I like it when a DC television series touches on magic! I’ve long felt that magic is completely underrated in the DC Universe, when it should be given a lot more credit – after all, a great deal of the DC Universe is magical in nature. I actually liked the Damien Darhk season of Arrow, even though the villain was way too corny for my tastes, and I had hoped that Arrow would go along that more fantastical direction. But anyway back to Legends of Tomorrow and their magic-themed season.
Synopsis
Legends of Tomorrow is a superhero drama about a motley team of superheroes that repair disruptions to the timeline… even if some of those disruptions are sometimes caused by said superheroes. The fourth season sees the Legends (their truncated team name) dealing with the fallout of their actions in Season 3 – the release of magical creatures, known as fugitives, across the timeline. As they capture said magical creatures and resolve the temporal disruptions, they learn that a more sinister force is at work.
Directors: Gregory Smith, Kevin Mock, Kristin Windell, David Geddes, Alexandra La Roche, Dean Choe, April Mullen, Ben Bray, Andrew Kasch, Viet Nguyen, Mairzee Almas, Chris Tammaro.
Writers: Phil Klemmer, Grainne Godfree, Keto Shimizu, Matthew Maala, James Eagan, Morgan Faust, Ray Utarnachitt, Tyron B. Carter, Ubah Mohamed, Daphne Miles, Jackie Canino.
Cast:
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Brandon Routh (The Atom/Ray Palmer)
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Caity Lotz (White Canary/Sara Lance)
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Dominic Purcell (Heat Wave/Mick Rory)
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Nick Zano (Steel/Nate Heywood)
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Tala Ashe (Zari Tomaz/Zari Tarazi)
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Jes Macallan (Ava Sharpe)
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Courtney Ford (Nora Darhk)
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Amy Louise Pemberton (Gideon)
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Ramona Young (Mona Wu)
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Matt Ryan (Constantine/John Constantine)
- Adam Tsekhman (Gary)
Embraces its silliness
So while the first 3 seasons of Legends of Tomorrow struggled between being serious and corny (because really, the premise gets rather silly at times), I feel that Season 4 just embraced it wholesale. There was no longer any worry about whether the events that occured were believable or not. If you were watching Legends of Tomorrow, you’d have already bought in to the fact that this was a wacky series that never really made any sense. So the creative freedom was apparent here – from the different title cards and reimagining, to the producers playing around with the genre.
Constantine
My absolute favourite character in this season is Constantine. Again, I’ve always liked the magical aspect of the DC Universe, and Constantine exemplifies that. (Yes, I’m going to watch the short-lived Constantine series soon). It’s just that he seems to be a very balanced, power-wise, magical character – and that’s a rarity. Magical characters are usually inanely overpowered, with only the flimsiest of reasons explaining why they don’t save the day. Here, Constantine is competent without his magic, but he can cast a spell or two when necessary to deal with equally magical threats.
Pokes fun at the crossovers
And the crossover jokes are absolutely hilarious here. I think it’s high time somebody lampooned the crossovers (I love the crossovers, mind you!) but it wouldn’t be appropriate on other series. However, on Legends of Tomorrow, this wacky, unorthodox series, it’s rather apt to go with this tongue-in-cheek attitude towards crossovers. So that was quite a good-natured poke at the (unfortunately, not so regular anymore) regular crossovers.
Magic was great but Neron was not
I’m sure that I’ve gushed enough about the magic theme for the series, and I’m going to enthuse even more. Not only were they fun to see (though the special effects could have done with a slightly larger budget), but they all came together at the end for a a wacky climax. The Big Bad for the season, Neron, was quite underwhelming though – a big disappointment given that Neron helmed the big comics crossover where he upgraded all the villains’ abilities. I expected to see a proper Neron, not a “Neron possessing Ray Palmer” kind of Neron. But besides Neron, the magical creatures aspect was quite a treat.
An obvious pet character
Unfortunately, Gary, the creator’s pet character, was a pain to watch. The nipple joke was disgusting and carried on for far too long. Gary is not funny. I hope the writers understand that soon and write him out of the series ASAP… or the character undergoes some sort of evolution to make him less of a useless time-wasting joke, and more of a useful, powerful character.
Mona
But Mona was quite the stellar new addition to the cast! We have a CANTONESE character (even if they don’t explicitly say that), how cool is that? Instead of speaking mangled Mandarin, they’re speaking Cantonese (and the accent is not bad too!) and that’s a win in a show that also has a Muslim character. I like how they’ve got a very diverse female cast, and hopefully their male cast will go in that direction.
Should you watch Legends of Tomorrow S4?
Overall, Season 4 is a stark improvement over previous seasons, with its treatment of magical characters, diverse casting, and all around cool characters (Constantine FTW). I’m glad that the series has finally found its place in the Arrowverse, even if it’s a rather awkward place. It’s far from perfect and it could be better, but as an educator, I’m just glad to see that it’s improved.
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