Arrow Rate Arrow: Season 3 (in it's entirety)

[Human Torch]

There's been some discussion on the season as a whole. Rate what you thought of season 3.

 

[Karelia]

I give it a 7/10 it was good, enjoyed watching most of it. I felt like it focused a tad too much on Felicity this season... I enjoyed Brandon Routh as Atom, also came to really like Nable's portrayal as Ra's Al Ghul. This season felt a little too Batman for my tastes, but I guess that's bound to happen , as Green Arrow doesn't have as many great villains/storylines.

I wish they wouldn't have spoiled some of the plots through TV spots. (When Oliver was training to take Ra's place, you see a tv spot for The Flash with him in the LoA garb, siding with Flash.) I mean I know some of it's obvious, but they were trying to sell the point home that Ollie turned evil... which was interesting and fun to watch, IMO.

I also wasn't a fan of the Hong Kong flashbacks... Nowhere near as enjoyable as the Island ones (DEATHSTROKE COME BACK PLZ KTHNX.)

That said, I enjoyed it. Can't wait for S4!

 

[Arrowshieldfan]

10/10 probably the only one that will rank perfect score

 

[Snow Queen]

3. Sadly, this was just really bad.

 

[Bathead]

I gave it an eight. Generally loved the season, but, like others I did have a bit of a problem (but not a big one) with Ollie's miraculous recovery from being mostly dead.

 

[b_boy]

I gave a 6. As some ppl commented, there were some great ideas but the execution was not the best.

Liked overall:
- Black Canary
- Speedy
- Nyssa
- Diggle having some development
- Roy on the 3 episodes where Arrow was away
- Katana
- Ray and Felicity on the beggining of their relationship (yeah, sue me lol)

Didn't like overall:
- The way they made Oliver and Malcon work togheter, it didn't make sense to me
- Oliver's decision not making sense a lot of the times (again, mostly to have Malcon around)
- Oliver's recovery after being stabbed
- Thea's lack of pit's side effect
- Roy leaving
- Malcon's plan

Indiferent
- The flashbacks, could've been better but it did give some development between Katana and her husband that gave some extra emotion when they fought each other

 

[JC00]

1st Season- 7.5
2nd Season- 9.5
3rd Season- 6.5

 

[Seb]

I gave a 6. As some ppl commented, there were some great ideas but the execution was not the best.

Liked overall:
- Black Canary
- Speedy
- Nyssa
- Diggle having some development
- Roy on the 3 episodes where Arrow was away
- Katana
- Ray and Felicity on the beggining of their relationship (yeah, sue me lol)

Didn't like overall:
- The way they made Oliver and Malcon work togheter, it didn't make sense to me
- Oliver's decision not making sense a lot of the times (again, mostly to have Malcon around)
- Oliver's recovery after being stabbed
- Thea's lack of pit's side effect
- Roy leaving
- Malcon's plan

Indiferent
- The flashbacks, could've been better but it did give some development between Katana and her husband that gave some extra emotion when they fought each other

I was going to make a list, but this pretty much matches my thoughts to a T, though I'd probably add Olicity (at least from episode 5ish onwards, it was pretty middling before that) to the negatives.

Ra's I didn't like at the start, grew on me, then ruined it by coming off like a petulant child in the finale.

I'd also add Flash crossovers to the positives, not purely because I love the Flash characters, but also because I like the way Arrow characters act during the crossovers. The writers and casts bring out the best in each other.

In retrospect, I can't completely decide how I feel. My biggest negative was Sara's death (I actually joined the forums to find a place to commiserate, since none of my IRL friends watch the show) and I'm not sure if that event, and having other negative nancies on the forums reinforced my own negativity (in the same way that my enjoyment of SHIELD and Flash were possibly bolstered by their more upbeat forums). Added to all of that, those shows are on an upward trajectory, this one was a step back, and the loss of momentum might have made the drop in quality seem larger than it was.

Regardless, overall, I think I'm going to vote a 6, and add that to me, a 6 is OK. Worth watching for characters that you are invested in, but not good enough that I'd recommend it to a friend. (I've always found the meanings behind number scores a bit hard to interpret.)

 

[Boy Scout]

I have it a 5. It sucked.

EDIT: Sara's death was poorly done. The mystery that resulted from it was uninteresting and unsatisfying. Malcolm and Thea's relationship made no sense at the start. Malcolm and Oliver's relationship never made sense period. Felicity was annoying, Oliver was a moron, and together they made me roll my eyes so hard I thought they'd fall out of my head. The League of Assassins was neutered and Ra's took way too long to become involved in the main storyline. Oliver should not have survived the fall from the cliff, and Roy shouldn't have become Arsenal, because he didn't do anything but stand around and pout half the time. Quentin Lance can go **** himself. The story didn't make sense, the characters were irritating, the writing was atrocious (HOW WAS TEAM ARROW ABLE TO AFFORD TO PAY FOR ANYTHING??), and the ending was so freaking convenient and anticlimactic that I immediately went to the next room to take a dump just so I could experience some excitement on Finale Night.

