real scenes between Oliver and Sara. Sara was, after all, the woman he wanted to move in with in season two. Given their past history and (past) emotional connection, it would have been nice to have at least some Sara/Oliver scenes before she was shipped over to LoT.

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-tv-shows-2016-12?r=US&IR=T&IR=T

Moved link to spoiler discussion.

https://www.facebook.com/stephenamell/posts/1238593682892563

How many Canaries have their been until now? Sara, the proto-Canary (Laurel's Yao Fei), Laurel, the Black Canary, and Evelyn, the Wannabee-Canary! And now ANOTHER Black Canary might pop up like a Jack-In-The Box! It's becoming a bit like the Oprah show: you get a BC mask, and you get a BC mask and so on....I'm just glad to see Katie Cassidy again, in whatever role. However, I suspect that the writers are mostly using her return as a bait to lure back the LL/BC/BS/KC fans, which is a pity. There are lots of fans who're happy right now, believing that Laurel/BS will return to "Arrow" on a permanent basis, and I personally think that's far too optimistic.

I'm just judging by my own experiences from different social media. The only fans who mention/praise/ask for OTA on the producers'/actors' twitter timelines are Olicity fans, which is very apparent from their avis and aliases. The same applies to Olicity-heavy fan spaces like tumblr. The small part of the tumblr fandom that isn't Olicity fans do not make OTA edits, or write metas about this particular constellation. The fans who ask Stephen Amell for OTA pics on twitter and Facebook are also exclusively Olicity fans. On many large online discussion forums OTA is very seldom a subject of discussion, and it's hardly ever used to denote Oliver/Diggle/Felicity, probably because it's not considered altogether correct (although promoted by the writers and actors as show "canon"). There are even fans who consider Oliver/Diggle as the true original team, since they worked together as a team from episode three until episode fifteen, when Felicity officially joined. In general I'd say that Roy, Thea (and sometimes even Laurel) are considered just as important and interesting as team members as the "core" of O/F/D. I guess that there are many fans out there who don't regard Oliver, Felicity and Diggle as the hub around which the show evolves. But that's true of every fandom, isn't it? People will feel differently about different aspects, characters and storylines. My enjoyment of the show is not dependent of the amount of shared scenes (or common storylines) between Oliver, Felicity and Diggle, because I don't think their interaction is more special than Oliver's interaction with Thea, or with the other characters close to him. I liked seasons one and two as well, with the early Diggle/Oliver scenes, and I thought both Roy and Sara were great additions to the team. Seasons three and four were pretty disappointing IMHO, but not because Laurel and Thea joined the team. As for the current season it's not really any worse than season four, despite the arrival of the newbies, and some things have improved, like the fight sequences and the plotting, at least in my eyes.

I'm sorry about the double postings. I edited my post, thinking that nobody would have had the time to read it.

Thanks for the replies concerning OTA. I just have the feeling that this concept, regardless of where it originated, has mainly been embraced by the Olicity fandom. I'm fully aware that this is a very Felicity/Olicity/-oriented forum, but I've seen lots of posts (both on FB and other forums) where posters don't even know what OTA stands for, and therefore have to ask what it means. These posters are baffled when they learn that some fans consider the O/F/D constellation as more "core" and "special" than the many other constellations of the team that we've seen over the course of five seasons, and that these characters therefore deserve to be singled out and regarded as a kind of "Holy Trinity" (a term I've seen used by OTA fans!). I understand if David feels that Diggle's relationship with Oliver and Felicity is more special than his relationship with Roy, Laurel, Sara and Thea, but it's still odd to see an actor adopt tropes and notions which are very much connected with a specific fanbase (regardless if they were originally coined by some of the actors). I'm saying this because hardly anybody outside the Olicity fandom uses the OTA moniker, or gives it as much weight and importande to THIS particular version of the team as the Olicity shippers. On the other hand, it's fully plausible that David Ramsey is expressing the party line. I mean, 2/3 of the characters that the "comic book Fanbois" would regard as the canonical Team Arrow members have left the show (Roy, Laurel). This means that the core team in this AU version of the comic book Green Arrow consists of Oliver/GA and two made-for-the show characters, namely Diggle and Felicity. In that sense David Ramsey is just expressing the current direction of the writing....it's Felicity and Diggle who are Oliver's REAL team in the CW "Green Batman" version of the GA comics (because OQ himself shares more characteristics with Nolan's Batman than with the chilli-making, humorous, Leftie GA of the comic books). I'm fully aware that my POV is highly unorthodox and maybe even scandalous/reprehensible on this forum, given its pronounced Felicity/Olicity/OTA slant. However, my hope is that there is enough acceptance for diverging opinions that I won't be attacked for saying something that is quite clear to most non-shipper fans, namely that OTA's prominence and greatness is not obvious to all viewers, and that the show's own emphasis on this aspect is not entirely a blessing.......at least if you believe that an adaptation should retain at least some of the elements from the original sources. Of course, if you regard "Arrow" as an independent story, rather than as an adaption of an original source, you could say that the core of this independent story are Oliver and Felicity and their love story and the Oliver/Diggle/Felicity crusade against crime and Big Bads. In this case the elements borrowed from the DC comic book lore is just the icing on the cake, so to speak. To my mind that would be the most accurate description of the current incarnation of "Arrow".

