It’s not uncommon for shows to lose their spark when they go on for too long, and this is pretty apparent in most CW shows, especially the Arrowverse, which kickstarted with Arrow in 2012. Despite starting on a high note that led to The Flash’s launch, which too was showered with laudation by fans and critics, there wasn’t a constant flow of quality in their latter seasons.
In hindsight, it’s not surprising to see why this was the case, as Marc Guggenheim, one of its creators, recalled they didn’t initially start out with an interconnected universe in mind.
Marc Guggenheim Explained Why the Initial Seasons of Arrow Peaked
After Smallville concluded in 2011, CW hired Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg, and Greg Berlanti to make Arrow, which was initially intended to be a Smallville spin-off. However, this idea was dropped shortly after as the creators were initially hesitant about incorporating superpowers into the show, resulting in them taking a more grounded approach.
Moreover, considering they had previously worked at Eli Stone, which was always on the verge of cancellation, they didn’t want to wait on their best ideas for future seasons.
Guggenheim told EW:
Eli was always on the verge of being canceled. so we never said, ‘Oh, we’ll do that in season X,’ because we never knew if we’d get season X. So, we were like, ‘We’re going to do it right now.’
This explains why the initial seasons of Arrow, especially 1 and 2 felt so compact compared to its latter entries, as stretching the story through more seasons led to more tired storylines.
Another factor that added to their failure was the upsurge in the main cast. Unlike the initial seasons, which focused on limited characters and gave them room to connect with fans, the addition of more flat characters took the attention away from the more interesting ones.
Arrow Was Designed to End After Five Years
While Arrow dropped the ball with its third season, especially with the second half, it was the fourth entry in the series, which was considered irredeemable by many. But to everyone’s surprise, not only the showrunners bounced back with season 5, but they also introduced one of the best villains in the entire Arrowverse saga, Prometheus. Thanks to a brilliant performance from Josh Segarra, accompanied by some great writing, many consider this season to be the best in the show and this could’ve been the conclusion to Oliver’s story.
Stephen Amell recalled(via Instagram):
Well, I think that the way that Arrow was… I mean, Arrow was designed in theory to go five years. Right? Like, there’s this whole journey and we sort of, we had the flashbacks and eventually you catch up. Trying to be very careful here.
But as the story goes, the plans were changed down the line, and the success of season 5 pushed CW to create two more underwhelming seasons, followed by a shortened Season 8.
Arrow is available to stream on Apple TV.
