‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Episode 1.1 “Pilot, Part 1” (8 out of 10) Directed by Glen Winter, Written by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, Marc Guggenheim. Starring Victor Garber, Brandon Routh, Arthur Darvill, Caity Lotz, Franz Drameh, Ciara Renee, Falk Hentschel, Amy Pemberton, Dominic Purcell, Wentworth Miller, Casper Crump. Guest starring Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, Peter Francis James. First broadcast January 21, 2016.
It’s an enormous roster for a superhero show. Headed up by Rip Hunter, the “Legends of Tomorrow” team also has (deep breath) Atom, White Canary, Hawkgirl, Hawkman, Firestorm, Captain Cold, and Heat Wave. Once you consider that Firestorm is a gestalt being made of two different characters who combine, that’s nine different characters on a team, that we’ll be at least checking in with in every episode. That’s a lot. That was my biggest concern going into the pilot episode. With that many characters, can the writers tell a story that gives any of the heroes enough meat to care about what happens to them? The short answer is yes. But they’ve got to be careful.
Over the last two years, we’ve been introduced to eight of those nine characters on “Arrow” and “The Flash.” We know Sara Lance (White Canary) best of all, but also know Atom, Professor Stein, and Captain Cold enough to know their history, motivation, some family members, some broken hearts…we know them. Heat Wave more superficially, because so far he’s just pure id — he sees something, he wants to burn it, drink it, or kill it. Sometimes all three. We’ve just met the new Firestorm host, Jax, and Hawkman and Hawkgirl were introduced in the “Arrow”/”The Flash” crossover in November. So the newcomer here is Rip Hunter, and he’s the key to the episode.
Rip Hunter is a “Time Master,” and a longtime DC Comics character…who no one knows or cares about. Until now. The Time Masters are impassive observers of history. They’re not supposed to love or marry, they’re not supposed to interfere with the timestream. When Captain Rip Hunter breaks those rules, falling in love, having a son, he proves vulnerable to Vandal Savage, who brutally murders Rip’s family in 2166. Hunter begs the Time Masters ruling council for a timeship so he can go back and change time. When he’s denied he steals the Waverider and takes matters into his own hands, going back in time to collect this team of heroes and villains. The goal: stop Vandal Savage before he takes over the entire planet. It’s a long game, because Vandal Savage is immortal, having lived for over 4,000 years. These “legends” will be popping into the timeline at key points, thwarting Savage in small ways, hoping to stop the worst of his deeds while keeping the rest of the timestream intact.
I’m liking this take on Rip Hunter. I’ve read comics with him before, but he was always pretty bland. He would team up with someone, and if they were fun, it was a good read, but he himself–there wasn’t much to him. Giving him more of a back story and some personal motivation in stopping Savage helps, and liking Arthur Darvill helps too. It is funny to see Darvill (whose most famous geek role until now has been Rory Williams, one of the companions of the eleventh Doctor on “Doctor Who”) as a “Time Master,” essentially being the one driving the TARDIS now. I like the actor, and I’m already liking the character. Besides his back story, we find in the course of the episode that he’s not being as honest with his newly formed team as he was first saying. He asked them to come and help him because they’re godlike “legends” in his time…in reality, none of them is remembered for anything. This crushes them when they find out…they’re nobodies. Eventually this motivates them — they have a chance to make a difference, and they’re going to take it.
The point of this episode is really just to get the team together. To introduce them and the premise. They do head to 1975, where they meet the professor we saw in a grainy videotape recording in the “Flarrow” crossover. This Dr. Aldus Boardman has a personal connection to some members of the team, and there’s a sweet story within the story that adds some poignance to the episode. But not much, because of all of the sprinting, the characters, the running, the flying. Everyone gets a little bit to do, but no one really shines except for Hunter.
A few things that I geeked out over:
First, the Waverider. This timeship will be the HQ for this team. Their Arrowcave, their S.T.A.R. Labs, their Hall of Justice. It’s pretty cool. We haven’t seen all of it or what it can do yet, but it’s zippy, and it glows, and it time travels, and it’s got a cool interior. It’s not quite the Millennium Falcon, but what is? “Waverider” is a character in DC Comics, a time traveling superhero in his own right. He was the central character in the “Armageddon 2001” and “Zero Hour” crossovers. So naming the ship after him is a nice shoutout. Waverider’s artificial intelligence/operating system is “Gideon,” which is the same name as the futuristic A.I. on “The Flash,” but with Amy Pemberton’s voice instead of Morena Baccarin. Sad. Cool ship, and it will open the door for different kinds of adventures than staying home in Central City or Star City would.
Even though Vandal Savage is the Big Bad for the series, we only saw him for about two minutes of this particular episode. Instead we saw a time traveling bounty hunter, Chronos. Chronos is another longtime DC Comics villain, one of the archenemies of the Atom (which I never quite understood). “Legends of Tomorrow” has badassed him up a bit, giving him armor and a helmet, and he’s been dispatched by the Time Masters to bring in Rip Hunter. And judging by the way he’s trying to kill them all, that whole dead or alive thing doesn’t matter much to him. I’m assuming we’ll see a lot more of him.
In all, not the best pilot ever, but a solid team, and a solid foundation to build stories on. “The Flash” is my favorite of DC’s superhero television shows right now, and this has a lot of the same DNA that makes that show an exciting series, but also a lot of fun. Of all of the series, this has the most potential to be as crazy as they want it to be. They’ve got good actors, great showrunners, and the whole history of DC Comics to pull from. Let’s see where they take us.