5 Ways to Make Arrow Great Again In Season 5

Arrow is a show that is very close to our hearts. It is the CW's primal show, from which all the great comic book tv shows we have come to know and love have been derived. Be it Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Vixen etc to name a few. But Arrow itself has been suffering from a dearth of good writing and good story progression. It has become stale and very much tiring to say the least. So here are my five points to make arrow a more interesting show after Season 4. *Spoilers abound.

1) Stop the Olicity overdose.

We get it. The show creators like the Oliver and Felicity relationship. And it's an ok relationship I guess. While I would have liked a Laurel/Oliver shipping keeping with the spirit of the comics, but this too is ok. But the fundamental problem I'm seeing is that they focus too much of the show on their relationship, questions of will they, won't they. What to do about the darkness in Oliver(more on that later) and his tendency to keep secrets. We need to focus more on Oliver and his story, the way it was in the previous seasons. Also, less emo stuff, more martial arts.

2) Stop making the Oliver into some pansy that gets afraid of a little vigilante justice and vengeance.

Oliver in this season is so much trying to be a different kind of guy. He doesn't kill(though in the finale he did, a good move I think). He is the imprison everyone guy, torture no one, advice to everybody etc etc. Arrow is not the Green Arrow. He is more the Batman than the Green Arrow. While this was something that was criticised in the early seasons, I can see the wisdom of that now. He isn't the joking, wise cracking guy in the comics. And there is a reason for that. His entire experience has shaped him into that. Look at what happens to him in the five years he is on the island. Murder, torture, losing friends, losing everything he once held dear. That cannot be turned off by a mere Olicity ship. He has to keep that darkness, as something that will drive him. Show a little anger. Pommel a few bad nuts. Sure keep the no killing rule but show that you are going through a transformation, not an on and off switch like thing. And lose the weird suit. The older was more badass. This is just bad.

3) Stop trying to imitate the Flash.

Look Arrow was a good show even with the first season of the Flash. The formula was to keep things separate. This whole magic thing was a pretty piss poor story. Arrow is about human beings and very real dangers. The Flash took the meta human spin from the start so it has suited them. For Arrow, scientific marvels like Mirakuru monsters is still ok or even seismic machines used in the undertaking. But the magic of Damian Darhk, the whole sorcerers etc were very much boring and bad attempts at something new. We don't know how Darhk acquired the idol, how he had such control over it, how Oliver was able to even beat him. Hope without any channel? Grow up writers.

4) Villains need to be better. Much better.

Damian Darhk was so comic he didn't even give a small stench of danger. There was no menace to him, no need to fear him. He made jokes, had fun, even spared Oliver whenever he could. Slade Wilson was a real villain, there was a real fear to what he could do if left unchecked. Even Malcolm was a great villain before he became this friendly neighbourhood sometimes slightly self-serving archer. Ra's was ok up till the mid season break, then he became kinda redundant. We need villains that inspire fear, who pose a real threat to the lives of the people around them, that can't be defeated easily. There is such a wealth of DC villains to be exploited just sitting there. And this is where the source material must come in handy. H.I.V.E is probably going to feature as the all round bad but that is ok as long as they don't pull the same crap over and over again.

5) Stop bringing people back.

This has actually improved with the ending of the Lazarus pit. But death on Arrow used to be so less of importance that the only people that died were Oliver's mum and Tommy. Now Laurel is dead too but seriously, we all know the Black Canary is coming back one way or the other(promise me Oliver, anyone?). So what is the lesson learnt? Death has to be the end for it to matter. If GRRM pulled Jon Snow's all the time, it wouldn't matter to the people involved because their deaths lose all emotional meaning to the viewers.