Arrow Season 8 Premiere Review: 10 Ups & 3 Downs From 'Starling City'

5. The Season's New Story

While the Arrowverse's employment of the Big Bad device certainly gives each season the overall film-like narrative thread it needs, it has begun to grow weary in recent years - especially on Arrow, which has struggled to figure out who its main villain was in the past two seasons.

Season 8, however, has taken a different approach, as there is no tangible Big Bad - just the Crisis. Now, in theory, you would think this would limit the show (how do you fight a Big Bad you can't see that hasn't even arrived yet, right?), but it actually gives it a lot more room to breathe.

As the premiere revealed, each episode will presumably see Oliver (and now apparently Diggle and Laurel too) attempt to retrieve something for The Monitor in order to prepare for the Crisis. This allows the show to employ a more abstract version of the Big Bad device while also giving each episode a standalone feel.

Not only does this hark back to the days of the vintage superhero shows, it reinvents the whole villain-of-the-week format by making each standalone count towards something of real significance.