Season 3 was mediocre, but season 4 has a huge drop in quality (shoutout to Marc "Franchise Slaughterer" Guggenheim). If you are a fan of the series, do yourself a favor and stop watching. The Flash is really hitting it's stride if you're desperate for CW superhero shows. This season of Arrow is just a crudely stitched together collection of tumblr fanfics.
The characters have lost any real personality, and just serve to move the plot forward (this season is plagued by writers using half- baked concepts to push the "plot" forward by brute force). They frequently make decisions that defy any form of logic as well as any character traits of note. Any development that the characters have made in the past seasons has just disappeared, seemingly because they oppose Guggenheim's Mary Sue couple. Also it would be a misconception to think that the villain is the basis of any overarching plot. He's just a side note to said couple. Really this season seems to lack any direction whatsoever. It's like the writers are giving up on trying to provide any cohesive story. And to make it worse, while they could look back to some of the source material for some good ideas, they spit in its face in favor of their own rambling mess.
As a side-note, I feel that the length of this show has been a huge detractor from the start. Even in it's glory days, the seasons probably could have been trimmed in half or lower and tell the same story. A lot of the time on this show is wasted on silly stuff, and could it could be a huge improvement to trim down the story to something more concise and save more for the effects budget.
But honestly, is nobody in the studio checking up on them? Was this really looked at and approved by real people in the entertainment business? It boggles my mind that this could make it to air on such a well known show.
The CW's superhero shows have always been aimed at a more "teeny" audience, but at the levels that Guggenheim has taken it to, it seems like he would be better off writing those fanfics and letting someone with moderate respect for the story's integrity take over. I love the actors in this and wish them the best, but the only hope I can see for this show is to retcon this season and get a fresh team of writers because this may be the biggest train wreck I have ever witnessed make the air.
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