First Thoughts On 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' (Episodes 1-6)

While DC seems to be failing to conquer the big screen with 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice', they do seem to be doing pretty well on the Television front, with a whole interconnected universe of shows with 'Arrow', 'The Flash', 'Vixen', 'Constantine', 'Supergirl' and now 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' - a mini-series following Time Master Rip Hunter on his mission to prevent a dystopian future overruled by tyrant Vandal Savage. Hunter is aided by the Atom, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, both halves of FIRESTORM, Captain Cold, Heat Wave and White Canary as they journey throughout space and time to fight their nemesis.
This show pretty much embraces how silly and at points cheesy it can be, with lots of sci-fi techno-babble on the effects of time travel, plenty of Universe-building and lots of little in-jokes and Easter eggs for fans of the other shows and for comic book fans.
So, is it any good?
Well, I can say that 'Legends' is a heck of a lot of fun. If you haven't seen 'Arrow' or 'The Flash', you'll be almost entirely lost on just who most of these characters are, even though many of them haven't been fleshed out in the parent shows anyway. The selection of heroes, villains and anti-heroes makes for a very interesting set of team-members, but by far the most ingenious twist in the tail is that at the end of Episode 2 ("Pilot, Part 2"), one of the leads gets killed off! It's not too surprising if you look in-depth at the series from its inception, given that Hawkman is nowhere to be seen in the original trailer and all of his footage from the trailer is from the opening two-parter. If this twist hadn't been spoiled for me, I would have been very surprised though. Damn internet.
There's lots of interesting ideas at play within the show, building on what its parent series' have established as part of this Universe to make an interesting selection of mostly standalone episodes - albeit with a couple of two-parters. The most exciting episode was Episode 6 ("Star City 2046") with the future versions of both Green Arrow and Deathstroke - making for the most interesting episode of Arrow since...well....a while.
There's little I can say about 'Legends' though, as its clearly a dumb but fun show that doesn't want its audience to look deeply into its themes or stories. The characters are a lot of fun, the story's pretty solid and the effects look pretty darn good for a TV show. I've thoroughly enjoyed these first six episodes, and its definitely up there with 'The Flash' as one of my favourite shows on TV at the moment. If you haven't checked out the series, then A) sorry I spoiled Episode 2's twist and B) go watch it and have some fun.

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