Legends of Tomorrow Review: The One Where We’re Trapped on TV (Season 5 Episode 14)
Legends of Tomorrow Season 5 Episode 14, “The One Where We’re Trapped on TV,” is an incredibly apt title because that is the long and short of the episode. Framed around a “1984” setting where the Fates have won and have subjected all of society to a totalitarian regime, this is an episode that sees the Legends put into various and recognizable TV shows with a twist.
On the face of it, this is a very conceptual episode born out of a creed that is stated multiple times throughout the episode; Why not. In typical Legends of Tomorrow fashion, however, being madcap and silly, although it full is that. It also is able to find moments of real poignancy and emotion that feel not just profound but also earned.
Also in keeping with the rest of the show, this episode should not work at all but is handled so deftly and smartly, with enough respect and adoration to the shows that it’s riffing on, that it succeeds where another show might have stumbled.
The pacing to the episode is so crucial here and if it had been any more askew, it might not have been as delightful of a romp. Each show feels like it got just enough of its particular segment that it makes sense when the episode moves on to the next. We don’t feel robbed but we also don’t feel like we’ve overstayed our welcome.
The standout — and this might simply come from personal preference — is the Star Trek parody, which is just pitch-perfect in just about every respect starting with the feel to Sara and Ava playing Kirk and Spock, respectively. Added to that the obvious and amazing impressions that Caity Lotz and Jes Macallan are giving and it becomes just sublime.
The important thing about all of these shows is how they inform and add to the characters that are stuck in them. Sara and Ava just want to work together with their very different styles, be “co-captains for life,” and always win but that doesn’t take into account the negative aspects of the universe.
It’s this quiet critique of Star Trek and the utopian paradise that it inhabits that Legends of Tomorrow actively doesn’t want to be a part of. Like Sara says at one point, life is beautiful and terrible can’t be sustained in one way or the other. If you want the good, you have to simultaneously be willing to accept the bad as well.
Centering this all around Zari 1.0 is an inspired choice, even if it’s not entirely clear how she is able to possess New Zari, it allows us to go back to this version of the character that we’re all so fond of in a way that the new incarnation wouldn’t be able to accomplish. Old Zari has such a well-defined sense of all of the other characters and is a brilliant choice to wake them up.
The area of this episode that doesn’t work as well is Charlie, who has been orchestrating this prison of theirs to save them from her sisters. It’s a fine plotline but it’s missing a lot of the precipitating events to lock it into place for us and why she’s actually doing all of this.
We don’t get to watch her progression from taking down her sisters to now working with them and being the de facto antagonist of the episode. Granted, that’s by the design of the episode but we’re still missing that piece to make it fully click and without it, it’s a little less than.
Overall, this is still one of Legends of Tomorrow‘s all-time great episodes.
What did you think of this episode of Legends of Tomorrow? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.