The best thing I saw last week was The Flash. Actually its two weeks running and I’m betting dollars to donuts it’s going to be three but we’ll get to that. For those unaware The CW after the success of Arrow went forward with bringing back an old CBS classic, The Flash. As a fan of the old somewhat campy and crazy Flash TV show I was really excited to see the character coming back to TV and even more excited to see what the CW crew would do to it after they actually got me to enjoy Green Arrow stories which I hadn’t before. Now The Flash is my favorite comic book based TV show each and every week, it’s full of joy and fun, everyone should be watching this show.
In all honesty I’ve found Barry Allen to almost always be a boring character in the comics, depending on the writer. I’m a much bigger fan of Wally West. But the TV’s of course always go with Barry. Having a super hero whose alter ego works in a police station works well for stories. On the original show John Wesley Shipp did a good job with Barry but I have to say Grant Gustin’s work has gone a long way to making me really care about Barry. In fact the whole cast on The Flash is top notch from the main characters to the bit players. And the CW nods to the classic show with John Wesley Shipp playing Barry’s father and Amanda Pays doing an episode, and the amazing thing coming this week – MARK HAMILL is returning as THE TRICKSTER!!! No clue how they are going to make that work but I am excited. For the uninitiated The Trickster is the equivalent of the Flash’s Joker, which as Mark Hamill is even more fitting.
Trickster both classic and new school are scheduled to show up in this upcoming weeks episode which should make for a bang up time. One of the best things about The Flash are the Rogues Gallery. Commonly referred in the comics as simply the Rogues, the cast of villains Barry finds himself facing off against each week has been a joy to behold. In a simple monster of the week formula The Flash has presented a new super powered threat almost every episode in this their first season. And they just keep getting better and better. My current favorites are the brothers Prison Break, Wentworth Miller as Captain Cold and the gravelly Dominic Purcell as Heat Wave. These two have a spectacular on screen chemistry that plays very well with them being the hot and cold duo out to stop the Flash. It’s worth watching the show just for them, not to mention the Reverse Flash, Plastique, the Weather Wizard, the Pied Piper and Gorilla Grodd. That’s right, this show has a psychic gorilla on it, how can you beat that?
In the last two episodes Barry has finally discovered his ability to run so fast that he can break the time stream. With the right circumstances he can indeed move quick enough to travel back in time. Luckily for him this first trip is only going back one day because the catastrophic changes are just now fully being felt by the character. Trying to stay spoiler free I’ll that over the course of the two days played out differently with Barry’s foreknowledge we see different deaths, different villains rise, and a whole string of changes to Barry’s personal life that will have far reaching consequences. It’s going to be fun to see where the writers take the overarching story now that they have this plot device, it’s even better to see that they are making the characters aware that changing the past does indeed have consequences.
It’s Tuesday nights on the CW folks, it’s The Flash, and if you only reward yourself with one hour of TV each week, The Flash should be that hour. And if you want to get all caught up you can always flip right over to the podcast section of this very sight and give a listen to the Crimson Comet and get your breakdown of all the episodes so far this season.
