Arrow: the word 'lacklustre' springs to mind
I purchased the boxed set of Arrow seasons 1–4, because the first had such good reviews on Amazon and IMDb. I've just finished season 1.
In amongst all the unnecessary padding, there was a decent story struggling to get out. But it was filled out with tedious subplots to spin it out over 23 episodes. Ugh. Some of the acting, notably of Willa Holland, who played Thea Queen, reminded me of the hamster in Tales of the Riverbank from my childhood…hammy.
What really lets this down, though, is the terrible editing to disc. Some of the ad breaks are completely taken out, which allows the narrative to flow seamlessly. But in other episodes there's either a blank screen for a couple of seconds, or an Arrow
inter title. Furthermore, although each episode is prefaced by the same, getting tedious, My name is Oliver Queen…
opening, none of them have the episode title, so it's difficult to know where you are if you run episodes back-to-back. And episode selection doesn't seem to come up if you do that, which adds to the overall confusion.
Should I bother with seasons 2–4? Only time, and boredom, will tell.