Arrow Arrow season 4 episode 16 "Broken Hearts"

[Gintoki]

Arrow received only 2.09 viewers for 4x16.
While this may not mean much, since Flash, and all cw shows ratings were down this week.

But the best way to protest is to stop watching the show, and they will see a drastic fall in ratings.

 

[GamerSlyRatchet]

It wasn't even Felicity that made this episode so bad to me. She was fine actually but Oliver was a *****. Suck it up dude, take your anger out on criminals don't act like a butt hurt teenager.

I can't really excuse Oliver since he did start the mess, but Felicity was being incredibly immature herself especially during a mission. Why was she so ******** about breaking up when SHE LITERALLY WALKED OUT ON OLIVER?!

 

[Prison Mike]

I didn't even watch this episode. I stopped watching a few episodes ago. I just read the recaps on the off chance that the writers step it up and bring it back to season 1 level of quality.

 

[Justin]

Basically it went something like this.

Cupid kills some couples.
Felicity tracks where cupid is.
Felicity dresses like a bride and a newspaper article puts Felicity Smoak in the headline above Oliver Queen because you know, main character.
Felicity talks Cupid into submission
Felicity tells Oliver she's powerful woman and he is piece of **** on her shoe
Felicity wins.

I really enjoyed this weeks episode of Felicity.

 

[Batsfan1]

I decided not to to watch this episode and then I forgot that Arrow even aired that night. I watched Daredevil instead. That show kept me consistently interested in what was happening. Have a very great day everyone!

God bless everyone!

 

[j-beda]

I just caught up on a trio of "Arrow" episodes, including this one, and actually thought it was not that bad. I actually like Felicity (much more so than the romance between Oliver and Laurel early on). The level of dishonesty and lack of trust is certainly enough to justify calling off a relationship, but I do find the whole setup for that issue silly.

The "suprise new son" was so obviously going to be a problem it was painful to see it play out, and did not feel realistic. While the motivations of everyone were obvious and logical, the lack of awareness of others' probable feelings was stupid. Clearly these people should not be getting married before becoming a bit more aware of themselves and each other.

 

[Adanu]

It wasn't even Felicity that made this episode so bad to me. She was fine actually but Oliver was a *****. Suck it up dude, take your anger out on criminals don't act like a butt hurt teenager.

How, in the mother of ****, is Oliver being a dick in any way, when Felicity is being a massively passive aggressive *****, and Oliver is self degrading himself so much it's a miracle he has any self esteem left?

 

[Silliminite]

Horrible episode. Can't believe what's happened to this show. Did Arrow Season 2 really happen?

 

[Paradox1]

How, in the mother of ****, is Oliver being a dick in any way, when Felicity is being a massively passive aggressive *****, and Oliver is self degrading himself so much it's a miracle he has any self esteem left?

He wasn't being one a dick but he was being pathetic which is far worse in my book.

 

[AspieXLDS]

Horrible episode. Can't believe what's happened to this show. Did Arrow Season 2 really happen?

Yes, it did. And then the real showrunners went to work on "The Flash" and develop "Supergirl", leaving a failed showrunner in the hopes he had learned something. They then elevated one of the main writers to showrunner this year when Season 3 revealed MG was still a failure as far as story beyond shock and awe and Tumblr-style romance is concerned. Now here's to hoping Season 5 Kreisberg or Berlanti is back onboard and MG/WM are the way of the dodo.

 

[DeadFan]

I won't waste my time hoping Kreisberg or Berlanti come back. I'm sure they consider MG/WM's work to be just fine and probably don't think anything needs "improvement." Which of course I think it's a disaster but I really bet they think MG's doing his usual good job

 

[SpideyVille]

Has Supergirl officially been renewed? From what I've seen, it was not included on a list of shows to be renewed even though CBS has said they have plans for it.

If it doesn't get renewed, would it be possible that Bertlanti returns, or at the very least shows more control, or would he be more likely to help out more on the next version of Legends?

 

[Dark Raven]

I'd rather they abandon ship here and devote all their resources to Supergirl instead if faced with a choice. Even if they come back to work here, we've still got Felicity's character hanging over the entire show. I don't think she can be fixed now and has built up too much negative feeling.

 

[SpideyVille]

I mean it's a tough spot to be in. They've basically killed any chance of GA/BC, most likely in favor of Olicity, but if fan reaction remains strongly against it to the point of decrease in ratings, you'd imagine that they would have to kill that idea altogether. But then who does Oliver end up with, Sara?

Heck, Shado is dead, Huntress is a wanted felon, and William's mom is going to stay away. Where do they possibly have Oliver end up at that point?

 

[AspieXLDS]

I won't waste my time hoping Kreisberg or Berlanti come back. I'm sure they consider MG/WM's work to be just fine and probably don't think anything needs "improvement." Which of course I think it's a disaster but I really bet they think MG's doing his usual good job

Actually, I meant that if the ratings continue to decrease like they did with the last episode and that wasn't just a "because of the hiatus" decrease, then maybe the CW will replace them as showrunners. Even if its not Berlanti and Kreisberg, it'd be better to have someone other than MG/WM to run the show since they've been running it into the ground.

Also, Berlanti and Kreisberg have a history with MG prior to Arrow. Not only with GL, but they did a couple other shows with him. But his sole project he did as a solo showrunner (No Ordinary Family) bombed, and his next project was GL followed by Arrow with Kreisberg and Berlanti. So I figure they thought he was doing a good enough job that he could handle Arrow on his own. Season 3 proved he couldn't, but being busy, they had to have someone else come in to try and balance MG out. And for a while, it seems like it worked....

