I am a completist. I watch Arrow and The Flash so naturally I was going to watch DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. I really like some of the characters that left Arrow and The Flash so much that I have watched a few bad movies starring the actor who plays Black Canary/Sara Lance. Ray Palmer was an interesting character on Arrow. I thought one of the best The Flash and Arrow crossover episodes involved Hawkgirl, Hawkman and Vandal Savage.
I also love many of the actors featured in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. I have had an unreasonable crush on Wentworth Miller since Prison Break. I even questioned my life decisions. Why did I go to Harvard and not Princeton? I would have had a chance of meeting him, and naturally in this parallel universe, we would hit it off and be together forever. Imagine my relief to discover that he is gay because THAT would be the only thing that would keep this from happening (I told you that it was unreasonable). Wentworth Miller works wonderfully with Dominic Purcell so I was psyched to see those two paired up again. I adore Victor Garber as badass Daddy Bristow in Alias and had to prevent myself from running up to him in the Boston Common when I saw his fabulous self walking one cold fall/winter day. I would watch him read the back of a cereal box.
Unfortunately I had no idea what DC’s Legends of Tomorrow was actually going to be about. The premise of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is that a time traveler is trying to stop villain Vandal Savage from controlling and wreaking havoc on the Earth in the future. This time traveler recruits our heroes because if they left their own timeline, it would have a minimal effect on history. I should have run at the first mention of time travelling. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is just an excuse to wear period costumes and makes our heroes into bumbling idiots who make more problems than solving them (I’m looking at you Ray). A CW show should not try to tackle historical scenarios-it comes off as oversimplified or ignorant. Because time travel is a crucial element to the plot, if a character dies, just wait because you may see that character in a few seconds or episodes. It is hard to get invested in a plot when there are few permanent consequences. There are so many characters that it is unavoidable that some will be woefully underwritten (Jefferson Jackson) or fail to capture the audience attention even with a British accent. For characters such as Hawkgirl, character development gets swapped with romantic scenarios with no chemistry. She is disappointingly more damsel in distress than kickass chick. For intresting characters like Sara Lance, now known as White Canary though she should be known as Grey Canary based on the actual outfit, the same themes get recycled (will she lose control and become a remorseless killer).
The only person to come out of this mess unscathed is Wentworth Miller. His character, Snart, uses the speech patterns of an old school James Cagney gangster with the modern sensibilities and humor of his time period. He ends up being the moral center and most grounded member of the crew. The best episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is Star City 2046 because it is basically Arrow in the future. I am not too optimistic about the upcoming second season and cannot believe that it got renewed.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is not a good show. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is overstuffed with gimmicks and has no center to draw this viewer’s focus.