Is Anyone Else Getting a Little Tired of The Berlanti DC Shows?

[Boy Scout]

Yes, I am. Arrow, Flash, and SG all suffer from the same problems. Forced drama, nonsensical writing, stupid dialogue, and an almost embarrassing lack of subtlety.

 

[BH/HHH]

Yes, I am. Arrow, Flash, and SG all suffer from the same problems. Forced drama, nonsensical writing, stupid dialogue, and an almost embarrassing lack of subtlety.

I have to admit the forced love stuff at times grants on me, especially with Olicity.

 

[flickchick85]

I enjoy the Flash and Supergirl, don't care for the others, and am not really interested in getting any more from the Berlanti camp. I would like to see some other TV voice take on some DC characters as well.

 

[Victarion]

Save Deathstroke...HBO would be my preference.

 

[Primal Slayer]

Kind of. SG/Flash/Arrow/Legends could all be A LOT stronger then they are but especially Flash is getting into that rinse and repeat storytelling.

Flash & Arrow kind of suck when it comes to female characters and they have this weird mentality that, because the supporting characters arent the title character, they do not deserve solid storylines/A storylines.

Arrow tries to hard to not be a comic book show and has more original characters then they do comic characters (majority they have messed up I feel deliberately).

Flash keeps Barry in a revolving door where they use the same storylines each season for Barry but just change the backdrop. We're going into the 3rd season with a Speedster as the big bad and spent 2 seasons with Barry making the same exact mistake that has caused people their lives. And they never really did much with his famous Rogues gallery.

Legends of Tomorrow is a great ensemble show but they totally screwed up their A-list comic characters Hawkman/girl, Vandal Savage.

Supergirl is being held back and not using the character to her full potential.

Too much of the same thing will always become monotonous. The CW should definitely allow Berlanti to run the show of his choice and find another person to run the others.

That's the thing though, while he is a showrunner on all of them, he doesnt actually run the day 2 day of any of the shows, all of them have showrunners that are in charge with GB as the president who they report to. Arrow has the awful MG, Flash has AK, Supergirl has AA, LoT has PK.

 

[chamber-music]

They straight up admitted that they ran out of ideas for what to do with Hawkman/girl on Legends of Tomorrow which is why those characters kept getting captured/taken out.

They also said they rushed the show into production which why the show meandered over the first season.

I have to admit the forced love stuff at times grants on me, especially with Olicity.

It is the CW. I'm not sure if any writer on that network can write a believable relationship that isn't fueled by nonsensical drama.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Honestly I was tired pretty much from the giddyup. Berlanti and Co.'s formula, the often mediocre casting and performances, the writing... I find it all tedious. I liked the first season of FLASH, with a quibble here and there given it was a first season, but I can't forgive it's second season in the nonsensical writing and hewing to the formula. I will never get why these shows have or had so much fan support online. Great they have good SFX and do good costumes... That's no reason for me to keep coming back each week to see lackluster stories, misplaced humor, bad performances and on and on. There's no meat in these things, no bite, and while some elements shine, say Gustin as Flash/Barry or Benoist as Kara, they are betrayed by paint by numbers writing and unnecessary add-ons. The characterizations rarely go beyond Saturday morning cartoons and when they attempt to do more they fumble badly. But... Costumes, powers and "Lightness" seem to satiate a good portion of the fans for some reason and I just don't get it. It all feels so generic, flavorless, lowest common denominator and unambitious to me.

 

[Batmannerism]

NO ! Still really enjoying them. They're not perfect, but a lot more interesting and fun than Agents of Shield.

I thought Legends of Tomorrow would be incredibly lame, but found it a guilty pleasure. Have to say that I really enjoy what DC''s done on the small screen (and yes, that includes Lucifer).

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Eh... Saying it's better than ABC's SHIELD show is damning with faint praise in my estimation.

 

[Jake Cassidy]

It seems like you still watch them.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

It seems like you still watch them.

Look, of course I am a fan of Marvel and DC characters so I will check out these offerings. But here's how it plays out for me. I give everything it's day in court. I watched ARROW for the first six episodes of it's first season and was displeased with it's epic uneven nature. Since then I have watched episodes here and there but if I never heard the name Stephen Amell again I wouldn't shed a tear. Those six episodes were lackluster except for the fight coordination and but everything else was bad and later episodes confirmed my early thoughts.

AOS... I did more than give it it's six episode chance as Whedon himself says. I watched that for TWO frelling seasons and was literally disappointed with every single episode. Why was I watching you ask? Cuz people online kept claiming that it was getting better. I would stop watching for weeks, only to be told "No, the early season was bad, but it's WAY better now" only to catch up via On Deman and find it was not so. Lather, rinse, repeat for two seasons.

