Maiden Voyage: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
The CW has cornered the market on the televised DC Universe (DCU). With Arrow and The Flash pulling in big numbers (and Supergirl [same production team] doing great for their parent company CBS) it makes sense that they would want to try to beat Marvel at their own game by creating their own crossover series featuring characters from each parent show. That show is DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
Pulling established characters from Arrow (Ray Palmer/The A.T.O.M. [Brandon Routh] & Sara Lance/White Canary [Caity Lotz]) and The Flash (Martin Stein [Victor Garber], Jefferson “Jax” Jackson [Franz Drameh]/Firestorm, Mick Rory/Heatwave [Dominic Purcell], Captain Cold [Wentworth Miller]) along with crossover characters (Carter Hall/Hawkman [Falk Hentschel], Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl [Ciara Renée], and Vandal Savage [Casper Crump]) and pairing all of them with new character Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) is a risky move. This is like a television version of what Marvel did with Marvel’s The Avengers (and what they plan on doing on Netflix with The Defenders). And, with 9 series regulars this could’ve proved a costly mistake had it failed.
But, I think it’s going to be fine.
The pilot episode requires a little bit of pre-knowledge of the universe but even new viewers should be able to jump right into the action as the cast is assembled to begin their time travelling journey to stop a super villain. Little but perfunctory lip-service is paid the to parent shows and the action kicks up pretty quickly as the team makes their way to 1975. The time travel conceit allows the show to go anywhere and do anything. Established DCU characters can show up ant any point along their time lines (current Arrow baddie Damian Dahrk (Neal McDonough) is already confirmed to be appearing in some younger incarnation) and new characters can be brought on from DC’s vast character inventory (Jonah Hex (Jonathan Schaech) has already been announced and the future Green Arrow, Connor Hawke, could also show up).
The action is well done, in that CW way that we’re used to, and even the battle with the villain of the episode is fun. And the effects, especially the design of the time ship (The Waverider) is pretty great (although the interior halls look like redresses of The Flash’s pipeline).
The only bad I even find is that with 9 series regulars, the pilot kind of bows under the weight of trying to give each character their own moment. That and the fact that the bulk of the pilot hinges on ties to the least known of the cast makes the initial emotional impact of the story less weighty than I think it cold have been. But, the show was picked up to series before a pilot was even shot so I think The CW has enough faith in this show to let it grow as needed.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is probably going to be a fun show. Tonally it seems to be the action hybrid of it’s Dark and/or Wacky parents. If The CW believes in it as strongly as they seem to it should have a nice long road ahead of it. But, it will need to balance out it’s enormous cast and time-hopping premise before they can really take off. B