Arrow: Season 1, Episodes 1-5

With superhero movies and cartoons at something of an all-time high, it is perhaps surprising that there aren't more superhero TV shows, although doubtless the effects cost is a major consideration. Arrow is a fairly good bet on those grounds, taking as its central character one of the effects-light 'supernormals' of the DC universe; Oliver Queen, aka Green Arrow.

Speaking of supernormals, let's get this out of the way: Arrow is very, very Batman. Oliver Queen is a millionaire playboy who loses his father and becomes a vigilante in response, defending his city as hooded - not masked, although for added security he is heavily mascaraed - vigilante... the Hood. Yeah, we have yet to have Queen's alter-ego referred to as Green Arrow, or even Arrow, instead focusing on the visual and motivational parallels with Robin Hood. That makes a certain amount of sense, although honestly if you're leery of superheroes with silly names, I think you're probably working in the wrong genre.

Now, there are differences. Where Thomas Wayne was a martyred saint, Robert Queen was a fallen angel, and Oliver's mission is to redeem his father's sins more than to honour his memory. In addition, Bruce Wayne's world tour of unbelievably painful training is replaced by a gauntlet of survival on an island called Purgatory, which through a series of flashbacks is revealed to be full of horrible DC villains (and straight up, if you're going to try to have a more gritty, realistic look to your superhero series, Deathstroke the Terminator may not be the way to go).

Seriously, is this the torso of a millionaire playboy?

Good points:

Stephen Amell balances the playboy facade of Queen with the terrifying intensity of the Hood pretty well (and pretty is the operative word). He has the usual problem that he apparently manages to persuade people he's an idle dilettante despite having the body of the world's greatest athlete (see right), but the coincidence of his return is covered well, and I like that even in the first five episodes he is expanding his team and making it more about the mission than himself.

The supporting cast is also pretty strong, with Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance being a little weak, mostly because she has to vacillate wildly between trusting and not trusting Queen, and thus going from smart to pretty dumb depending on the needs of the plot. Colin Salmon is in it, and that's never bad, but as I have since Resident Evil I worry that he'll end up being cut into teeny tiny cubes.

Bad points:

So far, we're just building up the ongoing antagonists, and most of the baddies have just been corrupt businessmen with goons; the most interesting villain was the Yakuza hit woman and that's because her long, white hair broke the visual monotony of clipped professional cuts and dark grey suits, rather than because she was in any way well-rounded.

Well, and flashback Deathstroke, but he's just been in flashbacks.