Flash I watched and mostly enjoyed, a quibble here and there, for it's first season. Turns out that's all I needed to watch since they essentially repeated the first season in it's second. I gave up halfway through and stuck it out just so I could get the Zoom revelation... Only to be underwhelmed by it.

LoT? Watched the crossover set up episode and it's first four and saw the lackluster writing on the wall. Occasionally I dip in to see how if it's gotten better. It never did.

Supergirl as well was given it's five episode shot in it's first season and it's lucky it got that since it managed to show it's poorly written hand literally in the first five minutes of it's premiere episode.

Long story short, I gave these shows their shot in some way. Any time I have allowed someone to tell me to give them second, third, fourth chance, well, I have regretted it.

 

[BH/HHH]

You can't really base any show off its first 5-6 episodes though as shows tend to not hit their stride until after that.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

You can't really base any show off its first 5-6 episodes though as shows tend to not hit their stride until after that.

Thus why I stated that I still dip in to see how things are and so far... No improvements to my eyes. And while there is something to what you say... Five hours is a lot of time to hook you in. If it hasn't happened in that amount of time then it's likely never going to.

 

[Jake Cassidy]

You should just stop watching them completely. Going by what you're saying, you're never going to like them. The last 2 seasons of Arrow are horrible.

I still like the other 3.

 

[flickchick85]

There's no meat in these things, no bite, and while some elements shine, say Gustin as Flash/Barry or Benoist as Kara, they are betrayed by paint by numbers writing and unnecessary add-ons. The characterizations rarely go beyond Saturday morning cartoons and when they attempt to do more they fumble badly.

I actually find the characterizations on Supergirl, particularly those of the title character and Martian Manhunter as refugees who've truly lost their entire worlds, not to mention the relationship between the adoptive sisters, to be very well-handled and certainly more emotionally effective than anything I'm currently seeing in the movies (same goes for the Flash and his adoptive family), but to each their own.

 

[BH/HHH]

Thus why I stated that I still dip in to see how things are and so far... No improvements to my eyes. And while there is something to what you say... Five hours is a lot of time to hook you in. If it hasn't happened in that amount of time then it's likely never going to.

Oh I totally get you 5 hours is alot of time but I think dipping in and out you won't be able to connect with the characaters the same way if you stuck at it. It's a shame the shows aren't sticking for you though but I totally respect your reasons.

 

[That9neGuy]

I loved Arrow seasons 1 and 2 , I quit watching during 3 and couldn't make it through 3 episodes of Flash. Didn't even try the rest.

 

[Osiris-Rex]

If there are people like that, I am not one of them. I love what they are doing on the CW.

 

[SuperAl]

i still like them, especially Flash. These shows need less episodes though, theres way too many villain of the week episodes. I would like more serialized story telling. These characters dont necessarily have to fight someone or something ever episode.

 

[DrCosmic]

A little?

I used to LIVE for this stuff, but now... it's just sad. It's not the formula for me though, the formula has incredible potential: everyone gets a batcave, everyone gets a team of experts and a set of earpieces, everyone gets a will they/won't they romantic arc, there's a new villain each week that the experts have to figure out. This is, imho, golden. Tuning that up, you can have a really REALLY solid procedural, which will give you as many good filler episodes as you can shake a stick at. Then it's serial storylines for extra credit.

The serial storylines is where they run into trouble. They try to stretch things to 23 episodes that don't merit it. They stretch and stretch as far as they can. This is ridiculous. If a villain has a presence for 5 minutes an episode, thats 115 minutes of screen time for their story. How many mwahahas can they do? They've got to be dynamic, to change, to win, lose and draw. But if they lose, then there's no villain until the villain recovers, so where's the tension? Do you know how Daredevil handled Fisk over 26 episodes? They let him lose, and then slowly built him back to be more amazing than ever. Not unlike what's done with many GoT antagonists.

90s shows like Buffy had a big bad (Trope namer, amirite?), but they also were composed mostly of filler episodes. The big bad goes largely forgotten, and the show still works. Also, the focus was on the development of the characters. The same could be said of the romantic arcs, again, who wants to watch 100 minutes of two people just sighing at each other. Relationships natural have some development in one direction or other and the less development they have the more unnatural they feel.

And that's what really bugs me about the failure of these shows to live up to their potential, that they are more preoccupied with namedropping comic characters than giving the characters they have good stories, or following them to their logical conclusion, because they have to make certain things happen, least of all is give the Big Bad 100 minutes of screen time doing the exact same bit over and over.

Neglecting the natural and needed procedural bits really put these shows off. Trying to be hugely serial without actually doing what is necessary to make that happen (big changes to the formula every 8-15 episodes), that's just a tragedy.

I could rant on this all day. Do you know what I could do with a Flash TV series? A super speed CSI? Do you know what I could do with a vigilante who goes after rich people instead of poor people? And if they gave me a chance to make a third show, do you think I would try to take a rag tag group of overpowered budget-busters in a time travel ship to take on one guy who exists ANYWHERE in time? Do you think that's the direction I would go?

