“Legends of Tomorrow” is the newest DC Comics show on The CW network. With success from “Arrow” and “The Flash” DC looks to continue its strong streak on TV, teaming up heroes and villains from both shows in one new series. Upon its announcement, comic book fans were intrigued by a superhero/villain team come to life on the small screen. Its two-part pilot episode aired Jan. 21 and with its rst few episodes, the show already looks to be pretty promising.
In the year 2166, the universe is under control from Vandal Savage (Casper Crump), an immortal god with great power. Looking to change the course of history, time traveler Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) goes to the year 2016 to create a team of superheroes and villains to stop Savage. To save the world as well as their own future, they must travel to certain points in time to defeat Savage and thwart his plans. As they’re traveling in time together, these heroes and villains must learn to work together to save the world and hopefully become legends.
Caity Lotz (from left), Brandon Routh, Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell all star in the newest show by DC Comics on The CW “Legends of Tomorrow.”
The show has a huge roster of superheroes such as The Atom (Brandon Routh), White Canary (Caity Lotz), Hawkman (Falk Hentschel), Hawkgirl (Ciara Renee) and Firestorm (Victor Gabor and Franz Drameh) and the supervillains Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) and Heatwave (Dominic Purcell). With all these heroes and villains in one show, viewers could feel too crowded and lose focus easily. But fortunately, the show doesn’t lose focus and adds a dynamic with a group of heroes preferring to do things one way while the others have a different way of doing stuff. It’s fun to see these heroes go back and forth with each other and the action sequences are well done, especially in Part 2 of the pilot. The first part set up these characters and took time to explain the plot, which was a good thing to split the first episode into two parts rather than rushing it. But Part 2 was when things started to kick into gear as they begin to learn to work together and the show goes a direction that will make audiences’ jaws drop.
There is one weak link in the show, and that is Crump’s performance as Vandal Savage. He just seems like a generic villain wanting to take over the world and is very power hungry. Because of Crump’s thick Danish accent some of his line deliveries seem off and when they try to make him menacing it lacks the punch needed to make him a memorable villain. He could improve over time but so far Crump’s acting could use some improvement.
All in all, “Legends of Tomorrow” shows a lot of promise with a great dynamic of superheroes and villains going back in time together trying to work as a team, making this a show worth watching live. The show is on 7 p.m. Thursdays on The CW and you can catch up on the first few episodes on cwtv.com or on Hulu.
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