They Call Him: Barry, Barry, Barry – CW Announces The Flash As Arrow Spin Off

The CW, buoyed by the success of last fall’s DC television superhero foray, Arrow, is taking steps to expand into other DC properties, beginning with the introduction of Barry Allen in episodes 8, 9 and 20, according to the series executive producer, Greg Berlanti, in the New York Daily News. Barry Allen, better known to comics fandom as The Flash, will initially demonstrate no power set in his debut within the CW’s slowly evolving DC TV universe, however, says Berlanti, “He does need powers to become The Flash. And he will be The Flash. He will wear a red costume, and he will go by that name.” If his introduction is successful, then he will be spun off into his own series.

The movie of The Flash pitched during this past Comic-Con is still a “go” for 2016, with Berlanti credited for both director and as one of the writers of the screenplay. Meanwhile, Amazon, a proposed Wonder Woman origin story that would have focused on a younger Diana, in the same vein as the younger Clark Kent in the 10 season Smallville, is “on pause”, according to CW President Mark Pedowitz in remarks made during the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour yesterday. “It’s better to wait and get it right than put it on now.”

Better to wait and get it right for Amazon, but the CW is going to fast track a Flash TV show as an Arrow spin off after introducing the character over just three episodes?

Let’s take a look at how well The Flash fared the last time they tried this back in 1990.

Seriously, take a look at it. Go get a beer. Or five. I’ll wait.

No, no. Sit down. I’m not done with you. Keep watching. Watch it. All of it.

That piece of shit was nominated for two Emmys and it couldn’t stay on the air longer than one season.

Perhaps with the input that will be coming from comic series writer Geoff Johns, who has been a consultant and writer on Arrow, the show will find better footing than its previous incarnation. On the other hand, the trend for television and movie adaptations of DC characters has been to go grimdark. A show about Superman has to be called Smallville and be an angsty Dawson’s Creek with super powers. Green Arrow has to become Arrow and be an angsty Dynasty with reflex defying bowmanship and impossible looking Parkour super powers. What will this mean for The Flash?

Well first of all, it can’t be called The Flash. That too obviously ties it to a comics property that you can’t explain away when the straights flip through your DVR recordings. No, it needs to have an attention getting title that is only related to the comic. Verbs are good here. How about Zoom? No, can’t use that; it’s the name of one of Flash’s villains. Also, it was a children’s show on PBS, so there’d be branding problems. No, how about Streak? No. Sounds too much like “Screech” and then you have associations with Saved By The Bell and no one wants that. Maybe if we stick an adjective in front of it? Red Streak. No. Streak Of Blood? No, sounds like a missing episode of The Doctors.

Fuck.

Law And Order: Central City?

Central City Diaries?

Blister?

In A Flash?

Barry?

I actually would kind of dig a super hero series that was just titled “Barry”. But that’s probably why I’m not in TV.

And, how do you handle Flash’s goofy set of villains, The Rogue’s Gallery? Where Arrow at least can keep his villains more or less grounded in the real world, since we haven’t seen any “powered” characters yet, how do you handle Captain Cold, Mirror Master, or Gorilla Grodd in Flash’s world without making them just look silly? I can’t imagine they even would have the budget to properly CGI Gorllia Grodd. What are they going to do there? Get a trained gorilla and feed it peanut butter when it’s supposed to be talking?

I can see it now. They go with Captain Cold for the initial episode. He’ll be a somewhat Aspergers-y kid who loves his parka and 80s sunglasses, because he equally hates eye contact, who is also a genius and makes a freeze gun. He commits a string of break-ins leaving behind frozen victims. The network will go Crime Procedural mode on this because Barry Allen is a CSI by day (lifting a page from Dexter) It’s convenient to have him in a police lab for large chunks of the story because it’s in his origins anyway. Barry tracks down Cold using not just his super speed, but with his big King Of The Lab brain. It will show up on your DVR as…

Barry

Face Full Of Cold

…so you can laugh it off as soft core Skin-e-max bukkake to your friends. Well, at least those you can laugh soft core bukkake off to. Is that even a thing?

Seriously, CW. Go back to developing Amazon.