'Legends of Tomorrow' Review

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is a spin-off starring characters from CW’s Arrow and Flash. The story involves time lord Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) working for an organization called the time masters. When an immortal tyrant named Vandal Savage (Casper Crump) murders his wife and son and conquers the Earth, the time masters refuse to help Rip stop Savage. Thus he goes rogue on his ship called the Waverider with his AI Gideon (Amy Louise Pemberton) and recruits a team to help him: an assassin named Sara Lance (Caity Lotz), a scientist with a suit that allows him to shrink named Raymond Palmer (Brandon Routh), both halves of a nuclear powered superhero known as Firestorm named Jefferson “Jax” Jackson (Franz Drameh), Professor Martin Stein (Victor Garber), the present-day incarnations of a duo known as Hawkgirl and Hawkman named Kendra Saunders (Ciara Renee) and Carter Hall (Falk Hentschel), and a pair of thieves named Mick Rory (Dominic Purrell) and Leonard Snart (Wentworth Miller). Together the team of outcasts and misfits work together to stop Savage and after blowing up the time masters take up their mantle in stopping time against others who mean to cause the timeline harm. Despite the fact that it has been around for only three seasons (shorter than both its sister shows), it has easily outdone both of them and has become the best of the four Arrowverse shows through compelling characters, strong villains, stellar writing, and good chemistry among each other.

The characters are easily the best part of the show. All of the actors have outstanding chemistry with one another. Not only do they work well as a team, but also we see how over the course of the episodes they develop into better people finding their place among the team and gradually grow into family. This is something that not only develops at the start of the series but also increases as other characters including Nate Heywood (Nick Zano), Amaya Jiwe ( Masie Richardson Sellers), and Zari Tomaz (Tala Ashe) join. When characters leave or in some cases die, it hits close to home. And each of these characters personalities work off each other as well. You’ve got the non-caring, snarky, and hyperactive Mick Rory, the cynical but honorable Leonard Snart, boy scout Ray Palmer, the stern and precise Martin Stein, and others.

Sara Lance is not only a strong bisexual character but also, emotionally, the strongest character in all of the Arrowverse. We see over the course of the last three seasons her embracing the darkness in her heart and channeling that darkness into her strength and leadership. This is particularly shown in the season two finale when, despite being given the chance to undo all the bad things that happened to her and bring her sister Laurel back, she decides it would not be right.

The villains are somewhat of a mixed bag. The show had somewhat of a rocky start back in season one and that primarily was attributed to its villain Vandal Savage. Casper Crump seems like a good choice in that he looks and sounds fierce but his motives are one-dimensional and his dialogue is nothing short of cliché. Thankfully after season one, there is little if any mention of him, and season two brought the Legion of Doom. This gave Matt Letscher much greater time to shine as Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash. While we did see some of him in The Flash, most of the time Tom Cavanagh played him and while Cavanagh’s portrayal was good, it gave less time for Letscher. Neal Mcdonough is comedic gold as Damien Darhk, showing just how much delight he takes in being evil. Season three, in particular, gives him surprising development in showing just how much he cares for his daughter and, in spite of the horrors he’s done, you really feel for him when he realizes he’s given her up.

Each of the season's finales leads towards the same thing: stopping the big bad from trying to damage time. However the extremes the Legends go tp vanquish the big bad is what sets it apart and truly sets the characters as Legends rather than heroes. Also, the episodes leading up to that involves the Legends going to various periods throughout history and then dealing with being there. Such examples include Ray’s exploits in the old west as sheriff, Nate learning to use his newfound steel powers in feudal Japan, Jax dealing with racism in the Confederate South, and Amaya learning to control herself at P.T. Barnum’s circus. We also get some outstanding character development when they go to the other time periods such as Mick dealing with his father in the Vietnam War and Ray realizing that his childhood was not as fun as he made it out to be.

The romance is another problem with this show. Aside from the relationship between Sara and Ava (Jes Macallan) in season three, which is very well built over the episodes, there are only two other romances, neither of which are very well defined. The first is Ray and Kendra in season one. Throughout the season we always are told that Kendra is destined to end up with Carter no matter what and most of their romance over a period of three years is left up to audience interpretation when there isn’t much to go off of. Sure enough, she and Carter do end up back together, and when they leave the team it’s as if none of it ever happened. The second romance is between Nate And Amaya. While Nick and Masie do give their all in trying to make it convincing, we know no matter how close she grows to the Legends and no matter how invested we get in her character or her relationship with Nate Amaya, she is not going to stay with the team forever as she has to go back to Zambezi to preserve her descendants’ existence. And like Kendra, she does leave at the end of season three. However, Nate and Amaya’s farewell is very emotional and feels like a goodbye to her character.

Legends of Tomorrow is a great show with a talented cast and good stories to tell, and, with the emergence of supernatural creatures next season, its good features are something that I hope will continue.