THE ARROWVERSE
Supergirl! The Flash! Green Arrow! The Legends Of Tomorrow! It’s the Bradley Stoke Rotary Society! Damn, this is harder than it looks…
he DC TV UniVerse is growing Up.
After launching four shows in the last five years, executive producers Marc guggenheim, who oversees Arrow and Legends Of Tomorrow, and Andrew Kreisberg, responsible for
Supergirl and Legends Of Tomorrow, tell SFX that their fan-favourite heroes – and the shows in which they star – are entering a new, more mature phase.
in the case of Arrow, oliver Queen has come to realise that the best way to lead a team is by trusting his teammates – though with most of them caught in a deadly blast at the end of last season’s finale, just how much of Team Arrow remains? For now, guggenheim is keeping the answer under his hat. But he tells SFX of the new threats facing star City, wearing faces familiar to most genre TV fans…
“we’ve got [Lost’s] Michael emerson coming aboard as a yet-to-be-named villain. Michael’s wonderful. he’s incredibly talented, he’s a lovely man, and he really is kind of a perfect fit for Arrow. his nature fits very, very well in this world. he’s a wonderful addition to the cast. And Kirk Acevedo, who plays ricardo Diaz, our
version of the richard Dragon character in the comics, is wonderful. he’s really a force, and again a terrific actor, a terrific guy.
“it’s difficult to talk about season six without talking about who lives and who dies,” explains guggenheim. “But i will say, because we’ve already said that Katie Cassidy’s character survives the explosions on the island, that she’s back as Black siren, and she’s absolutely terrific playing the darker version of Laurel. we also have Manu Bennett returning to reprise his role as slade wilson.”
the new frontier
perhaps the most intriguing new character this year is FBi Agent samandra watson (played by GLOW’s sydelle noel), who complicates oliver’s life by examining his relationship with the green Arrow. “it’s sort of a back-to-basics approach,” says guggenheim. “starting in season one, we had Lance always being the person trying to stop the Arrow. it’s been a while since we told that kind of story. we thought, ‘what’s the spin that we can put on it so it doesn’t feel like just a federal-level rehash of the story we told with Lance?’ she’s playing with a lot more ammunition than Lance ever had. Let’s put it that way.” guggenheim describes Arrow’s overall tone this year as “a grounded, dark tone”. “All four shows last year made a concerted effort back towards what made each particular show unique. For Arrow, it’s the grounded, gritty crime drama. Flash is science and superheroes,
Supergirl is aliens, and Legends Of Tomorrow is just complete insanity.”
Kreisberg tells SFX that science may play a larger role than ever before on The Flash, since this year’s Big Bad is the cerebral Thinker.
“what’s so interesting is anything that we’ve ever done has usually been physical. it’s been about, ‘Can i outrun this guy? Am i faster than him?’ This time, Team Flash is up against somebody who’s just smarter than they are. The challenge is, ‘Can they outthink the Thinker?’ They don’t even realise how deep his machinations go. so it’s an interesting challenge for our team. in the early episodes,
they’re going up against the Thinker without even realising there is a Thinker.”
with Barry exiled to the speed Force and hr wells sacrificing himself to savitar, iris west has, in their absence, taken on the responsibility of leading Team Flash.
“she really stepped into the mix as a leader,” says Kreisberg. “iris is the one doling out assignments. it’s just given her a presence in all of these episodes that we never managed to give her before. it’s been great really finding her place in the show.”
As for this year’s new guest stars, Battlestar Galactica’s Katee sackhoff — as underworld boss Amunet Black (better known as Blacksmith) — and Machete’s Danny Trejo — as inter-dimensional bounty hunter Breacher — will arrive to antagonise Team Flash.
“Katee is so not playing starbuck,” laughs Kreisberg. “she had a really unique and exciting take on the character that really enthused us. And Danny Trejo, we came up with the idea of Cisco having to basically win over gypsy’s father’s affections. he’s so funny, he and Carlos [Valdes]. it’s one of my favourite episodes of all time, directed by Tom Cavanagh [wells]. it’s the fourth episode, which also introduces hartley sawyer as ralph Dibny.”
The Flash’s Dibny will differ from the superhero beloved by many decades of comic fans. “The ralph of the comics is probably more squeaky clean than the guy that we’re meeting,” adds Kreisberg, “who has a long way to go before he becomes the elongated Man. hartley is so funny. injecting somebody who’s that hilarious, it’s made everybody else funnier too.”
Meanwhile, on Supergirl, Kreisberg tells us that Kara is dealing with her remorse over the loss of her lover, Mon-el.
“Kara is asking herself, ‘Am i better off being human, or am