Arrow: 7 Things You Learn Rewatching Season 1
Arrow may be about to end, but it was once a completely different show...
The end is nigh for Arrow, as The CW's first Arrowverse series is set to conclude after its 10-episode eighth season. With that, it will bring an end to Oliver Queen's mission, and leave Star City in the hands of a new generation of heroes (and some familiar Canaries too).
Of course, with the final season set to pay tribute to the show's overall run, what better time to revisit the early days of the legendary series with a good old fashioned rewatch?
Oliver's journey to becoming the savior of the multiverse kicked off in Season 1 after he returned from five years of suffering on Lian Yu. But he was far from the decorated Emerald Archer that he would go on to become; he was a violent, vindictive and perpertually vengeful vigilante who unleashed his own brand of punishment on anyone who threatened to harm his beloved city as he desperately attempted to undo the harm that his family had done.
However, that's not the only difference between the original Arrow and the show that is on our screens today. With that in mind, string up those bows, put on your hoods and prepare yourself for a history lesson on Oliver Queen's first year as The Hood.
7. The Show Used To Be Narrated
Arrow has fallen so deeply into the typical, slightly-repetitive, format that almost all network TV superhero shows utilise these days that it's rather easy to forget that, way back at the beginning, it relied rather heavily on voiceover in order to tell us what was going on.
It's rather jarring hearing it back, as it presents the first few episodes as though they are the beginning of a novel adaptation and, given that Oliver isn't the kind of person to share his feelings, it doesn't really meld with what we know about him now.
That said, as the show couldn't rely on the typical format at that time (team of superheroes go out to save the city together), it meant that Oliver had no one to talk to about his crime-fighting duties. Thus, the narration was necessary as it allowed the writers to exposit the necessary information to viewers watching at home.