Arrow (season 1)
"My name is Oliver Queen. For five years I was stranded on an island with only one goal - survive. Now I will fulfill my father's dying wish - to use the list of names he left me and bring down those who are poisoning my city. To do this, I must become someone else. I must become something else."
release year: 2012-13
genre: TV action/adventure
viewing setting: home DVD 9/21-27/14 and just the pilot on cable TV, 1/11/13
synopsis: After spending five years stranded on an uncharted island, a billionaire returns to clean up his city using fighting skills, attitude, and his bow and arrow.
impressions: This is a modern adaptation of the Green Arrow comic book character, and I watched the series premiere shortly after it came out back in 2012. Then, two years later, I watched the entire 23-episode first season in the space of a week. This is good stuff - serious, violent, with plenty of action, and an entire other series of events told in flashback. The Arrow can fight, he's athletic and agile, and he has a take-no-crap attitude toward crime. He tries not to kill, but he will when forced to, as evidenced by the 26 bodies he's put in the morgue by episode #20. This is a series I'll keep watching.
acting: Stephen Amell is the hero, and is very convincing, leaping and fighting and shooting with great efficiency. Katie Cassidy is his old love interest, and Colin Donnell is the third piece of that triangle. Paul Blackthorne (who looks like a fusion of Walton Goggins and Billy Bob Thornton) is her father, whos also the head cop investigating the Arrow. David Ramsey is the Arrow's very competent partner, and Emily Bett Rickards is a sassy IT chick who also ends up helping. Susanna Thompson is Oliver's evil mother, while Willa Holland is his sometimes-immature younger sister. Manu Bennett is a kick-ass mercenary from the flashbacks.
final word: Well-done comic hero television.
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