The new superhero TV show Arrow is right on target to be a success! The CW has definitely hit the bullseye! Let me William Tell you how good it is! But I kid, I kid; we have some fun here. Amazing puns aside, the first episode of Arrow was pretty damn good, showing us that this new Green Arrow series might be a real straight shooter. That was the last one, I promise. But seriously, this was good TV. There is always some hesitation when it comes to bringing a serious superhero to the small screen, where the show runners don’t have access to the same kinds of budgets as Hollywood movies. I don’t know why, but there’s just a higher frequency of screw ups when it comes to superheroes on TV compared to superheroes in the movies.

Why this difference exists, who knows? But with a focus on character, a lot of fun twists and the promise of a lot more excitement to come, Arrow is going to make other superhero TV shows green with envy. Yep, I went there.

4/5: Good!

Dark and brooding? Check. Bat Symbol? No check.

The previews for Arrow have looked great, so I’ve had a lot of hope for this series, and the first episode did not let me down. Green Arrow is a character who doesn’t rely on a lot of flashy super powers, so his Batman-esque style of crime fighting is easily portrayed on the small screen. His costume isn’t flashy either, so again, a solid translation – though I’m still very concerned about the choice to wear eye makeup instead of an actual mask. It would do nothing to protect Green Arrow’s identity. The fight choreography and the action scenes are very well done, with an emphasis on parkour-like jumping and running. I like that. With movies like the Jason Bourne trilogy turning parkour style rooftop running into a legitimately exciting event, it makes perfect sense to use it with a superhero. I hope we get to see more of that kind of athleticism.

The rest of the show is bolstered by some great character work. Stephen Amell does a great job as Oliver Queen, all hard abs and good looks. I really got a sense that he was a changed/new man trying to poke his way back into a life that he’d lost for five years. Or maybe he just naturally has that far-away sort of look. Either way, I felt he did a good job, and could carry this show. The rest of the cast was really good, especially Colin Donnell as his best buddy Merlyn (more on him later) and Paul Blackthorne as Detective Lance. They really established themselves well.

The rest of the cast, like love interest Dinah “Laurel” Lance (Katie Cassidy) and younger sister Thea Queen (Willa Holland), do a good enough job establishing their characters, but don’t particularly stand out in the first episode. The rest of the cast, likewise, have weak starts, but a lot of promise, hopefully.

I think the best thing Arrow has going for it so far is potential. Along with establishing Oliver Queen’s new status quo, they also fill the episode with hints, flashbacks and mysteries that are legitimately interesting, and could easily propel the series forward. Likewise, the future of several character relationships intrigues me. So yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to more Arrow, and I thought the pilot was fantastic.

Join me for more after the jump! And there will be SPOILERS for the first episode, as well as possible Green Arrow in general.

There are several big differences when it comes to bringing superheroes to the small screen vs. the big screen. A higher caliber of actor, a bigger budget and a much shorter running time. In two hours, movie directors can better frame how their characters look, act and they can wrap up all the stories quickly with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of CGI. TV shows have to stretch out the stories and the plots in episode after episode, and they have to do it with much smaller budgets and without making their main character look stupid.

Because, let’s face it, superhero costumes look rather silly in the real world. They never look as good as they do in the comics.

Which is why I think Green Arrow is a great choice for a show, because the makers of Arrow don’t have to deal with flashy super powers that require awkward CGI, and his costume can be modified into something a legitimate human being might wear. Granted, I still don’t approve of the eye makeup thing, but someone who actually works in TV made that decision, and it is on them now. The rest of the get up, from the hood, the outfit and the bow for a weapon, work perfectly for TV. It’s not too crazy, and it’s actually a pretty good look. Plus, as The Hunger Games, Brave and The Avengers taught us, bow and arrows are cool now.

They are also very pointy

The show seems to have a nice handle on the main character. They’ve got a good actor in the lead role, very attractive, and one who can apparently pull off the extreme athleticism required by the role. I really hope they push that parkour stuff, it’ll make for good TV. And the bow and arrow is just a cool weapon, much more exciting to watch instead of a gun. The makers of Arrow should not be afraid to steal some of Hawkeye’s moves from The Avengers movie.

So I like the look, I like the main character, I like his modus operandi, and I definitely like the story. The show is all dark and moody, and that works perfectly. It’s kind of obvious that the producers probably wish they were making a Batman TV show, but that was never going to happen. Green Arrow, likewise, was never going to get his own Hollywood movie, so this is a nice compromise on everyone’s part.

Arrow sticks pretty close to the comics in terms of Green Arrow’s origin. Oliver Queen was a rich party boy heir, like Paris Hilton back when she was a thing. Then one night, while out partying on his family’s yacht, a storm hits and Ollie is thrown overboard. He’s the only survivor, and he washes up on a deserted island. For five years, Ollie is forced to live off the land. This is where he picks up the archery skill, having fashioned a crude bow and arrow set from the island – or maybe he finds one. Either way, he gets his hands on a bow and a bunch of arrows and uses them to survive and find food, making him pretty damn good at archery.

