But if you're a hardcore DC fan, you should find enough to enjoy here. The "diverse" cast, compiled of The Atom (Brandon Routh), White Canary (Caity Lotz), Firestorm (Franz Drameh), Professor Stein (Victor Garber), Rip Hunter (Arthur Davill), Heatwave (Dominic Purcell), Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller), Hawkgirl (Ciara Renee), and Hawkman (Falk Hentschel) all bring their own baggage and unique perspectives to the time-traveling table. Rip Hunter, a Time Master from 2166, travels back in time to recruit these different individuals to help him stop the immortal madman Vandal Savage (Casper Crump). Their efforts to locate him throughout time take the team to the 1970s, the distant future, and even to the Wild West. But I'll discuss the story later, and instead begin with the obvious focus of the show: the characters.
In short, most of these characters are terrible. They're all selfish regularly, and apparently do not care about the consequences of their actions. Professor Stein saves a boy from a disease that is easily cured in the future, but doesn't care to prevent the antibiotic from being held out of the wrong hands and inadvertently disrupt the timeline. Firestorm displays his powers to people who haven't even begun to understand the concept of superheroes yet. White Canary wants to interact with an organization that she won't meet for another 60 years, and drops hints about how to change the course of events. This is what bugs me about the show: while seeing these heroes interact with one another, they're so poorly mishandled. It's clear from the fourth episode in that these characters were specifically chosen because they were likable enough on the sides, but not important enough to keep in either The Flash or Arrow. As a matter of fact, the little character development that does take place here isn't anywhere near as engaging or interesting as it has been on the other two shows. Story-lines are copied and pasted, motivations are contradictory at best, and anything new that's tried with these characters (for the most part) seemed like it was just an attempt to fill time.
Now, I understand the struggles of a show on a network like the CW: it wants to be a blockbuster, but is also ham-stringed by budget constraints. It wants to be zany and weird, but needs to keep themes central. This struggle doesn't excuse what ended up being (for me) an attempt to throw characters at the wall and see who audiences liked and who audiences didn't like. And I'll be honest: I don't like many of them now. Seeing these characters both preach about using their power for good but not respecting the power they have seemed like such a juvenile trait for these powerful warriors. They certainly weren't making the irrational choices here on Legends in their previous appearances.
And I also understand that because it's a superhero TV show, I shouldn't be so petty about it. But these are characters that I did enjoy in previous iterations. This was a concept I was enthralled by. What I got out of it, however, was a 16-episode season where style and action replaced character growth and story. And in my mind, that is something that no TV show is allowed to do. Game of Thrones boasts some of the best production value and special effects TV has ever seen, but you never hear people talking about the locations they filmed at or the dragons, do you? The dominant trait of Game of Thrones conversation always revolves around what Danerys is up to, or how Tyrion will try to stop Cersi. Character moves the story forward, and character makes the world come alive. When someone sets out to tell a long-form narrative in the form of a television show, where audiences will be asked to commit at least one hour out of every week to continue the adventure of several players, the storytellers need to engage the audience on a further level than massive explosions or cool fight sequences. As a TV show, that should have been the prime directive,
By the end of the season, I was burned out. Some cool character moments aside, DC's Legends of Tomorrow gave me the time-traveling shenanigans I was promised, but little else. I might be harder on this show than most, but it's because I loved these characters when I had previously seen them. To see them here, thrust into stories that didn't engage many of them in meaningful or interesting ways, coupled with a story that became blander and blander as the season progressed, absolutely turned me from a fan to a critic. And while the season 1 cliffhanger promises many more exciting things to follow, that's the same promise this show made to me the first time around. If you're not a DC fan, don't waste your time here. If you are a DC fan, I'm surprised you stuck around. I only did it because I don't have a lot of TV to watch.
Rating: 4.0 / 10
