The Flash: 5 Reasons Why The Pilot Promises Great Things

4. The Premise

While the relative obscurity of the comic version of the Flash€™s origin enabled the show to hit the ground running with originality, it was still going to need some basic establishment of premise to hook viewers into the story. There needed to be more to the series than novelty and-forgive the pun-flash. Super speed and special effects can only take an audience so far. As the pilot proved, The Flash definitely has more than a speedy star and green screen to recommend itself long term. Particularly palatable was the mastery of the surprisingly delicate art of showing rather than telling, presenting the death of Barry€™s mother in the first few minutes and then flashing back throughout the hour rather than blatantly expositing about the ordeal. The characters dealt with Barry€™s past rather than told the audience about it. Of course, there was more than backstory that required expansion. Struck by lightning generated by a malfunctioning particle accelerator was all well and good, but super speed that would somehow inspire the protagonist to embrace vigilantism? The Flash had some explaining to do. To its credit, the pilot never pretended to be something that it wasn€™t. This was not going to be a gritty procedural or a scientific serial. Nothing is realistic about what the Flash can do, and the show doesn€™t both dabbling in realism. The human body can€™t withstand speeds upward of 200 miles per hour unprotected? Barry has a special suit to counteract the effects. Barry needs to stop a tornado from ripping into Central City? He€™ll just race around it in the opposite direction to unravel it. Barry needs antagonists who could actually pose a threat to him? The shock wave that created him also happened to create lots of other metahumans. Barry is feeling uncertain about his future? He€™ll just dash 600 miles over to Starling City to chat with his pal Oliver. The Flash at its core is a show based on comic books, and the fact that it does not try to be anything else works to its advantage. Viewers can handwave the fantastical elements and accept them as part of Barry€™s universe without applying them to their own.