In short: **** season three.

 

[Fincher]

7/10, it was passable. The first two seasons were 10/10.

I liked:

Thea
Katana
Ray
Ray and Felicity (when they were together)
Laurel and Nyssa
The Slade episode
Cupid
Roy's ending
A lot of the League stuff

I didn't like:

Sara dying
Laurel trying to replace her and not telling her dad
Laurel not recognizing her limitations
Excessive whining from the Arrow crew
Quentin's crusade again Oliver
The Flash and his big crossover episode
Olicity
Ra's being so pushy and arrogant and then sort of winning in the end, or at least thinking he won

 

[Spider-Ock]

I gave it a 7/10 and I am probably going to skip a couple of eps of Season 4 if they turn out to be as Olicity-centric as, well, all the episodes of Season 3. Maybe Daredevil has spoiled me, but I cannot get around to watching both (Arrow and Flash) of these soapy, teen romance tv shows.

 

[Primal Slayer]

6/10. While it was an enjoyable season, it was a very troubled season since the writers seemed to be playing fast and loose with the storylines.

Laurels storyline was good, i really enjoyed it, but they didn't explore it to the max like they could have. Half her storyline happened off screen or were cut short (wildcat). To much time was c dedicated to other things that could've been cut short.

They knew this was Coltons last season and they still barely used Roy or developed him like they could have.

The LOA were highly inconsistent and it annoyed me how it took them 5 mins to travel from Staeling to NP. I guess they can see it from their balcony like Palin sees Russia from hers. Vertigo still was wasted, Saras death played out way to long, and Al Sha-Him was kind of useless since Oliver was never broken.

 

[Whatupman]

3/10. Bad, bad season.

 

[Kster95]

The first part leading into Ra's stabbing Oliver was good and probably the best of the season, after that the Black Canary and Nyssa storyline was the most interesting for me so overall I rate it a 6/10.

 

[DarKush]

I'm rating this season at about 5/10.

The things I liked best:
-Katana (took a little too long to let her cut loose though, and I wish she had played a role in the season finale)
-Brick (could've had him on longer)
-Komodo (though I wish he were more like he was in the comics)
-"The Climb", perhaps the highpoint of the entire season
-Thea as Red Arrow/Speedy
-Nyssa training Laurel
-Boxing glove arrow

Things not bad:
-Wildcat, sort of. I wish more had been done with him.

Iffy on:
-Ray Palmer. I can't shake the feeling that he should've been Ted Kord.
-Roy leaving. I thought they actually brought him onto the show a couple seasons early, but now I'm not sure I want him gone.

Didn't like:
-Olicity
-Matt Nable as Ra's Al Ghul. He just didn't have the gravitas.
-Sara's death and who did it.
-Malcolm's actions. I would find them more acceptable if it felt more like it was a grand plan to take over the League from jump, but it felt like the control of the League thing was tossed in. I did enjoy his flashbacks though.
-Slade's return. It should have been more epic.
-Team Arrow really being down and out. I wish they had showed them having money problems, the effects of him losing the business.

 

[Arrowshieldfan]

yuck voting 4 3 or 2 what a joke

 

[Snow Queen]

yuck voting 4 3 or 2 what a joke

Different opinions? What a joke!

 

[Man in the Suit]

I have it a 5. It sucked.

EDIT: Sara's death was poorly done. The mystery that resulted from it was uninteresting and unsatisfying. Malcolm and Thea's relationship made no sense at the start. Malcolm and Oliver's relationship never made sense period. Felicity was annoying, Oliver was a moron, and together they made me roll my eyes so hard I thought they'd fall out of my head. The League of Assassins was neutered and Ra's took way too long to become involved in the main storyline. Oliver should not have survived the fall from the cliff, and Roy shouldn't have become Arsenal, because he didn't do anything but stand around and pout half the time. Quentin Lance can go **** himself. The story didn't make sense, the characters were irritating, the writing was atrocious (HOW WAS TEAM ARROW ABLE TO AFFORD TO PAY FOR ANYTHING??), and the ending was so freaking convenient and anticlimactic that I immediately went to the next room to take a dump just so I could experience some excitement on Finale Night.

In short: **** season three.

Pretty much this.

 

[Snow Queen]

Good:
-I still like some of the actors, regardless of what they got to do
-Katana's costume
-The Flash crossover
-Nyssa

Bad:
-Sara's death
-Oliver
-Thea's nonsense for the beginning of the season
-Roy and Diggle having nothing to do
-Malcolm's plan
-Ra's al Ghul
-Laurel
-Cupid
-Amanda Waller
-The flashbacks
-Oliver surviving the mid-season finale
-Oliver dumping a mass-murderer who emotionally scarred his sister onto her couch without even asking.
-Felicity being relegated to nothing more than a romance plot
-Oliver believing anything Malcolm says
-Ray Palmer and the Iron Man-lite suit
-Lance's vendetta
-Oliver giving Malcolm the League of Assassins
-The lack of a central theme. They tried for an identity crisis but don't do anything with it.
-How Slade was handled

Season 3 was a complete disaster with only one good episode. I don't know how the show took such a dramatic drop in quality.

