While many will argue that The Flash is the leader of the pack when it comes to the current crop of DC TV shows, it’s probably safe to say that season 3 was the most divisive to date. Yes, much of it was well executed, but for the third year in a row, the big bad was yet another evil speedster whose identity was kept under wraps for an extended period.
Not only that, but many felt that much of the light-hearted nature that warmed viewers had been lost along the way, something that juxtaposed straight-faced sister series, Arrow. Admittedly, it was kind of hard to be overly cheerful when saving Iris West from Savitar’s blade was the goal of most of the season, but to see both a broken Barry Allen in the future and a time remnant of his who turned out to be the main antagonist might have been too much for some to bear.
Well, according to executive producer Todd Helbing, it looks like those who enjoyed the first two seasons will feel more at home come this fall:
“Last year, once we showed Iris die in the future, to keep up that doom and gloom, it becomes a burden, and not just on us writing-wise, on the show and it just sort of had this pall over the season that I think we didn’t expect to be so heavy. I’m not trying to say anything bad about season 3. I love season 3, and I love Savitar, and I love the story we told, but I think that’s about as dark as I ever want to go with the show. So yeah, I think that was a conscious effort of ours to really go back to everybody enjoyed being on this team and with each other, and make The Flash have fun again. I’m really excited about the scripts so far; they’re really, really funny.”
Personally, I wasn’t put off by the tone of season 3 – it was just that the evil speedster schtick was getting old. Hopefully with the Thinker set to give Barry and his pals headaches for the foreseeable future, the series will be able to recapture some of its old magic, yet also chart exciting new territory.
The Flash returns for its fourth season on Tuesday, October 10 on The CW.
