S01.E01: City Of Heroes

[Kromm]

Yes it's "Meteor Freaks of the Week" all over again.  That said, that doesn't necessarily have to be bad... and so far certainly isn't.

 

Also, Timey-Wimeyness is always fun, and we're certainly due a lot of that.

 

Certainly we have certain huge expectation of almost every character based on their names, so I am very interested in where they change things up, and why.

What's so great (so far) is that they've managed a sense of joy (which is so absent from Arrow, for example).  That makes all the difference in the world.

 

I have to say the show's position on Secret Identities surprised me. No games. It's secret, but only kind of/sort of.  Some enemies and friends alike know right from moment one who's in the goofy red suit, and that's certainly going to matter down the line.

 

I could nitpick at a few things (some of the pacing and exposition), but they WOULD just be nitpicks.  For the most part this was damn close to perfect (even the parts that were predictable, like their "twist" ending--which knowing a bit of Flash history I totally expected).

Edited October 10, 2014 by Kromm

[cynic]

Thanks VCRTracking :)

[Amelie06]

I really enjoyed this show. Grant Gustin is great. The pilot definitely had enough in it to keep me excited for the next episode. I also liked the detective who is secretly sexing West's daughter. That guy is good looking and, oddly, has been catching up on Barry's blog.

 

I love that Barry was raised in a black family, you rarely see that on tv shows. I can't think of another example, although I'm sure there is one.

 

I didn't like West's overprotective schtick. How old are Barry and Iris supposed to be? Why does Iris allow her father to dictate so much of her life? Grow up, girl. Speaking of Iris...

 

 

Iamsweetdee, on 08 Oct 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

    Eta: yay for Iris! About time the CW acknowledged 1) Black women exist and 2) are desirable.

The CW or any other network, really. This is the only genre show that has a lead black woman, who is considered worthy of romantic love by the male lead. I'm thankful they are not telling me she's too busy for love, a strong woman that needs no man or that there is a white woman woman out there, who should be getting all the male attention instead. This is a show worthy of the label "diverse".

I totally and completely agree with this.  They better not be thinking of replacing Iris with that Star Labs chick! She always looks like she is either bored or on the brink of tears. That seems to just be her face! Iris can tone down the perkiness a bit. If she keeps it up, I will suspect she is a secret coke-head.  Anyway, I liked the dynamic between Barry and Iris. I hope he isn't just giving her longing looks for the next 15 episodes.

 

Wells standing up and looking sketchy at the end was awesome. I'm not sure if he is a villain or just someone working his own angle, but I can't wait to find out. Did anyone catch the third story on the newspaper? It was in really small writing, but I thought it said something about Wayne and Queen. I could be 100% wrong.

[ohjoy]

It said "Wayne Tech / Queen Inc Merger Complete". Hee.

[slayer2]

Little things like that make me happy. Community has a lot of those things on the chalkboard of the study room as well. Nice to see a superhero show with a sense of humour. Finally.

[cambridgeguy]

 

It said "Wayne Tech / Queen Inc Merger Complete". Hee.

It must not have been much of a crisis if they had room for a business deal on the front page. 

[AudienceofOne]

didn't like West's overprotective schtick. How old are Barry and Iris supposed to be? Why does Iris allow her father to dictate so much of her life?

 

 

What was with that? "I'm not a cop because my Dad didn't let me be". Seriously? Add to that her bouncing into and out of scenes like some full-grown Energiser Bunny and I was really unimpressed with her character. All these female love interest characters created in the 50s are godawful. They're all "plucky" but ultimately damselly and submissive. These shows only work when they transcend that.

 

I was personally unimpressed with the pilot. I liked Barry - I liked him in Arrow - but apart from that the whole episode was derivative. It felt a lot like Smallville, actually.

[Kromm]

What was with that? "I'm not a cop because my Dad didn't let me be". Seriously? Add to that her bouncing into and out of scenes like some full-grown Energiser Bunny and I was really unimpressed with her character. All these female love interest characters created in the 50s are godawful. They're all "plucky" but ultimately damselly and submissive. These shows only work when they transcend that.

And yet she's not even that character created in the 50s.  I'm not even referring to her skin tone, or even her relationship relative to Barry, but rather her career. 50s Iris West was at least a Lois Lane proxy and could be worked into stories in an active role (even if it fell a lot into damsel in distress and her needing to be rescued). This Iris is a waitress, and I seem to recall some early spoilers that they were planning to make her into a psychology student at some point.

