Arrow has gone town the drain. Season 4 episode 5 was one of the best episodes I've seen story wise but the production was really lacking, last episode was boring filler and I'm only one minute into this episode (S4 E7) and the opening fighting sequence is so badly arranged and full of clichés - including ones that the show itself has used before - that there is no suspense, no interest.
*Spoiler Alert*
It starts with Laurel using her 'Canary Cry' and you see some glass break and these 2 guys start overacting the hell out of the pain they supposedly feel. Also, for the first time in this scene a guy points his gun at somebody he has full intentions of killing but hesitated for literally no reason. There's no point whatsoever. Next, Oliver and Thea show up on their bikes but they enter the scene so slowly that you could tell they'd just got on like 5 seconds ago. They did not look heroic, they did not look like they were entering a fight sequence. They actually just looked so damn bored. So this line of bad guys with automatic weaponry start shooting at them and they hide behind their bikes. I usually wouldn't gripe about this because henchmen with bad aim is basically a given these days, but Thea just sort of jogs from behind her cover of the bike to behind some kind of crate. She doesn't run like she's being shot at, she jogs like she was rushing to the kitchen because mum shouted 'dinners ready'. Then we get to Laurels martial arts exchange with a henchman and boy is it a treat. Even setting aside the fact that we know she can best several of these bad guys at once in a matter of seconds, as we've seen it before, yet she takes an entire 10 second to bash this one guy (who you could tell was reacting from the hits before they contacted). Then, for the second time in less than 40 seconds, somebody points a gun at Laurel, and even though he has absolutely no reason not to shoot her instantly, giver just enough time for Dig to back up a car into him and save her. That guy would have shot her instantly given the time. Is it really too hard to have 2 things happen in one shot at the same time? (Also, you can't hear the the vehicle back up or move at all or shot for some reason. That's just poor sound design. And of course Laurel proceeds to tell Dig why they're there, even though as a team they would obviously know why they are there, especially as they're in full costume and obviously planned this in some way. And then to top it all off the first bit of action we see from Thea is tackling a guy who's getting up (after getting hit with a van) and heading for Dig (after getting hit with a van) and Dig even runs right past this guy who's obviously going for him (after getting hit with a van...) when he could have taken him down right there and then without even barely moving an inch to the right. And all of that happens within the first minute of the episode (excluding the "Previously on..." part). Then Thea does the whole bloodlust thing that happens EVERY DAMN TIME that she fights lately. it's not interesting or entertaining to see her wail on somebody for a bit too long before she comes to her senses. Next on the agenda, Oliver shoots some guy in the chest with an arrow. How is his no killing policy successful if he's constantly shooting people in chest with arrows. I mean I know he's meant to be some sort of master of anatomy so he can shoot in the right places to avoid killing or something, but I've seen these shots. He shoots half of them in the lung. Not only that but just before he shoots everybody in the scene is standing there practically standstill, especially Oliver. You can tell the video editor left the shot opening way too long. Then some crap about Hive blowing up the money just so the town didn't have it happens... We already know that they want the city to be helpless, with the whole 'stopping anybody from legitimately running for mayor' play, so this scene it literally pointless except for some action, which I'm all for if it's done well, which this was not.
(This is the first in a series of reviews I will be writing where I will simply be analysing and judging the opening scenes from various television show episodes and films. THE RATING of 6 I HAVE CAST IS IN REVIEW OF THE ENTIRE EPISODE, NOT JUST THE OPENING SEQUENCE.)
