What Is... will be a series taking a look at the pilots of every new show released in the 2014-15 prime time broadcast year. Not all shows will have impressions in their first week, and some shows won't be looked at at all, but this series will cover a broad spectrum of shows debuting in both the United States and Canada.
The Flash is The CW's second foray into comic book adaptations. Having not seen Arrow, I don't have much to compare it to, but The Flash has been getting strong reviews from television critics, and had a lot of hype backing it. Thankfully, the show is off to a promising start with a solid pilot, and has a lot of room to grow.
Premise
Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) is a crime scene investigator for the Central City Police Department, scientifically brilliant but socially awkward. Taken in by Detective West (Jesse L. Martin) after his father's wrongful conviction for his mother's death, he is fiercely driven to clear his father's name. One day, an advanced particle accelerator has a public viewing, but it malfunctions, and in the ensuing freak thunderstorm Allen is hit by lightning, going into a coma. When he wakes, he has the ability to move at superhuman speeds, which eventually drives him to protect Central City under the moniker of The Flash.
It's a comic book adaptation, so this premise is known to readers of the source material. The Flash isn't the most popular of the DC heroes, but he is up there, having been in a few animated series starring DC characters, though not necessarily as Barry Allen. Here, some small liberties have been taken with the origin story, and not being a reader of DC Comics, many characters weren't familiar faces. However, with DC Comics being as much of a pop culture monolith as it is, the character is still likely well-known enough to garner the interest taken in the show.
Characters and Acting
The show has a fair number of supporting characters, and while most aren't immediately memorable, protagonist Barry Allen is compelling enough to drive the show, and some of the side characters are just interesting enough to keep the whole show from being on the lead character's shoulders. Gustin's manner of playing Allen is reminiscent of Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker, but the comparison is unfavourable. Gustin's performance is less charming than Garfield's, and though he still does a good job, his performance could serve to be less derivative.
Meanwhile, the personalities of the supporting cast have their foundations placed here, but these characters will need to develop further in order to stay interesting. Some supporting cast members are more interesting than others - Allen's support group, consisting of Dr. Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker), Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdez), and Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) are the most interesting of the bunch, with solid bases to their characters that have a lot of potential to be built upon.
However, other characters, such as Iris West (Candice Patton) and her father Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) are more generic and uninteresting, and the minor characters are entirely forgettable. Certainly, these characters could easily become much better in subsequent episodes, but this pilot fails to make them compelling. Iris in particular doesn't have much influence, with a sort-of-subplot that is only mentioned in the episode for the sake of setting it up. Detective West has more presence in the episode, but his character has a slightly derivative feeling. At the same time, there is potential to do more with both characters later in the series.
Writing
The writers of the Flash pilot are Arrow writers Greg Berlanti & Andrew Kreisberg and comic book writer Geoff Johns, who has had a run on The Flash from 2000-2005. Their script is fairly solid, suffering from a few iffy lines but mostly flowing nicely. A lot of it feels derivative, but there's an overriding earnestness that sells the show through even its most generic points. The script moves by quickly, and thankfully is as a whole quite enjoyable.
Direction
Atmospherically, The Flash is a lot more light than most of its contemporary DC adaptations, though my reference pool is primarily in film. It has a light feel like an archetypical comic book, and this is especially prevalent near the end, as the show's best qualities come into play. The pacing is fast-almost too fast. After almost every commercial break, the story jerks forward a bit too far. Where other shows have a careful flow between scenes, The Flash sort of speeds from story point to story point. This does smooth out in the latter half, where the action ramps up and scenes flow into each other more.
As a superhero show, action scenes are an inevitability, and this is where the show excels. Its fast pace works especially well for the action, and combined with great direction makes for some very fun scenes. There isn't an excess of carnage like the typical Hollywood action movie, which may be a a benefit of the television show medium, but it's still a large-scale show of special effects. The effects are solid enough, serving the action scenes well and at times looking great. The show's emphasis here on set up did result in fewer action special effects than might be expected, though that's most likely partially because the speed effect often looks fairly natural.
Cinematography is fairly derivative, but on the small screen things like the colour balance and composition of shots are less notable as they're not nearly as prominent as they would be on a big screen. At the same time, the look of the show in its slower moments definitely has a generic feel to it.
Watch or ignore?
This show has a lot of potential, and while it's not perfect, its flaws could easily be built upon as the show goes on. This pilot is solid and fun, and definitely has a lot going for it. It'll be interesting to see where this one goes, and it's certainly a show worth keeping an eye on.
Watch
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