Arrow’s Next Season to Be Its Last

Last month, Stephen Amell, who plays Oliver Queen on Arrow, tweeted the following:

Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes this Fall.

Playing Oliver Queen has been the greatest professional experience of my life… but you can’t be a vigilante forever.

Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes this Fall.

There’s so much to say… for now I just want to say thank you.

— Stephen Amell (@StephenAmell) March 6, 2019

That will be the eighth season. I think it’s about time. Actually, I think it’s past time, since the show relies much too much on character trauma.

I came to the show late, with the DVD release of the first season. The second season was a high point, adding substantial female characters to the regular cast and introducing the Flash.

By the third season, although it brought us the Atom, I was tiring of the requisite flashbacks and the grim approach. The fourth season was only interesting to me for introducing Legends of Tomorrow, my favorite superhero show for having a sense of fun and humorous adventure.

The fifth season brought in a new team, but they were all too damaged (and underdeveloped as characters), and control was more important than working together. I didn’t even bother with the sixth season, or the current, seventh, with Oliver in prison.

We know that this upcoming eighth season will feature a crossover, titled “Crisis on Infinite Earths” after the most famous ever DC mega-event. In comics, that’s what killed the original Supergirl and the Barry Allen Flash for years (but not forever), so connecting that with a final season could be dramatic.