I'm still holding out hope for the Black Lightning show since the couple who made Power are also running it and the logline is very much NOT Berlanti style. Their understanding of serial storylines is very solid, there may not even be a procedural storyline element anyway.

 

[Vchipp]

I still somewhat like em but I think one of the major problems the Berlantiverse faces is that it's on The CW and they have a certain formula to their shows. Mostly it has to deal with Angsty teenage drama and the episodes themselves suffers from it. I think to much of the episodes focuses on the angst and spends little time on the super-heroics.

Also being on The CW make each show have a smaller budget than a larger network like CBS, and the lack of budget shows, people complain that S.T.A.R labs have very shoddy security since almost every meta human breaks into it, this is due to the fact that it's cheaper to use an existing set than do it on location or built a new set. This was evident in the last seasons of Smallville were Metropolis was just a couple of stores and it was the same alleyway in every episode.

I just had to look over these fact went watch the shows.


PS. there might be some shows that doesn't follow the angsty formula (maybe Supernatural, I've seen only a couple of episodes and those were the out of structure ones like Changing Channels)

 

[mace1]

AOS... I did more than give it it's six episode chance as Whedon himself says. I watched that for TWO frelling seasons and was literally disappointed with every single episode. Why was I watching you ask? Cuz people online kept claiming that it was getting better. I would stop watching for weeks, only to be told "No, the early season was bad, but it's WAY better now"

I thought the early first season of AOS was really good to me and the show did get better in season one.It is currently one of my top current favorite shows like jessica jones and each season AOS just gets better and better.It has less filler then any dc show and watching aos feels like watching a movie each week.
It's a really good mcu show.By the way all the mcu shows are really good,agent carter and the mcu netflix shows too.
I enjoy them all.I am looking forward to the other mcu shows and other non-mcu marvel shows and other dc shows too.

NO ! Still really enjoying them. They're not perfect, but a lot more interesting and fun than Agents of Shield.

I thought Legends of Tomorrow would be incredibly lame, but found it a guilty pleasure. Have to say that I really enjoy what DC''s done on the small screen (and yes, that includes Lucifer).

Agents of shield is more fun,better and more interesting then any of the berlanti superhero tv shows in my view,but i enjoy them all.I just happen to enjoy AOS more then the berlanti dc shows.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Sorry but... The only thing that AOS has over the Berlanti shows is a bigger budget in the early goings. Otherwise it was lackluster and headbangingly filled with nonsense writing and characterization from the giddyup. I was ALL for a Coulson show. Loved the character and hoped he would have a show as cool as he was in the MCU films, plus, hey, bonus mystery of how he is still alive... Is that what we got? Nope. We got Skye... Oh, I'm sorry, DAISY and her mystery and... Yeah that actress couldn't emote out of a paper bag and as shown by the early episodes her T&A are the only reasons she was cast. Everyone else other than Coulson and May I find dull, actors and characters. The TWS tie ins didn't make a better, more coherent or compelling show for me and neither did the Inhumans stuff. Gladly I have written the show off. I adore the Netflix shows so far and thought Carter was a better show than AOS by several magnitudes. To me, SHIELD was a joke from the start, where as something like FLASH just hasn't lived up to the inherent potential the series has shown from time to time since it's pilot episode.

 

[mace1]

Sorry but... The only thing that AOS has over the Berlanti shows is a bigger budget in the early goings. Otherwise it was lackluster and headbangingly filled with nonsense writing and characterization from the giddyup. I was ALL for a Coulson show. Loved the character and hoped he would have a show as cool as he was in the MCU films, plus, hey, bonus mystery of how he is still alive... Is that what we got? Nope. We got Skye... Oh, I'm sorry, DAISY and her mystery and... Yeah that actress couldn't emote out of a paper bag and as shown by the early episodes her T&A are the only reasons she was cast. Everyone else other than Coulson and May I find dull, actors and characters. The TWS tie ins didn't make a better, more coherent or compelling show for me and neither did the Inhumans stuff. Gladly I have written the show off. I adore the Netflix shows so far and thought Carter was a better show than AOS by several magnitudes. To me, SHIELD was a joke from the start, where as something like FLASH just hasn't lived up to the inherent potential the series has shown from time to time since it's pilot episode.

That's your view,but i have the right to disagree strongly with it and i do.Most of the audience and critic scores,views reviews do as well.
To me aos is up there with the mcu netflix shows and agent carter.

Somebody else mention AOS so i wanted to make my views known quickly about it.
Anyway the topic is about dc shows,so let's stick with that.I think the dc shows are really good by the way too.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Uh... NO ONE said you didn't have a right and if you noticed I preface a lot of my post with how I felt. It also would be impossible for me to stop your "right" so... Yeah.