Seems to me MG is good as a writer for the emotional scenes, but he's a piss-poor showrunner and shouldn't be allowed to make any kind of final decision.

 

[Dark Raven]

Shado has a twin doesn't she? In the future though, it seems Oliver doesn't end up with anyone.

 

[voyzovrezon]

I can't stand that Cupid character. Hope she's out of the picture for good.

And I hate to say it since Oliver is the main character, but I find him annoying. He's always got that same expression ...



I love him as Arrow. He's not sporting that upset stomach look.

Which leads me to another complaint. He's spends most of his time as Oliver Queen. I want more action/chasing and perusing the bad guys and less time trying to make amends for everyone else's hangups.

 

[Dark Raven]

I can't stand that Cupid character. Hope she's out of the picture for good.

And I hate to say it since Oliver is the main character, but I find him annoying. He's always got that same expression ...



I love him as Arrow. He's not sporting that upset stomach look.

Which leads me to another complaint. He's spends most of his time as Oliver Queen. I want more action/chasing and perusing the bad guys and less time trying to make amends for everyone else's hangups.

My name is Oliver Queen. After 5 days on the toilet, I have come out with one goal: to settle my stomach.

He's playing Casey Jones in the new TMNT movie but I don't think I would see anyone else but Oliver Queen.

 

[aNarcHy2day]

They should really not air episodes anywhere near whenever Daredevil comes out because after watching the crisp editing on DD, this Arrow episode literally gave me a headache.

And before anyone points at the budget and such, I watched this week's Supernatural episode immediately after and found that to be really good.

The Flashback scenes are getting more and more shoddy by the week. There's just no weight at all to whatever is happening on the island. I mean, they basically went against Reiter's entire army this week and I'm like 'meh, whatever'.

Also, remind me why Laurel is so bad at her job that she can't even put a case together against a powerless Dahrk?

I'm not a hater and I've almost never ranted about anything on the forum till date- maybe an odd post here and there that may have slipped my mind at the moment but definitely nothing too major but the stark lack of quality the past few weeks is getting on my nerves.

 

[Mike Murdock]

I mean it's a tough spot to be in. They've basically killed any chance of GA/BC, most likely in favor of Olicity, but if fan reaction remains strongly against it to the point of decrease in ratings, you'd imagine that they would have to kill that idea altogether.

Here's the odd thing, the reaction here is universally negative, but the reaction elsewhere still seems strangely supportive of the relationship (I have no strong feelings either way, my biggest thought is it's strange how different it is between hardcore fans and casual fans). But I don't think we can assume the ratings are solely related to one thing.

 

[SpideyVille]

Here's the odd thing, the reaction here is universally negative, but the reaction elsewhere still seems strangely supportive of the relationship (I have no strong feelings either way, my biggest thought is it's strange how different it is between hardcore fans and casual fans). But I don't think we can assume the ratings are solely related to one thing.

The ratings are usually tied to their demographic. I work for a company that handles some advertising for the CW, and I believe their demo, at least for our products, is Women 18-49. Commercial spots are generally bought/sold to based on the largest demo audience, so I would assume that the CW pushes its shows to appeal to those demos. So whether it's true or not, it seems like the majority of people watching Arrow and most CW shows are females who, stereotypically speaking, prefer romantic plots..

At least, that's the only way I can justify it.

 

[DeadFan]

It is hard to tell about the significance of the ratings drop for this one episode. Many people have pointed out that lots of other shows, even non-CW, also had drops and they identify various external influences such as daylight savings time, proximity to Easter and spring break, the CW hiatus show break, NCAA tournaments. Might be some others I'm not remembering. Anyway, I agree we'd really need to see a trend in ratings drop to get a better feel for how general audience feels about the show in general (and not sure it could solely be attributed to Olicity since a lot of others problems have also been noted: fights, poor understanding of what Darhks been up to, weak flashbacks).

As far as this particular ep goes, I guess what might help understand ratings drop in context of external factors, would be to go back and pull out the Arrow episode from each season that came closest to having all the above external factors present (S1, S2, S3) and then compare the 4 episodes against each other (not even sure if we could find all those factors present for one ep in each season, as spring break moves around depending on Easter, and daylight savings time moves around etc.) but anyway, that might be most helpful comparison -- to see the variance in ratings between those particular episodes.

Not of course that I'm motivated enough to go back and try to do all the "research" to pull that kind of data together. I'll just be lazy and wait to see if there is any kind of drop trend in the ratings

 

[Pokkle]

Here's the odd thing, the reaction here is universally negative, but the reaction elsewhere still seems strangely supportive of the relationship (I have no strong feelings either way, my biggest thought is it's strange how different it is between hardcore fans and casual fans). But I don't think we can assume the ratings are solely related to one thing.

Not only here.
Ign's comments are also pretty negative, the top comment of last review:

The subreddit about Arrow, with a lot of people, is completly negative now:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Arrow

Forbes had a negative article recently:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...rrow-its-not-even-funny-anymore/#6d1ab6811dc3

And the French forums start to become pretty negative, not that we matters:
http://www.dcplanet.fr/175033-review-tv-arrow-s04e16-broken-hearts

 

[Dark Raven]

Ugh. That crying face. Terrible to see.

 

[AspieXLDS]

Actually, the funny thing is, Arrow isn't targeted at the same demographic. At least, it wasn't originally. Its initial target demographic was Men 18-49, not Women 18-49, since its usually men who go for comics and make up the majority audience for comic book films/TV. (Case in point: my theater had mostly men for BvS, Man of Steel, and all 3 of the Dark Knight films.)