Tell-Tale TV Panel: Legends of Tomorrow Season 1

The CW developed a spin-off of a spin-off with Legends of Tomorrow. 

We spent the first season watching this ragtag team learn how to work together to stop a threat to all of their futures — Vandal Savage. Surprisingly, it took them awhile to take down Savage, but it didn’t take too long for some great friendships to form.

How did the season fare overall? Our writers share their thoughts below. Join the conversation by leaving us a comment.

Our panelists are:

• Lissete (Lizzie) Lanuza Saenz, associate editor for Tell-Tale TV
• Caralynn Lippo, staff writer for Tell-Tale TV
• Allison Nichols, staff writer for Tell-Tale TV

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rank the season overall?

Lizzie: I’d give it a 5, and that’s just because I’m a nice person. It had some low lows and very few really high highs.

Allison: I’m going to give it a 4-5. Like Lizzie said, it struggled. Sure, there were some good moments, but I also fast forwarded through a good bit of the last six episodes or so. It was rough, you guys, so rough.

Caralynn: I’d give it a 4. The bad stuff was, like, really, really bad. The good stuff was mostly only okay. A lot of it was super boring, which is almost worse than it being straight-up bad.

What was the season’s biggest mistake?

Lizzie: Ray/Kendra, without a doubt. Not only did they have no chemistry, they devoted a lot of time to developing a relationship that we could all see was going nowhere. Instead that time should have been spent developing Kendra on her own, or trying some new, different combinations with the people on the WaveRider. How many times did Jax and Mick really talk, for example? Or Stein and Mick for that matter?

Allison: I have to pick just one? I didn’t enjoy Ray/Kendra. Sorry, but we had proven on three shows that Kendra and Carter are soul mates, so how about we don’t throw Kendra into another relationship? I also didn’t enjoy Kendra or Carter either. They just didn’t work. Yes, they were necessary for the Vandal Savage storyline, but I also grew tired of Vandal, soooo.

Caralynn: Ray/Kendra, by a landslide. Man, they were so boring, and we all knew it wasn’t going to happen. Did anyone honestly think that Kendra wouldn’t reunite with some version of Carter? I also just did not care for either of the Hawks or Vandal.

Basically, the whole crux on which the show was based didn’t work for me and just wasn’t engaging. So that was a huge problem. Also, introducing that random comic book character played by Patrick J. Adams at the very end of the season was weird and awkwardly timed.

What worked really well this season?

Lizzie: Sara Lance. Leonard Snart. Ray Palmer, as long as you don’t count the time spent with Kendra. The individual characters worked, and it was the getting them to make sense together that Legends had problems with. And yet, with Kendra and Carter gone, there’s hope for the future. They were the weakest links.

Allison: Captain Canary! Actually, Sara Lance just worked amazingly this season. She was the reason why I watched the show, and she had chemistry with everyone. I do agree with Lizzie that there is hope for the future now that Kendra, Carter, AND Savage are gone.

Caralynn: There were some really well-choreographed fight scenes thrown in there, which I really enjoyed. Sara, Mick, and Leonard were the three best characters by far. I loved Captain Canary so much more than I was expecting to! They had oodles more chemistry than Kendra and Ray (or, heck, even Kendra and Carter).

What was the biggest surprise of the season?

Lizzie: Leonard Snart dying. Mostly because, up to that point, he was one of the few things that really, really worked. And I get that this has more to do with the actor than the planned storyline, but still, I didn’t expect him to die. I thought they’d sacrifice Mick.

Allison: I’m with Lizzie. Snart was one of the highlights of the season. His character growth was amazing, and I loved him. He was one of the reasons why I kept tuning in. I definitely thought Mick would be the one to die. I was also surprised at how terrible of a captain Rip was. He made so many poor life decisions.

Caralynn: I hated that Snart died! He was my favorite. I was also surprised that Rip didn’t die. His character was so useless all season, I thought for sure they’d somehow dispense of him.

What did you think of this season’s big bad?

Lizzie: Savage doesn’t even qualify as big bad, if you ask me. He was frankly awful, not at all scary, and only truly menacing because our “heroes” were too incompetent to do what needed to be done. Either they get a better villain in Season 2, or they go more serialized, because Savage was, without a doubt, one of the weakest parts of the whole season.

Allison: He was interesting for all of an episode, maybe less. How many times could we go after him and not win? I really don’t want to count because, as Lizzie said, our “heroes” were too incompetent.

We need a better structure going into next season. I can’t spend the majority of the season fighting a bad guy and losing. Take a page from Doctor Who and go on wacky adventures, and then maybe deal with the “big bad” three or four episodes out of the entire season.

Caralynn: So boring. I couldn’t stand him and his snarly faces and over enunciation. I also agree that he had WAY too much interaction with our heroes, thereby making it ridiculous that they couldn’t stop him. THEY HAD SO MANY CHANCES.

Legends of Tomorrow returns Thursdays this fall at 8/7c on The CW.

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