The Flash (TV Series, Season 3)
Jul. 19th, 2017 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroBarry Allen makes terrible life choices and breaks space-time. Following time-travelling to finally save his mother, Barry discovers that this didn’t actually make the world better, and even after he “fixes” it, subtle changes have infected the reality he knew. And elements from the “Flashpoint” timeline start bleeding over, as well.
They finally got Barry and Iris together without dragging out a will-they/won’t-they, thank goodness. Of course, they still fill it all with drama (and they really layer on everybody else's romantic plots), but at least they successfully make it to the “dating” stage.
I’m actually pretty happy with, “Because it makes an unholy mess of the timeline and has a zillion unforeseen consequences,” as the explanation for, “Why doesn’t Barry just always time-travel and fix everything?” I mean, time travel in this universe is exceedingly timey-whimey, to the point where it just does whatever the writers feel like that week, but that provides all the more reason why Barry should stop screwing around with it.
Their ability to repurpose actors is really rather marvelous. We get yet another different Harrison Wells (“HR”, the happy con artist idea man Wells from Earth-19), as well as repeated appearances of Jay Garrick, Earth-3 doppleganger of Henry Allen. Jethrien really disliked HR (as did plenty of other fans, I'm sure) though I thought his interactions with Earth-2 Harry were worth the price of admission. Also, I can't wait to see who they bring in as Season 4 Wells.
With Gypsy's first appearance, I was shocked they didn't “sting” that episode by revealing her name was Francesca Ramon and that she was Cisco's doppleganger from Earth-19. (Then again, they never give her real name. She still might be!)
The season is clearly divided into two parts: “I need to fix the problems created by Flashpoint” which was basically through Christmas break, and “I need to stop Savitar from killing Iris in the future.” (They even changed the opening monologue to reflect this.) The couple of episodes on Earth-2 stopping Grodd were clearly filler, though watching the Harry and HR interactions almost made it worth it. Also the part where Harry plays Wally like a goddamn fiddle. (I suspect what they really needed was a middle arc between the two, so the “saving Iris” thing could be condensed a bit. The last third of the season dragged after all he buildup in the middle third.)
The CGI effects broke my suspension of disbelief in a few places, though were at least as good as previous seasons and definitely in more heavy use. Jay Garrick being tossed around by Savitar looked like a video game; and the Gorillas of Gorilla City look like fursuit teddy bears. (The lack of proper anatomy, while necessary for network TV, actually was part of what made them look so weird.) On the other hand, the super-speed sequences were often really awesome, and Savitar's armor looked really good.
The musical crossover episode with Supergirl (and Legends of Tomorrow, sorta-kinda, as Victor Garber and John Barrowman joined in for the musical dream sequence) was a delight. If they made an entire series of Kara and Barry doing cheesy numbers like, “I’m Your Super-Friend,” I could watch that for years.
And the question of what will happen next season: My guess is that we'll start off with a new status quo (Wally as the primary Flash, a revamped Team Flash with Tracy replacing Caitlin, no Wells, etc) but it'll be back to the setup we know within the first nine episodes, possibly even by episode 2. I also wouldn't be surprised if, especially given the “broken time” hook for Legends of Tomorrow, they try to heavily cut back on time-travel shenanigans.
Overall: The season was uneven, with some bits I really enjoyed and some that were kinda dumb; and the overall arc got tiring by the end. But I still like the show and I'm still on the hook for the next season.
They finally got Barry and Iris together without dragging out a will-they/won’t-they, thank goodness. Of course, they still fill it all with drama (and they really layer on everybody else's romantic plots), but at least they successfully make it to the “dating” stage.
I’m actually pretty happy with, “Because it makes an unholy mess of the timeline and has a zillion unforeseen consequences,” as the explanation for, “Why doesn’t Barry just always time-travel and fix everything?” I mean, time travel in this universe is exceedingly timey-whimey, to the point where it just does whatever the writers feel like that week, but that provides all the more reason why Barry should stop screwing around with it.
Their ability to repurpose actors is really rather marvelous. We get yet another different Harrison Wells (“HR”, the happy con artist idea man Wells from Earth-19), as well as repeated appearances of Jay Garrick, Earth-3 doppleganger of Henry Allen. Jethrien really disliked HR (as did plenty of other fans, I'm sure) though I thought his interactions with Earth-2 Harry were worth the price of admission. Also, I can't wait to see who they bring in as Season 4 Wells.
With Gypsy's first appearance, I was shocked they didn't “sting” that episode by revealing her name was Francesca Ramon and that she was Cisco's doppleganger from Earth-19. (Then again, they never give her real name. She still might be!)
The season is clearly divided into two parts: “I need to fix the problems created by Flashpoint” which was basically through Christmas break, and “I need to stop Savitar from killing Iris in the future.” (They even changed the opening monologue to reflect this.) The couple of episodes on Earth-2 stopping Grodd were clearly filler, though watching the Harry and HR interactions almost made it worth it. Also the part where Harry plays Wally like a goddamn fiddle. (I suspect what they really needed was a middle arc between the two, so the “saving Iris” thing could be condensed a bit. The last third of the season dragged after all he buildup in the middle third.)
The CGI effects broke my suspension of disbelief in a few places, though were at least as good as previous seasons and definitely in more heavy use. Jay Garrick being tossed around by Savitar looked like a video game; and the Gorillas of Gorilla City look like fursuit teddy bears. (The lack of proper anatomy, while necessary for network TV, actually was part of what made them look so weird.) On the other hand, the super-speed sequences were often really awesome, and Savitar's armor looked really good.
The musical crossover episode with Supergirl (and Legends of Tomorrow, sorta-kinda, as Victor Garber and John Barrowman joined in for the musical dream sequence) was a delight. If they made an entire series of Kara and Barry doing cheesy numbers like, “I’m Your Super-Friend,” I could watch that for years.
And the question of what will happen next season: My guess is that we'll start off with a new status quo (Wally as the primary Flash, a revamped Team Flash with Tracy replacing Caitlin, no Wells, etc) but it'll be back to the setup we know within the first nine episodes, possibly even by episode 2. I also wouldn't be surprised if, especially given the “broken time” hook for Legends of Tomorrow, they try to heavily cut back on time-travel shenanigans.
Overall: The season was uneven, with some bits I really enjoyed and some that were kinda dumb; and the overall arc got tiring by the end. But I still like the show and I'm still on the hook for the next season.
