Having established its aptitude for small-screen superheroics via Arrow and The Flash, The CW turns its eye to team-ups with Legends Of Tomorrow, which sees time-traveller Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) recruit a number of supporting cast members from its sister shows, including Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh), Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) and Leonard ‘Captain Cold’ Snart (Wentworth Miller) to thwart immortal do-badder Vandal Savage (Casper Crump).
Inevitably, the results is chaos, this oddball ensemble seemingly intent on imploding rather than actually completing the mission they were assembled for. This confusion radiates throughout the rest of the show, which seemingly takes a while to decide exactly what it wants to be. Is it a buddy comedy, an attempt at creating The CW’s own Justice League, or a mission-of-the-week serial?
Compounding this are some creative choices that are a far cry from the well-oiled machine that we’re used to seeing from a Greg Berlanti production. The dialogue on Arrow and The Flash is never exactly clunk-free, but here far more lines fall flat – it simply doesn’t always feel like it has the guiding hand that its forebears benefited from.
Compounding this, some characters definitely fare better than others. While Snart and Mick ‘Heat Wave’ Rory (Dominic Purcell) grab the lion’s share of the best lines, and Firestorm duo Martin Stein (Victor Garber) and Jefferson (Franz Drameh) continue their odd-couple dynamic, the Hawk-couple (Ciara Renée and Falk Hentschel) never really gel with the rest of the cast, and at times Lotz’s Sara feels like a completely different character.
Despite this, things do get better. Later developments mean this ends up being far from the consequence-free temporary time romp we had assumed: the characters have been altered forever. Highlights include ‘Left Behind’, which as half the team stranded in Fifties Oregon, and ‘The Magnificent Eight’, showcasing The CW’s take on Jonah Hex (far better than the film version, in case you were wondering).
By the final two episodes, and Legends Of Tomorrow finally seems to have found its feet. It may have taken a while to get there, but now there’s the sense that it knows what it is and what it has the potential to be.
