As is typical for Legends of Tomorrow at this point, this episode was more of a mixed bag than anything else. There’s some good stuff, even some great stuff, and a bit of cringe-worthy stuff in between.

Marooned

As is typical for Legends of Tomorrow at this point, this episode was more of a mixed bag than anything else. There’s some good stuff, even some great stuff, and a bit of cringe-worthy stuff in between.

This episode deals with the team being marooned not just across time, but in space as well. However, it’s also the episode that finally deigns to start giving Rip some backstory. Since the show’s inception, Rip Hunter has been one of the biggest problems working against the show. As anyone who’s watched Arthur Darvill on Doctor Who or Broadchurch can tell you, he’s a heartfelt actor. But Rip Hunter is an enigma, beyond the tragic origin with his family, he doesn’t have much of a character, and is more of a plot device than anything else.

Casting Darvill as a rogue time traveler inevitably opened up comparisons to a certain time traveller who also wears a brown coat, but everything we’ve seen of the Time Masters pretty much evokes lo-fi Doctor Who, as does the episode itself.

For a primetime show, Legends of Tomorrow does a decent job of hiding the fact it’s on TV. Both in effects and in sets (to a certain degree anyway, we still have those Egyptian sets after all). But certain elements (e.g. anything associated with the Time Masters, or fight scenes) just don’t hold up. Not to beat the Doctor Who horse, but that show does an exceptionally good job of working within their shoestring budget.  Legends of Tomorrow however doesn’t seem to have that same capacity. Generic-looking spacecraft, and unimaginative character types (doesn’t Chronos remind you of a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers villain?) just don’t do anything to help Legends of Tomorrow stand out.

That said, where the show has exceeded expectations is with Heatwave and Captain Cold. While they are two of the most compelling villains on the show, they’re not main characters, yet even within the ensemble they still shine in every episode. Coming off of the events of the previous episode, the cracks in their relationship run deeper and deeper. The reason they joined the Waverider was to exploit Rip in order to commit grand robberies across time but Captain Cold became pretty clearly enamored by the idea of redemption and maybe being a hero. Heatwave, however, is a crook to the bitter end and isn’t comfortable with the idea of change. It’s a sad sort reality that he can’t cope with how his partner is changing, and wants to escape back to the moment before it all fell apart. It’s also a testament to the chemistry between Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell that it can translate so easily from Prison Break to Legends with subtle differences, but the core of it remains intact in other ways. Their relationship is the center of gravity that has kept me watching so seeing it chip and break is as compelling as it is heartbreaking.

Legends of Tomorrow is a difficult animal to pin down. Sometimes it can be far better than it looks to be (as with Captain Cold and Heatwave), while other times it just makes decisions out of left field like Ray and Kendra getting into a relationship, or Hawkman and Hawkgirl being eternal lovers despite the lack of onscreen chemistry. This episode is fairly middle of the road, even for this show’s standards. I hope to see it improve, but this late in the game it’s very hard to tell if it will pick up yet with an ending like this one, it’s hard not to have some hope.

3 out of 5 Gilberts