 

[Man in the Suit]

I don't know how the show took such a dramatic drop in quality.

Andrew Kreisberg isn't the co-showrunner anymore because he's running The Flash. It's the only reason I can think of.

 

[godisawesome]

I gave it a 5, which for me doesn't so much mean it's bad, but that it seemed half-formed and disappointing. There were no "betrayals" of what made the show good, and no complete failures, but the par for this season was middling, whether by being predictable, underwhelming, or nonsensical. The high point for me was the fight in The Climb. But the overall storyline was not helping individual episodes, and again, the show often seemed to trade one weakness for another.

For being predictable, there was the stuff that was executed fairly well, but so blatantly "required" that it lost serious pizazz. The second that Sara died, we knew what Laurel's journey was going to be; the growth therefore didn't feel organic and we never had any surprises after her death. Dead sister= resonance to heroine's background. And once Ra's revealed that he was deploying his 1970's playbook against Batman on Oliver, we likewise hit a predictability issue: yadda yadda "I need an heir" yadda yadda "you are worthy" yadda yadda "marry my daughter" yadda yadda "destroy the city!/It must be May!" There was no attempt to distinguish Oliver's conflict with Ra's from the now cliched Batman plot. Could it have hurt to have Ra's underestimate and belittle Oliver, try and use him as a weapon or something, and then be surprised when Ollie manages to punch over his weight class?

For underwhelming, we had several examples. Slade's cameo felt wasted, as did Malcolm's initial return; both of these men have inflicted grievous harm upon Oliver, especially Malcolm, and yet we barely get any emotional power in their return episodes. Where's Malcolm's vindictive nature? Y'know, the thing that made him blame a whole neighborhood for his wife's death? Doesn't he seem like the type to blame his son's death on Oliver, while Oliver has plenty of reason to hate him back? Slade's a stagnant single episode threat, and while dangerous, doesn't have his plotline move at all. And tying into the Ra's issue with predictability above, we had two ways to bring people back from fatal injuries in this show, Mirakuru and the Lazarus Pit. Either of those comes with caveats and rules that could have made Ollie's return, huge: just picture a compromised Ollie, either seeing Red like Slade or Roy on Mirakuru, or brainwashed after a dip in the pit, as a heroic antagonist struggling to return to normalcy and losing the Oliver Queen identity while under that pressure. Instead, we got a bandaid cure for two serious stab wounds and a fall off a mountain. What was a great hook for a midseason finale ended up just as a stunt. Then when we get our finale duel, it's...nothing we haven't seen before. Ollie doesn't have to stab himself to take out Ra's, or out think him with a brilliant gambit, or even exert himself that hard, because Ra's just lets go of his sword when it's grabbed.

And nonsensical... the Merlyn-Queen alliance had a woeful amount of logic behind it. Oliver's recovery lacked logic. Ra's motives were inconsistent and lacked logic. And Laurel's subterfuge on her dad with Sara's death was so mind-numbingly stupid that I can't find a single supporter for it at all.

 

[SlamAdams]

6/10, they dropped the ball a lot but the action was always entertaining so I feel like being generous

 

[FeedOnATreeFrog]

6/10 ish

Bad writing obviously, but they threw enough excitement at me to keep me entertained. I got a pretty big kick out of Ra's, Lazarus pits, etc.

I'd go with a 7 if not for the embarrassing Power Ranger fights.

For the record I'd give seasons 1 and 2 similar scores.

 

[Nathan]

I'll probably give it a 5. After 2 enjoyable Seasons, Season 3 was mediocre from beginning to end. Almost every Episode I would sit there, asking myself "Why does this happen?" "Why are they doing that?" "Is that person suffering from brain damage?". S**t just happened for no logical reason whatsoever. And yes, that kinda stuff happened in the first two Season too, but this Season just piled it on.

 

[BH/HHH]

6/10 it never found its footing, it was always gonna be hard to follow up Season Two as that for me is the high point of DC TV. But to drop in quality as much as it did was disappointing. Whilst the main story didn't quite get going, the flashbacks didn't help as they were just dreadful. I really think taking Oliver off the island has ruined them, we know he's gonna end up back on there but I don't see what they will do to get him back there. Losing Roy is a massive blow to the show aswell and I really can't say I'm happy with Thea joining the team. I really think they need to look at moving Felicity on in this show aswell, I love her character but I hate the love stuff with Oliver so much.

On the positive side though I did enjoy the evolution of Laurel into the new 'Black' Canary, Matt Nable as Ra's Al Ghul (even thought they botched that storyline) and Ray Palmer/The Atom.

I think they have their work cut out for season three, I actually think the show could benefit from bringing in another hero. Simply because Team Arrow where it is right now isn't interesting enough for me.

Season One 8/10
Season Two 9.5/10
Season Three 6/10