Well, as someone who doesn’t watch Arrow, I have to say: this was a pretty interesting episode of it. One of the positives and drawbacks of the CW DC Universe shows is that they can sometimes be a bit too incestous. That is to say that sometimes it feels like you have to watch all three shows (I’m aware Vixen exists, don’t worry) in order to get the full picture. While that isn’t necessarily the case here, “Star City 2046” feels like an episode of another show, and not in that Doctor Who anthology-esque way.

Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t lack anything interesting. One of the best ideas the show has had is to push focus on Captain Cold and Heatwave in the way only an ensemble show can, as opposed to being occasionally recurring enemies on Flash. Both started out in the pilot as selfish as ever but the show has started to create a distinct rift between the two partners, one that cracks wide open tonight.

Both characters have naturally made other friends while cooped up in the Waverider and as Cold points out, he’s slowly become more invested in their mission in a way that Heatwave isn’t.  Cold is slowly becoming softened by his interactions with other people, and wants to save the world from Vandal Savage but Heatwave would rather stay in a bad future where they can be the big fish in a lawless city, leading to a  full schism between the two.

This is important largely due to the performances between the two, with Wentworth Miller playing Captain Cold as sardonic as ever, Dominic Purcell has been building Heatwave to this episode’s outcome for a long time. It would be easy for Purcell to continue playing Heatwave as a loud and boisterous arsonist, instead he gives Heatwave plenty of pathos in the past few episodes with his interactions with Len and now Ray, but it’s easy to understand why he doesn’t have the need to feel like a good guy, or even to complete their mission.

The other major relationship among the cast carrying this episode is Rip Hunter and Sarah. Things got testy with the minor issue of Rip asking Sarah to kill one of their friends if things went bad, his demands that she keep herself insulated from intervening in Star City’s current problems only causes their fragile alliance to shatter, especially in light of Rip’s willingness to break the rules he espouses whenever it’s convenient to him. That reaches its breaking point tonight when Sarah opts to join Connor Hawke (but not that Connor Hawke I’m afraid) the new Green Arrow and his fight against Grant Wilson the new Deathstroke. While that story is intertwined with the Captain Cold/Heatwave story, it’s a bit more frustrating in comparison, especially since the story opts to erase a far more interesting (and tri-racial character at that) in favor of another guy who doesn’t have all that much to do in the story. The B-story in the episode revolves around Professor Stein, Jax, Ray and Kendra staying onboard the Waverider to fix it, while the latter three compete in a love triangle that began this episode.

One of the problems the show has continually faced is how to define Kendra. Some episodes, she’s Kendra, some episodes she’s an egyptian priestess who was in love with Carter and struggling with the Hawkgirl persona. This episode doesn’t do much to clarify that, but it has a very ill-advised romantic comedy playing out in miniature with Professor Stein of all people giving advice to Jax, and cluing in an oblivious Ray Palmer to the fact that Kendra is an attractive young woman. Ignoring the two competing over Kendra like a trophy, it just doesn’t work on any level. While the obvious reasoning is that Firestorm, Atom, and Hawkgirl are the most powerful members of the team and would interfere with the balance of the Star City story, it just doesn’t help when the best excuse the show can come up with is this. It gives no development, and even worse is just an honest nuisance

One other thing that Legends of Tomorrow seems to have issues with is fight scenes. One of the problems with having such a large cast with varying powers is crafting visually interesting and kinetic scenes to follow. While it’s easy to have some sympathy for the intricacy involved, the final showdown was not great. Heatwave and Captain Cold alone seem to always be more dangerous on Flash, but guns that burn and freeze things are easy to miss here, and the fight scenes usually devolve to an onslaught of minions getting curb-stomped in a frenetic battle where you can’t really pick anything out. And while this is all getting done on network tv budget the show would do better to emulate something like The Raid which had nowhere near the budget available to a primetime show yet created truly intense fights done in all sorts of insane situations. Especially since the competency of the characters seems to vary upon the needs of the story: like Connor curb-stomping the team solo early on, but then getting beaten up by a guy who went down to a senior citizen.

Legends of Tomorrow has a lot of promise. But it won’t ever be able to tap into that as long as it slips and slides on what type of show it is. While the cast is well-knit, they can’t carry the burden of selling the show by themselves. With any luck, the writing will catch up to the acting, but if “Star City 2046” is anything to go by, that won’t be for quite awhile.

3 out of 5 cybernetic arms

• Old Man Ollie kind of makes me want to watch Arrow. Is it worth following that impulse?
• Alright, Heatwave in a coat is actually kind of interesting, as is Captain Cold becoming a hero.
• Also does Jax really need advice from a grouchy old man? Really?