First Thoughts on 'Arrow' Season 3 (Episodes 5-7)

Oh dear Arrow, what's happening to you?
This season of Arrow so far has been quite lackluster compared to the previous two. The show is filling its episodes up with villain-of-the-week formats and nothing that interesting keeping its audience watching. We only have Ra's al Ghul (whom we probably won't see until the end of episode 8) threatening Oliver, Sara's death and...
Hang on, lets talk about that. Where is the arc of Sara's mysterious killer going? It turns out she wasn't killed by Roy in a Mirakuru-entranced state (instead he's feeling like a murderer - with nights off to look awesome alongside Arrow - after having killed a SCCP officer last season. Who remembers that? I didn't, and I only watched Season 2 in October), and Sara wasn't killed by Malcolm Merlyn. I'm sure something was mentioned about Ra's al Ghul killing her, but that never got a definitive answer. And if it did, then that information was lost on someone who's been paying close attention to the show. It just doesn't seem to be going anywhere, even with the drama of Detective Lance finding out.
We are seeing Laurel go down her steps to become...well, I don't know if I can say it. Actually, you've probably worked it out anyway - Arrow hasn't been subtle about it. Laurel is going down the steps to become Black Canary, and I eagerly await her to join Team Arrow in a future episode, and it would be cool to see Arrow, Arsenal and Black Canary forming their own mini-Justice League, and maybe one day The Flash could join!
Each episode this season seems to try and end on some kind of cliffhanger, but introducing next week's villain is becoming very boring very quickly, and as most of the non-comic book audience is left going "who the hell is that?!" its not exactly teasing. Get rid of that and introduce some actual cliffhangers. I would have thought the shady scene with Ray Palmer in Episode 7 would have been a good cliffhanger, but oh well. Speaking of Ray Palmer...I have nothing to say.
The romance seems to be terrible as well this season, with the Ray/Felicity thing being very annoying, the Thea and whoever the hell that DJ was not making any sense, feeling contrived and making me want to see Thea get back with Roy already (we all know its going to happen). Speaking of Thea, can she go super badass soon? She did get trained by Malcolm Merlyn and nothing seems to have become of that! I want to see her and her father team up as villains or anti-heroes (maybe they can team up with Laurel and Team Arrow to fight Ra's al Ghul (finale idea writers, take note). Anyway, the romance isn't working, although the Oliver/Felicity is bearable.
Yeah, I'm just waiting for something to happen. We're through seven episodes and little interesting has happened in the show, just give us something already!
Maybe it'll pick up after the crossover.

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