Arrow: Star City 2040 – Television Review

There are some constants for almost every new season of Arrow. A mysterious character from Oliver Queen's past resurfaced in December. Some costumed yahoo try to blow up the city in May. And in between, viewers receive an entire episode dedicated to continuing the current flashback scenario. The latter has not changed with the transition from flashbacks to flash-forward. "Star City 2040" looks more closely at the state of crisis in the city for 20 years. And in the process, it presents both the advantages and disadvantages of flash-forward.

I was pretty ripped for the flash-forward all season. In theory, this new element is an excellent addition to the series. It's a way to honor the approach of the first five seasons while looking to the future rather than the back. And in some cases, this material ends up interweaving poignantly with the present. Seeing the deplorable state of Star City around 2040 and the broken nature of the Arrow team rightly reminds us that our heroes are doomed to fail in the end.

On the other hand, the actual intrigue that drove these flash-forwarding has never been particularly convincing. Everything is dominated by intrigues involving Felicity's complicated treasure hunt and familiar characters reappearing in older, sharper forms. The more characters stacked in this scenario, the slower it becomes. And knowing now that there are less than 20 episodes to Arrow in his life, it is feared that the show will be wasting time that could be better spent elsewhere.

"Star City 2040" did not do as much to solve these problems as it could have. Of course, having a more concentrated dose of flash-forward has helped advance the story. We had the long-awaited debut of Old Woman Felicity (did anyone really believe that she was dead?) And a major confrontation between Team Arrow 2.0 and Galaxy One. But again, the series does a mediocre job of giving this conflict a real meaning. Galaxy One and its terrorist supporters appear as a generic enemy occupying a predictable niche. The show apparently needs another villain who is planning to blow up the city (a company that had already tried the same shtick on Flash last season), so here we are.

And there's always the fact that flash-forward really started to slide when the entire Team Arrow team is looking for space. This series has often had difficulty accepting the fact that it has more characters than it can use. Flash-forwarding just seems to make this problem worse. Even though Colton Haynes is back in a recurring role, what is Roy really for at this point? Same thing for René and Zoé. Again, too many characters and not enough room to do them justice. And do not get me started in the extremely inconsistent makeup attempts. Why are Dinah and René the only two older characters to look 20 years old?

Keeping this in mind, it is not a coincidence that the best scene of this episode is one that has taken a narrower turn. focused on the central family dynamics of the queen. If nothing else, "Star City 2040" was a boon for Mia. We have seen what it means to be raised by Felicity in almost total isolation (apart from Aunt Nyssa's periodic visits). These first documents, paired with the subsequent meeting between Mia and Felicity, shed much light on their relationship. And all the while, Ollie's specter covered all that. We still have to ask ourselves where he is and if he is really doomed to die in the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" cross this year. The series is almost too blatant about teasing the prospect at this point.

In the same way, this episode greatly enriched the difficult dynamic between Mia and William. It's fun to see the dynamics of their brother / sister and the way we subvert the familiar Ollie / Felicity formula. This episode did not do much with Connor, he did not hint at his romantic past with Mia, but I would like the three to establish their own version of the team clbadic Ollie / Felicity / Diggle. this flash-forward story. This material has much to offer, both for its ability to move the status quo of the series and to offer a gloomy reflection on the ultimate failure of Team Arrow's mission. The problem was to stay focused on these qualities and not get bogged down in useless minutiae and stars.

If Arrow is setting up a series of central spinoffs, as many have suggested, let's hope that the writers take a long look at what has worked and what has not not worked this season. Because in the current state of things, this parameter is not powerful enough to justify its own fallout.