In the US: Tuesdays, 8pm ET, The CW
In the UK: Tuesdays, 8pm, Sky 1. Starts October 28
Three episodes into The Flash, the latest CW adaptation of a DC comic book, and it’s becoming pretty clear that despite coming from the same creative team as the rather good Arrow, The Flash is very much Smallville but with a superhero who’s human and capable only of running very fast. With its “kryptonitedark matter freek of the week” that only the Flash can stop, its young love and failed romances, its concerns with great powers bringing with them great responsibillities, you could probably take any Smallville script, run a reasonably simple find-and-replace on it and end up with a The Flash script.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – after all, Smallville ran for a record-breaking 11 seasons and there’s many a TV show that would kill for even half that run. All the same a little innovation would be nice.
And indeed that’s what you get with The Flash, which rather than waiting three seasons as Smallville did to realise it was a superhero show and geek out, went Nerd Factor 10 from the first episode, and mined the comics for some of the best Flash supervillains and other superheroes available. And in contrast with the early 90s adaptation starring John Wesley Shipp (who plays the Flash’s dad in this adaptation), it’s got series arc after series arc, crossovers with Arrow and a greater willingness to embrace the comic book’s later attempts to make the Flash more than just the fastest man alive, with a time travel plot that lifts the show above what could simply be fluffy, brainless, “crash bang”, teen kisses fare into somewhat darker territory.
True, the science is still bobbins but we’re talking about someone who got to run at 300mph after a lab accident, so that comes with the territory. And as with Smallville‘s earlier episodes, there’s the frustration of watching our hero having to learn about his powers and come into others we know he’ll have, and so, for example, having to deal with a mist villain in the third ep by running around a bit, rather than using his arms to create disruptive air vortices as we know he’ll be able to do at a later point.
But as with Smallville, too, it’s all part of the journey, something again explicit in the (spoiler alert) time travel plot, with the Flash’s protective overseer from the future – probably Professor Zoom – potentially causing the accident that created the Flash in the first place so that he’ll become the hero necessary to save the day in years to come and maybe even cause that time travel capability to be created.
Of course, the Flash doesn’t have the real-world popularity of either Batman or Superman, so to the average viewer, it’ll all be new. And the producers are of course resultingly at liberty to change big chunks of mythos if they want to – need Barry and Iris end up married as they are in the comics? No more than helper doctor Caitlin Snow has to become Killer Frost, who was never engaged to the future Firestorm in the comics, no matter how many lines about their being ‘like fire and ice’ are thrown in for the fans.
This embracing of comics is ultimately going to be either a strength for the show, which has already been picked up for a full season, or a weakness. If you don’t like comics, prefer something a bit darker and Nolan-esque, and find even Arrow to be too escapist for you, there’s no way in hell you’re going to enjoy this. But if bright, shiny fun comics are your thing, and you don’t have huge expectations of its young cast or lowish budget, then The Flash is well worth your time – especially when the only real competition in town are Gotham and Constantine.
Barrometer rating: 1
Rob’s prediction: Should last at least a season but will need to work a bit to ensure it doesn’t fall into a rut
