FLASH PILOT - This review will be read in a FLASH.

THE CW’s „THE FLASH“ - PILOT REVIEW (Contains Spoilers!)

Premiere Date (Season 1): Oct., 07^th

“My name is Oliver Queen Barry Allen and I’m a hooded vigilante the fastest man alive. Green Arrow A friend recently gave me the idea for a new name and something tells me it’s gonna catch fire on.” 

 

Title Card, image courtesy of The CW.

Enter The CW’s newest superhero to defend its city (which is located just some few miles away from Starling City where his best mate, that green-hooded guy with bow and arrow, lives): The Flash.

“The Flash” was developed as a spin-off to that other popular The CW show “Arrow” starring Stephen Amell. 

After a few-episodes stint on “Arrow”, Barry Allen, a CSI guy on Central City’s PD now has his own show. But because the pilot will not air until Oct., 7^th on The CW, I’ll give you the short premise.

“My name is Barry Allen and I’m the fastest man alive. A friend recently gave me the idea for a new name and something tells me it’s gonna catch on.” Enter the Flash-logo. This is the show’s intro and pretty much summarizes the whole show. Yeah, not quite.

As is the case with Arrow, the lead character has big family issues (his father imprisoned for his mother’s murder, falsely - Barry being struck by lightning and thus becoming faster than light itself - a good girlfriend he has feelings for but sadly she has some other shiny police dude as boyfriend, guess who I’d pick as big end villain for season 1) and he is also a research object at S.T.A.R. Labs, the very firm responsible for creating this madness by misusing a particle accelerator. (Come on, how hard can that be?) And now, he’s a vigilante hero who runs (quite literally) to save the day. Got everything? Good. 

If not, don’t worry, this ends my satirical take at the show and you can start again to get it. Ready? Okay, let’s go.

Many years ago, Barry Allen’s mother was murdered in front of his eyes by a someone/something he could not identify back then. His father was then imprisoned for her murder and still serves his term at Iron Heights, that same prison where Moira Queen served some time on “Arrow”. Barry however always knew that his father was innocent but who would believe him saying that a bolt of lightning killed her? Right, no one. Not even his good friend’s dad who after the incident raised him until now. Some years in the future, the show starts off. Barry is now working as a Crime Scene Investigator for Central City’s Police Department and -again- arrives late at a scene. Det. Joe West (the surrogate father) covers for him by taking away his snack on the way and eating it himself.

Barry is no ordinary CSI guy (and physics lover) though as shall be demonstrated almost immediately and one will not come around noticing a distinct Sherlock look the show uses. Same as BBC’s Sherlock, Barry just looks at evidence and in his mind (on the screen) appears what are the clues he gets out of just looking at -and smelling- it. Spot on. But let’s skip that discussion.

Barry is until now portrayed as a sloppy guy like any other and it is actually quite refreshing to see a stereotypical non-stereotypical guy as a lead character. I mean, he is like me, probably like you, he is a normal guy who is not perfect in at least one category (Oliver Queen was rich, Bruce Wayne was rich, Clark Kent lived happily with his family on a farm, and so on), Barry’s just an ordinary guy who, admittedly, has come through a troubled and tragic past. But he is in need for job, doesn’t currently have the courage to confess his feelings to the girl he loves and is friends with and is a little bit disorganized. And that’s a fresh change for now. 

Back to the story: In his lab, Barry discovers new evidence that will ultimately be proven right and be the cause for the death of West’s partner. And he is psyched about S.T.A.R. Labs new project, the particle accelerator that is envisioned to change physics and the world when it goes online this very night. Of course, the big start into a new and better future for all goes horribly wrong, resulting in 17 deaths, lots of injuries and “madness”. This madness being unknown energy released into our world, transforming completely normal people into so-called “meta-humans” (it’s simple, it’s catchy, it’s meta-human!) who now own never-before-seen powers, like controlling the weather or running faster than light.

The first one actually is the pilot’s bad guy and he is someone West thought died in a plane crash after shooting his partner while charmingly-bad shouting “I’ve got a plane to catch”, this being his most memorable quote for the duration of the entire episode. Well, the moral of the story: if you witness a plane crash while a crazy super-storm is being caused by an explosion of a particle accelerator, you cannot be sure he did not live. Which leaves the question: where is his brother who also was in the plane, assumingly? Meta-humans, assemble.

 

At the same time, back at Barry’s lab, he is struck by lightning (as already shown in his Arrow stint) and has to be rushed into the hospital where he in the consecutive days and weeks seemed to die on a regular basis. The complex explanation: His heart rate was actually way too fast for any known tech to register it thereby indicating he was flat-lining. A fact discovered shortly after by Dr. Wells, ex-CEO and founder of S.T.A.R. Labs, now being forced into a wheelchair. The simple explanation: not dead.
After some treatment and tests at his lab, it has become clear that Barry’s cells are regenerating at an insane speed so that if he gets hurt it will heal within minutes to hours. And he can clock over 700mph. Which is a lot.