[The Crazed Spruce]

And yet she's not even that character created in the 50s.  I'm not even referring to her skin tone, or even her relationship relative to Barry, but rather her career. 50s Iris West was at least a Lois Lane proxy and could be worked into stories in an active role (even if it fell a lot into damsel in distress and her needing to be rescued). This Iris is a waitress, and I seem to recall some early spoilers that they were planning to make her into a psychology student at some point.

There's also the fact that, at least by the time I started reading in the late 70's-early 80's,

not only were Barry and Iris married, but she knew his secret identity

.  That set her apart from the typical comic-book love interest of the day, IMO.

[bettername2come]

This Iris is a waitress, and I seem to recall some early spoilers that they were planning to make her into a psychology student at some point.

 

She seems to be a grad student of some kind. She mentioned working on her dissertation when they were in Barry's lab at the beginning. 

[caracas1914]

The Carlos Valdes perpetual smirking was getting on my nerves, other then that, great premiere.

[Kromm]

There's also the fact that, at least by the time I started reading in the late 70's-early 80's,

not only were Barry and Iris married, but she knew his secret identity

.  That set her apart from the typical comic-book love interest of the day, IMO.

Well they couldn't

even leave that alone, could they? I mean how many times did they have her die, or Barry die, or some other thorn in their being together? And when they tried doing the same with Lois Lane, that wasn't allowed to happen for very long either.

She seems to be a grad student of some kind. She mentioned working on her dissertation when they were in Barry's lab at the beginning. 

So... not a reporter.

[bettername2come]

She seems to be a grad student of some kind. She mentioned working on her dissertation when they were in Barry's lab at the beginning.

So... not a reporter.

 

My point is that if she is a grad student in psychology it might open gates to have her involved in cases. Knowing she had an interest in being a police officer, criminal psychology might be the route she would take.

[1TrackMind]

This show is one big 'Where do I know you from?'

Seeing West: 'I know him.' Roomie: 'Law and Order, he was a cop.' 'OOHhhhhhh yyeeaahhhhh I remember now: Really stretching then, isn't he?' Joking aside, I liked him and his snarky self.

Roomie thought she recognized Caitlin, I just thought she looked a lot like Simmons from Agents of SHIELD as has been noted before.

Wheelchair guy Tom Cavanagh was another 'I know you.'

This show made me smile. Yeah there is issues, not perfect by a long shot but for someone whose only exposure was Wally in the JLU cartoon (In which he rapidly became my favourite) and does not watch Arrow, this was a very satisfying beginning.

[Kromm]

Tom Cavanagh isn't that hard to peg, as long as you are among us oldsters.  I mean Ed was over a whole decade ago!  The Beiber generation was practically in diapers!

(okay, not really, but close enough!)

[thuganomics85]

Also, since it's a show in Vancouver, many of the small roles made me go "Hey, I remember them from that Canadian-based show!"  For example, Barry's mom was on Continuum.  The police chief was in Arrow, in one of the Vertigo episodes.  The bald-headed uniform cop has been in almost everything shot in Canada (The Tomorrow People, Lost Girl, The 100.)

 

Also, I recognized Joe's partner from his guest stint on Person of Interest, although I believe he's actually from New York (Al Sapienza is his name.)  But, that's always one of my favorite things about shows shot in Canada.  There is a certain group of actors and actresses that is always used over and over again, on these types of shows..

Edited October 13, 2014 by thuganomics85

[ohjoy]

Barry's mom will always be Psych!Dean to me from the Supernatural epidode where Sam and Dean got themselves comitted to a psych ward for a case.

[DigitalCount]

I'm pretty sure one of those Panabakers was on No Ordinary Family too. If anyone watched that show.

I can safely say I loved it. It did feel a bit Raimi-Spidey, but that is fine by me. I love a good speedster scene, and this show will be full of them, hopefully. Or, a bunch of papers whooshing as GG walks into frame. I'm not too picky.

[bettername2come]

I'm pretty sure one of those Panabakers was on No Ordinary Family too. If anyone watched that show.

 

I did! That was Kay. Danielle was in Sky High, so both have backgrounds in superheroics.

[Primetimer]

Before the second episode of The Flash, relive the series premiere, in which Barry Allen uses his new powers as The Flash to battle a weather-controlling baddie!

Read the story

[arc]

 

My absolute favorite part of this episode was the detective, Joe West, finding out right away that Barry had powers; that just made the episode for me. Not dragging out the big secret was wonderfully refreshing.