But not so good at shaving

The five years on the island also change him as a person. When he’s rescued and returned home – long after everyone thought he’d died – Ollie is a new man. No longer a party boy, he now has a social conscience, and he wants to help people. He wants to punish the corrupt, so he fashions himself a costume to hide his identity, and then uses his new skills to set about righting wrongs.

The show follows this pretty closely, and fortunately doesn’t dwell on the origin – at least not yet. The first episode picks up just as Ollie is rescued, and it’s mostly about his reintegration into Starling City. The yacht crash and his life on the island are told in flashbacks, and one great thing the show does is make us realize that a lot more happened on that boat and on that island than we’re initially led to believe. It’s pretty clear that something happened during those five years, more so than just Ollie scrambling around a jungle looking for food. For example, at some point, he ran into this guy:

Badassery incarnate

That’s Deathstroke the Terminator, a popular DC comic book character and expert mercenary. His iconic mask was briefly glimpsed on the island, meaning Ollie had some kind of run in with him during those five years. We’ll find out more when Deathstroke appears in a later episode.

I, for one, am very excited by this prospect, even if it’s going to be told in flashbacks. What glimpses we saw of his island life got me really invested in the story, especially the shocking end to Ollie’s father on the life raft. That was definitely a moment that grabbed me. And it’s Ollie’s father that drives the plot and the superheroics. It seems that in their final moments together, Papa Queen revealed to Ollie all the dark corporate secrets of Starling City, and gave him a list of the corrupt. So when Ollie is rescued, he’s going to use his father’s notes and information to hunt down the corrupt businessmen and politicians of Starling City in order to make them pay.

This reminds me a little too much of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo. Hopefully the list doesn’t remain the only plot point for too long.

I also hope that future flashbacks show us how Ollie came to possess the bow and arrow on the island, as well as clearly explains that he developed these skills to hunt and survive. Both because I think it’s just neat, and it would help unfamiliar audiences understand why Green Arrow actually uses a bow and arrow instead of anything else.

Maybe he just thinks they’re pretty

The rest of the cast goes from good to mediocre. Ollie’s best friend Tommy Merlyn is a lot of fun, though readers of Green Arrow comics know that his last name leads to bad tidings. But I won’t spoil anything just yet in that regard. Love interest Dinah Lance wasn’t anything special, at least not in the first episode. She just happens to be one of those goody two shoes crusading attorneys, fighting selflessly for the poor and whatnot. That’s kind of boring. It’s also kind of boring that Ollie only has eyes for her, even though, on the night of the yacht crash, he was banging Dinah’s sister. Ollie brought the sister along instead, and the sister died when the yacht sank. So Ollie was a real jackass, and Dinah really gives him what for in this episode. But I hope they expand the love interest options as the show goes on, because I just think it’ll be boring if the whole show is about Ollie pursuing this one woman over and over.

Even if, in the comics, she’s the superhero Black Canary. No hints of that in the show, though.

It helps that Dinah and Merlyn are sleeping together. That was a fun surprise at the very end of the episode, sure to provide some future complications.

What are friends for?

It was also cool when it was revealed that the police detective who is investigating Green Arrow turns out to be Dinah’s father – as well as the father of the sister lost at sea. At first you think he’s just going to be the typical cop in a superhero program, but then he gets that twist that adds a lot more depth.

Ollie’s family life is also pretty solidly put together. He’s got his mother and a new step-father, and the show has a little fun by twisting expectations. They make you think that the stepfather/former business partner might be a bad guy, only to reveal it was the mother who is really trying to find out what Ollie’s father told him about the corrupt people of Starling City. Ollie also gets a no-nonsense bodyguard/chauffeur who will probably become an ally before too long. He seemed cool enough, if a little extraneous.

Ollie also has a sister in the show, one who’s childhood nickname was ‘Speedy’. For anyone unfamiliar with the comics, Speedy was Green Arrow’s sidekick, the Robin to his Batman, if you will. While I doubt Ollie’s sister is going to become his sidekick, at least it’s a neat way to incorporate the idea of Speedy. Because, let’s face it, ‘Speedy’ is a horrible superhero name. If they do eventually do the sidekick thing on Arrow – and I really hope they do – they never could have used the name ‘Speedy’. So this is a nice way to use the sister. Though I do still hope Roy Harper shows up eventually. I think Arrow could get a lot of mileage out of the sidekick/partner concept of superheroes.

And that, again, is Arrow‘s biggest strength: its potential. They did a great job in setting up the basic status quo of the series without making a superhero look ridiculous on TV. Everything is grounded in stark reality, and that’s great for this kind of project. Now I want to see where they go with it. I want to see how they incorporate other comic book heroes and villains, like Huntress and Deadshot. I want to see more flashbacks to Ollie’s time on the island. I want to see what happens in the love triangle between Ollie, Merlyn and Dinah. I want to see the next episode!

But then I also liked the unaired Wonder Woman pilot. So what do I know?

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I see a lot of potential in the Arrow series, but what do you guys think? Did you like the first episode? Do you think they can pull it off? Let me know in the comments! 

And be sure to check out my list of the top 6 comic book characters I want to see in Arrow!