Top 8 Reasons Arrow has Jumped the Shark

[TMC]

http://411mania.com/movies/the-comic...ped-the-shark/

Just Missing The Cut

• Honorable Mention #1: Death Means Noting: I get it, the show is based on a comic book where death has become meaningless. However it bothers me that Malcolm Merlyn has escaped death’s hand and that they teased the title characters demise for all of one show.

#8. Roy the Boyfriend not Staying in his Lane

Maybe this is the overprotective sibling in me speaking but I get very perturbed by an outsider coming in-between a brother and his sister. At this moment, Arsenal is only an ex-boyfriend of Thea. So he has no place trying to check Oliver in the way he deals with his sister and I’m personally tired of seeing him interject himself into their conversation. Let’s just keep it all the way 100, Thea has a history of making poor decisions. From developing a drug problem, going down to the glades time and time again looking for Roy to the horrendous decision of going off with her (known) genocidal father so she never gets hurt again. So if Ollie wants to keep certain things from her or not include her in on Arrow related situations (a la when Laurel as Black Canary lay on the table drugged) then he has every right to do so. I get it, Roy being the partner of the Arrow while also the on-again off-again lover of Oliver Queen’s baby sister creates tension on the show. But for me as a viewer I cringe whenever Roy is on screen and it tempts me to the fast forward button through his scenes.

#7. The Perpetual Flashbacks

We get it already. A lot of things happened to Oliver before his return to Starling City. Enough with the flashbacks. I know Lost made it an integral part of the storytelling and as such TV show today are following suit with this overdone trope. It was a great way to tell the dual story of Oliver’s return home while showing what he endured on that island for five years. Now that we know most of what his ordeal was and the Arrow has become firmly established as the city’s hero, the flashbacks have become a crutch on the show. The creative team are utilizing it as a parallel a present day story with something that took place years ago. And nowadays it’s taking away from valuable present day storyline character development and plot advancement.

#6. Too Many People Knows Oliver’s Secret

Diggle. Felicity. Sara. Roy. Laurel. Thea. Nyssa. Ra’s Al Ghul. Slade Wilson. Have I named them all? It’s embarrassing that Detective Lance hasn’t figured it out. It’s quite lame that they have a character where secrecy and lying to protect his loved ones is part of his personality yet so many people know about his dangerous alter ego.

#5. Lies & Secrets

“More secrets.” “I’m tired of the lying.” “I lied to you to protect you.” Seriously it’s 2015 and television shows are still writing these tired and clichéd lines in a superhero show. Just once I wish the protagonist would say, “Yes I lied to you because you don’t need to know everything.” It’s lazy trope by the writers and considering they know certain characters are on a need to know basis there are better ways to write these interactions. It was refreshing as hell to see Thea’s reaction to learning Oliver’s secret vigilante life or when she was told that she was Sara’s killer. They didn’t go back to tired “more lies” but instead she felt relief and actual gratitude. To make me not remove my season pass on this show they have to do away with this lame dialogue.

#4. Felicity-Ray Ship

Nooooooo~! As much as we want Felicity Smoak to be in a loving relationship, Ray Palmer is not the person we want her with. The man stole Ollie’s company for Pete’s sake. Look if the Arrow can’t be with Felicity because what he does puts his love ones in danger, fine. But do the audience have to bear witness to them flaunting Felicity’s happiness with another would be crime fighter?

#3. No Olicity

Funny thing happened on the way to the Oliver Queen-Laurel Lance “ship”. Arrow’s fanbase fell in love with a smart, spunky blonde by the name of Felicity. Unlike the needy and often times useless Black Canary 2.0, Felicity Smoak proves herself in each episode as a worthy love interest for the emerald archer. When she figures out how to help Ollie save the day we root for her. When she gets on her moral soapbox with an impassioned speech to talk some sense into the gang, we side with her. And watching her eyes water in despair as she came to the realization that the man she loves will not be returning home, we felt her pain. The writers seem hell bent on keeping to the source material which means NO Olicity, and, at least for this viewer, it’s a bad decision.

#2. Arrow’s Girlfriend Laurel Lance

Keeping in line with the CW’s portrayal of other comic book love interests, the creative team of Arrow has gone about making a wholly unlikable love interest for our protagonist. Except aren’t we supposed to like her so when she ends up with our hero we’re happy about it? Laurel is just as grating as Lana Lang was and, now, Iris West is now. We all know canonical Black Canary & Green Arrow end up together, even married for a time. However, to delay Ollie and Laurel from being a couple, in the process, the writers have turned the audience against Laurel and actively root for anyone to be by our archer’s side. But why? It’s as if the writers of these comic shows think the entirety of the show’s audience are male. (Newsflash it isn’t!) Worse that this male demographic has some issues with women in our personal lives and that the only way we’ll tolerate this women infiltrating our comic shows is if we they’re written in an unlikable matter so that we can hate them. It’s as good an explanation as I can think of why the writers of these shows continue make “hatable love interest” characters like Laurel. Here’s to us, loser geeks who can’t have healthy relationship with women.

#1. Characters Acting Stupid

Really stupidly. It all began in episode five when Merlyn, along with Thea in tow, made his way back to Starling City. Cornered by Nyssa from the League of Assassins, Malcolm is taken down and in the custody of Oliver who decides…to let him go? Are you serious? The man is responsible for the deaths of 500 people in the Glades and never stood trial for their murders and Oliver doesn’t bring him to justice because Merlyn uses the logic of “I’ll just escape.” So~! Ollie couldn’t put him through the inconvenience of having to do so. This season of Arrow has seen a number of characters do stupid things for the sake of advancing the narrative toward something epic in the series finale. But their path arriving there ridiculous with scenarios like: having Felicity upset that it took Oliver too long to get back to Starling City despite the fact he left to a fight to the death with Ra’s Al Ghul. Or how about the wholly untrained Laurel getting her assed handed to her because she must cope with her sister’s death somehow. Or…sigh, you get the picture. The level of asinine things there having their characters do is bordering on Heroes Season 2 level of stupidity and we all know that show never recovered.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Almost all of those reasons are quite half-baked.

As someone who cares little about shipping, I disagree with every one.