Box Watch: The Flash (2014 onwards)

The Flash Intertitle.png
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50741037

… a man who moves so fast that his life is an endless gallery of statues

 Saga of the Swamp Thing, 24 May 1984, Roots, Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, John Totleben

Alan Moore‘s description of the Flash has always stuck with me, capturing both the speed at which the character lived as well as the loneliness that his powers burdened him with.

The current television show approaches those notions very differently and I really enjoy what the writers are doing.

It’s not my typical small screen fare — it’s got men with six-pack abs and women with stick figures — but it has an infectious charm and a lightness of touch that makes me look forward to each episode. I can obviously suspend disbelief with the whole fastest-man-alive, sharing the screen with super-heroes and -villains aplenty, in a world where everyone is under thirty (unless they’re a victim) and the maximum permissible body size for women is 8.

But my suspension goes only so far when:

See all those moments of time when he’s gawping when he could be rescuing? Really? Aren’t you the fastest goddamned man alive?

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2015 by 4K and 720p

Ay caramba, that was quick.

Sicario poster.jpg
Sicario poster” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Enjoyed immensely on the big screen:

  • A Most Wanted Man
  • Top Five
  • Ant-Man
  • Love is Strange
  • Inside Out
  • Amy
  • Sicario
  • Exit Through the Gift Shop
  • Spotlight
  • Steve Jobs

Top Five poster.jpg
Top Five poster” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Honourable mentions to John Carpenter‘s remake of The Thing which was enjoyed with a bunch of millenials who were genuinely freaked out by Rob Bottin‘s 1980s-era SFX, Cartel LandThe Guest, and Warrior which I finally watched after years of ravings by the inestimable Mr Fyers.

Devoured with great pleasure on the small screen:

  • Justified S06
  • Transparent S01
  • The Americans S02
  • Game of Thrones S05
  • Mr Robot S01
  • Nurse Jackie S07
  • Catastrophe S01
  • The Good Wife S06
  • Arrow S02–03
  • The Flash S01–02

Catastrophe (2015 TV series) title.png
Catastrophe (2015 TV series) title” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Honourable mentions to the CW’s one-two combo of Arrow S03–04 and The Flash S01–02, the not particularly innovative crime-fixer show Ray Donovan S03 which is made compelling by Liev SchrieberEddie Marsan and Jon VoightHumans S01, and The Walking Dead S06E01–06.

MrRobot intertitle.png
MrRobot intertitle” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

So much good television and so little time…

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