- Title: Legends of Tomorrow – Pilot, Part 1
- wiki: link
Rule One: Time Masters lie. Taking place in the same shared universe of Arrow and The Flash, The CW’s latest super-hero series takes supporting heroes and villains from both shows and unites them with a common purpose. Brought together by rogue Time Master Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill), who sells each of them on the idea of the legendary status each will achieve by joining him, Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh), Sara Lance (Caity Lotz), Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) and Heat Wave (Dominic Purcell), Hawkman (Falk Hentschel) and Hawkgirl (Ciara Renée), Jefferson Jackson (Franz Drameh), and Martin Stein (Victor Garber) team-up to save the future from the immortal Vandal Savage (Casper Crump).
I have concerns given the size of the show’s cast which only a single episode in already feels a bit unwieldy. The choice of Hunter to lie to the heroes (he chose each of them for the exact opposite reason as history won’t miss them if they die helping him) is a nice touch although it, along with the stolen time ship, is a little too much of a Doctor Who nod than is necessary. I’m also not on-board with the number of changes the show makes to Hunter’s backstory which makes him more of a time vigilante with a personal grudge than true Time Master. (And don’t even get me started on Chronos who seems to be wearing an extra’s left-over armor from Masters of the Universe.) The episode also has some unbelievably convenient plot points (the expert the team searches for just happens to be the Hawks long-lost son? Laurel just happened to have a tailor-made white leather outfit ready in a display case on the off-chance Sara might want it?).
Given the size of the cast and the unusual set-up of the show, taking heroes and villains across space and time in an attempt to stop an immortal dictator, the first-half of Legends of Tomorrow works well enough while still showing plenty of room for improvement. I also wouldn’t mind seeing the cast culled down a bit (my choices to start would be get rid of both Hawkman and Heat Wave) to make the core group a little more manageable in size. The show does a fairly good job of the time period of their first time jump but, given the show’s budget, I’m curious to see if this will continue or begin to be one obvious place where Legends of Tomorrow might begin to cut costs.
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