SonofaBiscuit

It's scary to think about Oliver spending most of his Arrowing time with Laurel and Roy. Laurel seems to bring out the worst in him, so I hope that I'm not in for a season of Oliver being a gigantic dick. It would be so exhausting at this point for him to lose all of the progress that he's made over the last two years.

I knew I was in for a bad time when they dropped four KC interviews on me at once. I'll be watching closely to see when today's interviews are released because that will be a good indicator that another Laurel-heavy episode looms on the horizon.

I'm getting the sense that these EPs don't learn from mistakes...they just repeat them.

"This thing is broken!"

I think that you're right that Team Arrow is going to seem pretty fractured. If Felicity is off working for Ray, I think more of her screentime will be devoted to that arc. Diggle is supposed to be off the team or sidelined (not sure which), so he's probably not going to be helping out with bad guys. It appears that it's going to be a lot of Oliver, Roy, and BC in training, Laurel. That sucks because Original Team Arrow trio (O/F/D) is one of the main reasons I watch this show. I suspect that Team Arrow Trio is a big draw for a lot of people, actually. It seems like a really bad idea to break up the team, kill or pause the Oliver/Felicity romance, and double-down on Laurel. Actually, I'm pretty sure that these are the absolute worst things the EPs could do.

I actually did the same thing as I was typing my reply. Good doer or do-gooder? I had to check myself for a second to make sure I was using the incorrect KC version.

Sure, that's fair. And they don't have to tell anyone anything...they can just say "you'll have to watch and see." Simple as that. They don't have to lie so much as word things carefully. The pre-season stuff regarding Caity Lotz's role this year was very dishonest...that felt like lies to me and they could have just said that she won't be around much or something similarly vague. With most shows, I avoid spoilers and enjoy as I watch. That's nice because you have no expectations and you're more likely to be surprised by things that are happening. With Arrow, most surprises on this show are not what I consider enjoyable. I prefer to know what's coming so that I can bail before I invest too much time on something that's going to majorly piss me off.

Whenever I use that word about Laurel, I intentionally call her a good doer because of KC's improper use of the term. I think that others are doing it on purpose, for sure.

Unfortunately, I've probably been fooled a few too many times at this point. It's taken a long time, but I've eventually caught on that these guys aren't very honest, and they rarely deliver on their promises. They've eroded all trust to the point where I might not still be here by the time they're done messing with me.

But you'll get Nyssa/Laurel scenes :) I'm not really happy about that, BTW.

People are obviously expecting something to happen between Felicity and Oliver since the EPs and SA pushed that relationship so hard over the summer, so this is probably not the best way to answer the question if you want these people to be excited about tuning in for the remaining 21 episodes of the season.

^I get the sense that it will be like a thirty second scene or something. I guess that we'll know more after next week's episode, but I'm not sure it's enough to entice me to watch live.

From the Spoiler thread: I think that my dislike of Laurel is actually bleeding over into The Flash, because I'm having issues with Iris. I read The Flash episode two forum, and other people seem to like her, so I was wondering if it was just me. Her annoyance with Barry's love of science, and her unprofessionalism in journalism irritated me. Sometimes her tone of voice with Barry seems unnecessarily snotty to me...that's probably where my issue is coming from because that's a Laurel trait as well. I hope that it gets better because I don't want to hate Iris!

Not happy that Felicity will be mostly missing for episode four. Based on polls and such, she seems to be a favorite, so I would think that Arrow would want to make sure that she has a presence in every episode. I'm not too excited about episode three or four, actually. Taking to small talk thread.

I would like to know (not being sarcastic here), what is the purpose of Laurel Lance on Arrow? What does she offer that nobody else can?

Taking to Laurel thread.

Gosh, I hope that Sara's murderer doesn't end up being resurrected Tommy. I wasn't a Tommy fan, but I didn't actively hate the guy as I do Laurel. But if he was resurrected so that he could kill Sara so that Laurel could become BC...well, I probably will start hating the guy.

I'm not sure that I've ever watched a show where the people in charge actually resent a character they have created because their creation was a success. The death by dumpster, literal fridging, and burial in a wooden box seem like such overkill that I'm left wondering if the EPs had some major personal issue with Caity or what. It just seems like an awful way to treat an actress on your show. I wish that the EPs would get the memo re: Laurel Lance. If she was a successful character, people wouldn't be removing her image from the S3 poster, she wouldn't show up multiple places as "worst character", she wouldn't have been pushed aside as the love interest, and the guest actress that was hired to inhabit her "destined" role as BC wouldn't have become so popular. I sometimes wonder if there is a deliberate attempt to make Laurel as inept as possible, but then I realize that they just killed the only other viable BC option that they had. I can't fathom why they would have done that if they intend to resolve Laurel's arc by her not becoming BC. If you want to leave yourself an out, you don't get rid of your only backup, but that's exactly what they did. Here's hoping that if Laurel's story is an epic fail, the EPs just let it go. Stop trying to make it happen if people don't want it.

I'm not sure, but I think that if you fast forward, it might still count partially towards the ratings? Many times I will wait about a minute until after my show begins and then begin DVR playback and not fast forward through anything, letting the show play completely to the end. I was under the impression that would count towards ratings, but it is all very confusing.

SPOILER ALERT: Well, at least OUAT knew when to cut their losses.

I see. I thought that you only counted in the released numbers if you had a Nielsen's box. In the A18-49 ratings, what does the 2 in 0.8/2 mean?

I think that if you have a DVR and watch the complete episode from your DVR recording without fast-forwarding you are somehow counted in ratings, but these ratings are not released. I guess that it's best to watch the episode within three days but you also count in there if you watch it within a week. Here's what @bravelittletoaster said about DVR viewing in another thread: So if you want to watch but don't want to contribute to ratings, record the episode onto your DVR but watch it live on a non-DVR TV set and then delete the unwatched episode off of your DVR after a week. I'm expecting ratings to go down for next week's episode based on the fact that there was very little Olicity stuff and lots of Laurel stuff. Just my opinion, and a complete guess so I could be absolutely wrong on that.

I'm feeling like I did after the Lance family drama arc of season 2B. Meh. Not liking this at all and not very eager to see where it is going.

I'm surprised that Ted Grant wasn't in the promo for episode three. I might tune in to see his intro, but I get the impression that next week features very little Felicity. I think I'm skipping episode four since there's little or no Felicity in that one. The first half of the season isn't sounding that great to me, actually.

Ready for the "Who Killed Sara" mystery to be over already. I don't care and I'm not sure how that storyline can be sustained for half a season. It should be a three episode arc at best.