Arrow: 10 Mistakes It Must Fix In Season 5

10. Boring Flashbacks

Early on in the show's run, the flashbacks were an effective storytelling method. Charting Oliver's time on Lian Yu, they informed the present day narrative and helped to expand Oliver's (and Slade's) character, while also serving as an entertaining part of the show in their own right.

That started to change in Season 3, when the flashbacks took Ollie off the island and instead placed him in Hong Kong. The show tried to tell a story parallel to that of the current one, but it didn't advance our understanding, and the scenes themselves were pretty dull; there was nowhere near enough material to fill the 23 episodes.

Season 4 flashbacks promised us Coast City, an exciting prospect given which major superhero is from there. However, that was simply some bait-and-switch, and Oliver ended up back on Lian Yu. The flashbacks were just as boring as the year before, and despite some forced attempts at making them mirror the present storyline - in terms of linking Shadowspire to Darhk, magic, and Oliver's choices - it never, at any stage, felt necessary or even entertaining.

Season 5 won't be doing away with the flashbacks, but it does have another chance to get them right. Oliver is supposedly heading to Russia, which means we'll finally see him becoming a captain in the Russian mafia, which - even though it's coming a long time after the question was really being asked - should still be interesting to see play out.