 So, the rest of the episode is short-told: Barry faces off with the bad guy during a car accident/fog show that really had some fun and action in it, if you count fog as action.  Which in this case, would not be wrong, let me tell you. He discovers that his girlfriend now has a boyfriend (his surrogate father’s cop partner) who seems to be perfect in every way which makes him highly likely to turn out to have sinister plans under his blond hair after all, but let’s wait and see if I picked that one right. 

SPOILER! SPOILER!

And to anyone who has read some of the earlier comics, he will not be unknown as he is The Flash’s most agonizing adversary of the last century. And one of Professor Zoom’s aliases is a guy named Thawne (along with Reverse-Flash).

SPOILER END! 

Well, then, the last act of the pilot: West, his partner (whose name I constantly tend to forget, hehe, but he is named Thawne) travel out to the farm where West and his old partner already cornered the same bad guy and can now again corner that same bad guy. And behold, the bad guy has discovered he is “God”. To which, West replies, “why does God need to rob banks?” Good question which motivates “BadGuy” (sorry, I can’t remember his name, that one brother dude) to wreak harvoc on Central City with his tornado skills. Enter Barry AKA The Flash who outruns his tornado and stops him just for him to be shot by Det. West who now knows what Barry’s capable of and that he is the red lightning that will at some point in the series become known as The Flash. But his daughter may not know any of it, he asks of Barry who did not appear to have ever had other plans concerning that. 

SPOILER! SPOILER!

As known, Isis was the name of The Flash’s first wife so we can assume it will eventually work out, if they stick to that. But why not try something new, I’d be up for that as well but the two of them do have great chemistry on screen, so, let’s wait up and see.

SPOILER END!

But wait, there’s also a cliffhanger! Dr. Wells is not truly handicapped to a wheelchair (or at least in this hidden room, he isn’t) and he has access to newspapers from the future! The newspaper in question refers to April 25, 2024 and declares “Flash Missing - Vanishes In Crisis” while on a side-note on page 1 also reading that the Wayne Tech and Queen Inc. merger is complete. Justice League, here we come. 

Fade to black.

So, while this pilot stayed true to what everyone expected: a light-hearted show that packs some action and witty one-liners, it also features an intriguing backstory and a great cast that from the first second on feels right where it should be. While I could without any problem overcome a departure from Cisco Ramon (the nerd guy who tries to be funny but is over-the-top comic relief and who designs Barry’s sleeper costume), which is not happening, don’t get the wrong impression here (as SPOILER!: he might become another superhero called Vibe, if you -again- have read some of the comics - SPOILER END!), the rest of the cast I already love and they do a great job that actually works better for me than the over-acting in Arrow’s first season (which has gotten way better after that, thankfully). A big shoutout to the cast who in my opinion did their job really well and convincingly! 

Also, the pilot was fun to watch and I didn’t realize that 45 minutes could be so short. Which is an accomplishment, citing that “The Flash” did miss great storytelling (standard stuff here), great surprises (I did not see the future newspaper coming, I admit, but the rest was pretty obvious) and the CGI was not as good as on “Arrow”. 

Yet, I truly had one hell of an enjoyable time watching the pilot and I cracked up more than I could count (which is not solely the episode’s achievement but it was laughter in good favour after all). And that is everything a good TV show must do for me to work.

What I really liked about this episode was that David Nutter, the director, really knows how to direct an episode. I enjoyed every scene, every progression from one to another and the flawless entertainment resulting out of this presentation. The story however has its flaws which should have become clear by now and the show is CW-like relying heavily on stereotypes both for its characters and stories. But, due to the good plain fun it is to watch the show, it doesn’t matter as greatly as it would otherwise. (And one should not forget that the pilot has been shot months before the series went into production, therefore it deserves some good-favour leeway here as well.) 

If you haven’t watched the episode yet, then do not worry, that I have spoiled everything for you. I have not (despite this being a review)! If you stick with episode you will be rewarded with a short appearance by none other than… Oliver Queen AKA Arrow (as seen in one of the early trailers, I think)! 

Therefore, “The Flash” earns for its pilot a solid 3/5 rating, which I will boost up immensely just because the viewing experience was so great that I enjoyed it to such extent that I did not mind the mistakes made by the episode. The final score reads as follow: 4/5. Congratulations. 

So, if you liked “Arrow” but disliked the realism fact or disliked the fact that the show tried to sell “fake realism” as realism and you are into superhero stuff or just like funny shows, try this one, I did not feel sorry later on and I absolutely love the show now. Despite its flaws.

“My name is EagleLeaf and I’m the craziest reviewer alive. A trailer recently gave me the idea to check out a new TV show and something tells me it’s gonna catch on.” Enjoy the run!  

Note: This episode is scheduled to air on Oct., 7^th on The CW. So, check it out after having read our review.

Fun Fact: My word counter tells me, I have written 2024 words for this review, maybe I know the future all too well like Dr. Wells? ;)