Just started rewatching The Flash from the beginning after I cut myself off from the show midway in Season 3. Does anyway see the correlation of character "development" with Iris and Lana from Smallville? Both started out as cliched love interests, damsels in distress, slowly getting their own "thing" Iris with reporting on Flash and Lana with the coffee shop, slowly integrated into the action or becoming "hardened" with Lana learning to fight (pure cringe) and her not getting anything from anyone progression, and Iris' integration into the team and even leading it around the start of S4 (how is she even qualified to lead the time?) to what looks to be her wielding guns and wanting to handle things herself this current season (from promos alone).
It's funny because I loathed what Lana became in Smallville, so annoying, always filled with cringe dialogue and drama, and could not wait for Lois to take the main cast spot from her. And I'm feeling the same way with Iris. I'm a few episodes in on Season 4, and she is just terrible, she goes from a gossip columnist writing about The Streak, getting a reporter gig to report on The Flash, to programming training simulations and leading the team.. out of nowhere. She isn't shown taking lessons on programming with Cisco or elsewhere, she hadn't really helped the team AT ALL prior to Barry heading into the speed force outside of giving the team leads from her reporter connections. She's just become a nuisance and brings the show down so much. It seems like the writers believe Barry and Iris need to be glued together, when the comics show that is not the case. In fact, in a lot of ways I feel like the Patty in this show would have made more sense for Barry and the team than Iris, but again, the writers seem hellbent on sticking those two together.