That is probably one of the reasons why DR promotes OTA so hard. I often wonder how Willa feels about her character being left out/marginalized whenever her co-actor talks about Oliver's team. I mean, regardless of whether Thea/Speedy is not currently involved with the team or not, she was a full-time, valued member when she fought alongside Diggle and the rest of the team in earlier seasons. But maybe he includes Thea in the "Original Team Arrow"?

I think that it's pretty obvious that Oliver and Felicity will end up together, and that the current boyfriends (Malone) or prospective love interests (Susan) are just stalling devices, whose main purpose is to prolong the inevitable Olicity reunion/endgame. The "Arrow" writers are doing the same ole same tired "will they, won't they?" dance that most long running shows do with their main characters, and nothing Guggenheim says will convince me otherwise. In the meanwhile the writers and producers are ignoring the elements that matter to most viewers, i.e. good writing/plotting, believable acting and interesting character interactions. But that's not a current problem, it's something that's been plaguing the show since season three, romance or no romance. IMHO it's not ships or shipping that's the problem, but the lack of a sense of direction. Oliver keeps wavering between a kill or no kill attitude, Quentin's alcoholism storyline gets a new "rinse and repeat" almost every season, Felicity's personal storylines are too poorly executed to really develop her character, Thea's storylines evolve around being someone's (surrogate) daughter, the Big Bad threatens to destroy Star city every May and so on. Whether Oliver and Felicity are "canoodling" or not is IMHO a minor problem when the writing and acting (due to the absence of many skilled and experienced actors like Susanna T., Colin Salmon and Manu Bennett) seldom exceed the bare CW minimum. I still think "Arrow" is an enjoyable show, but the idea that there will be this great change in quality just because Oliver and Felicity will be re-united, or because there will be more focus on OTA, doesn't really hold water, at least not IMHO.

Wow! Thanks for the clarification! Seems like the numbers decrease with each passing year....

I actually didn't know how many units were sold last year, but someone posted that it was 12.000 units. So, if 10.000 units are already sold this year, and if there will be additional sales, it's not really that big a decrease, is it? Also, it seems to me that the diehard SA fans keep a pretty good track of his activities, so they would know about the campaign even if it was underpromoted. My point was that there might not be a direct link between Nielsen ratings and the interest in Stephen's charity activities (which seems to be your point as well!). In fact, many people who post on Stephen's FB (and who are likely to contribute to his campaigns) seem to support him regardless of how they feel about the show. As for the ratings, all the Berlanti shows have lost viewers this season (in fact, it seems to be a general trend when it comes to all network shows). My prediction for "Arrow" is that the ratings will stabilize around 1.9-2.0 million, with a 0.7 demo for this season, with a possible drop in the Spring. Season three was lackluster, and a major part of season four was pretty dismal, so maybe casual viewers just checked out and started watching something else instead?

I've been lurking here for quite a while, but I'd thought I'd just pop in to say that there was a visitor post on SA's Facebook page that said that the FC campaign has sold 10.000 units. There are still a lot of people who are asking Stephen to extend the deadline, because they didn't get the chance to buy the FC merchandise. So, it doesn't seem like Stephen's charities have been that affected by the drop in viewers. Besides, the ratings' decline started already in season four, where the last four episodes didn't manage to get over the 2.200.000/0.8 mark. Hopefully the crossovers will boost the "Arrow" ratings a bit, as they usually do.