That part was great! A few minutes later in the show, when West said "don't tell Iris, that'll keep her safe somehow", I groaned out loud.  Such bullshit. And when has a superhero's friend/spouse/etc ever been safer for not knowing? Jimmy Olsen got into all sorts of trouble and he never knew about Clark being Supes.

I just had a feeling Wells was shady, shame though.

Yeah, I really wanted to like Tom Cavanaugh's character! But tbh, there really is no reason for a non-evil genius to have a prison cell in his big ol' particle accelerator building, and especially not a

gorilla prison

.

 

Ugh. I felt like I was watching Smallville 2.0.

Haha! I haven't watched SV since like season 3, but I just remembered TWOP used to call out all the anvilicious dialogue. Good lord, this show. "I guess I wasn't fast enough."

 

 

Discovering that Weather Wizard and all the potential future metahumans in this show originated from that energy explosion reminded me of the first season of Smallville and made me roll my eyes a bit.

I feel like Hollywood writers (or execs?) always want there to be just One Weird Thing that's responsible for all the weird stuff. That, or it gives everyone a thematic tie-in where they're all superpower siblings.  But I hate it; it's not at all like (most) comics that just say "this is a comic book universe and there's a Speed Force, Kryptonians, Oan power rings, Nth metal, Gingold soda, etc."

 

Edit: I know "you should have backups" is an incredibly shitty thing to say to someone who just lost a computer for any reason, but really, a masters or PhD student should have backups. And put her dissertation stuff in the cloud somehow too, like Dropbox.

Edited October 14, 2014 by arc

[millennium]

Yay, this was fun. So much better than Gotham. 

Longtime Batman fan.   Please don't get me started on that whole mess.

[MadyGirl1987]

Ugh. I felt like I was watching Smallville 2.0.

Iris=Lana

Metahumans=Meteor Freaks

Lab guy and girl=Pete and Chloe

Even having old Flash guy as Barry's dad is very Smallville-y.

This so much! Glad I am not the only one to notice this! Enjoyed it, but it was like watching Smallville again. I can even see the wheelchair scientist (banking on his name) being like Lex Luthor. Someone the hero is friends with eventually but eventually becomes a villain.

Overall, thought it was promising and a great start. Enjoyable.

[Trini]

So, on re-watch, the "don't tell Iris" thing is really flimsy from the get-go. If Joe had said "Don't tell anyone", I might have been okay with that. But he singles out Iris specifically. And he doesn't necessarily know that she will be "safe" by being ignorant. Maybe if he had actually seen something that showed that Barry's powers could be dangerous to others around him, Joe (and Barry) would have a leg to stand on.

[MarkHB]

I can even see the wheelchair scientist (banking on his name) being like Lex Luthor. Someone the hero is friends with eventually but eventually becomes a villain.

Prescient, that.

[CabotCove]

This thread resurfacing reminds me how terrible this episode's title was. Unoriginal and totally off topic 

Edited May 29, 2015 by Conell

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

Have to agree with Conell.  The title kinda makes one go "huh?!".  I try harder than most to overlook mistakes, but really guys.

 

The actual title of the episode only made sense for one scene, and that scene technically took place in Starling City. 

 

That kind of obvious mistake is not at all "Cool!". 

[nksarmi]

So, on re-watch, the "don't tell Iris" thing is really flimsy from the get-go. If Joe had said "Don't tell anyone", I might have been okay with that. But he singles out Iris specifically. And he doesn't necessarily know that she will be "safe" by being ignorant. Maybe if he had actually seen something that showed that Barry's powers could be dangerous to others around him, Joe (and Barry) would have a leg to stand on.

I don't take issue with him saying "don't tell Iris."  He knew Barry would want to tell her and he probably knows that otherwise, Barry is a fairly private person (my impression from growing up with a dad in prison for killing his mom) so there was no need to give him the "don't tell anyone" speech.  And I don't think it's a matter of knowing that Barry's powers would be dangerous - it's a matter of knowing Barry's powers defy what humans currently know and understand and he was still working on processing it and he was pretty sure it he wanted his daughter protected from it. 

 

I think about the time Joe made the decision to tell Eddie, he should have changed his mind about his "don't tell Iris" policy, but to me, I don't blame him for taking that stance in the beginning.

[bettername2come]

I thought this was a title of an Arrow episode. Was it used for both?

[jaytee1812]

I thought this was a title of an Arrow episode. Was it used for both?

I thought that too.

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

I thought this was a title of an Arrow episode. Was it used for both?

 

You are correct.  It was Arrow's s2 premiere episode title.