In the Marvel versus DC comics rivalry my allegiance has always been with Marvel. In the early 1990s, however, I had a brief but intense love affair with The Flash, sparked by the TV series based on the comic.
Most people have forgotten what a massive deal this show was when it debuted. It had a huge budget for the time – over $1 million per episode – and production values beyond anything TV had seen to that point. In some ways it foreshadowed the blockbuster series that have become the hallmark of 21st century television, from Deadwood to Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead.
When I read that a brand new series of The Flash had been made for television, I decided to download an episode and see what it was like. Only that wasn’t what happened. My search on iTunes also turned up the original series of The Flash – all 22 episodes for a measly eight bucks. So I began a nostalgic binge-watch began instead.
I soon discovered a queer thing: I had seen hardly any of the episodes the first time around. I remembered the pilot, the second episode (‘Out of Control’), where the bad guy is pretty much just Hulk-lite, and ‘Tina Is That You?’, which I had taped and watched over and over again. I don’t know why I caught so few episodes; I have a suspicion my mother insisted on watching some other program when The Flash was on and I was too lazy to program the VCR. But in essence, I was watching the series for the first time in 2015.
The movie-length premiere is still impressive, even though it screams 1990 (sometimes it looks like the wardrobe and set design were inspired by the video game Final Fight). It has adult themes, reasonable special effects, and – perhaps most importantly – The Flash’s suit (designed by Stan Winston’s studio) still looks cool. You can see where the money went, in other words, and it has prevented the pilot from aging too badly.
As the series goes on, however, the episodes split into two distinct camps: the very good and the very bad.
The best ones have memorable supporting characters and villains. It’s no surprise the villain everyone remembers 25 years on is The Trickster. Played with exuberant delight by Mark Hamill, AKA Luke Skywalker, it paved the way for his career as a sought-after voice talent on animated series (although he persevered with B-movies for a while). In less capable hands The Trickster could have been an embarrassment, but Hamill single-handedly makes the two episodes featuring The Trickster two of the best in the series.
Veteran actor Jason Bernard likewise brings gravitas to the character of Nightshade, a masked crime-fighter of yesteryear who comes out of retirement to confront an old nemesis in ‘Ghost in the Machine’. Bernard takes what could have been a ludicrous character and turns him into one that lingers in the viewer’s memory.
In other cases, it is the storyline that brings the episode to life. ‘Honor Among Thieves’ sees Barry Allen in an awkward reunion with a former mentor while trying to protect a priceless exhibit at the Central City museum; ‘Beat the Clock’ has The Flash racing to prove a man is innocent of murder before he fries in the electric chair; and ‘Alpha’ is about an android assassin who develops a conscience, escapes the government agents that created her, and enlists The Flash’s help to get them off her tail (a clear homage to the works of Isaac Asimov, whose name is mentioned during the episode).
The very bad episodes tend to overplay the ‘funny’ elements of The Flash and become cutesy. ‘Be My Baby’, for instance, has The Flash trying to protect a woman and her baby from the crazy father who wants to exploit the child’s genetic potential – not a bad premise, but most of the episode plays out like a cheap rendition of The Pacifier or Daddy Daycare. ‘Child’s Play’, meanwhile, exemplifies the series’ occasional tendency to slip into campy 1960s Batman mode, with knockout gas and other such foolery.
On the whole, though, The Flash still works. It successfully combines a high-tech sci-fi feel with sets and props reminiscent of the Golden Age of Comics (cars from the 1940s often cruise the streets of Central City), plus it boasts a fun cast of characters and dialogue that, for the time anyway, occasionally touches on the sublime. So why did it die out after just a single series? There were several factors, and they will be familiar to anyone who knows about television production.
While The Flash debuted to impressive ratings, it found itself up against two juggernauts: the long-established Cosby Show and an animated upstart called The Simpsons. The Flash was quickly ‘rescheduled’, which in TV land might as well be a synonym for ‘euthanased’. It continued to haemorrhage viewers and that, along with ballooning production costs, killed the show off before it really had a chance to establish itself.
An aside: in Australia, the pilot debuted to fabulous ratings after a relentless promotional campaign, but then the show just disappeared. Channel Nine aired promos that “The Flash is coming… back”, but if memory serves it was many weeks between the premiere and the second episode. I wonder now if the show’s cancellation in the US had anything to do with that bizarre turn of events.
Anyway, as a final analysis, here is a breakdown of the good and the bad in The Flash.
The Flashy
The theme music. Danny Elfman knocked it out of the park with this one. Just listening to the theme music makes me want to watch an episode.
Nothing streaky about this hero. Casting John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen/The Flash was a stroke of genius. He had the good looks and screen presence to be believable as a superhero, but could also turn his hand to self-deprecating comedy when the script called for it.
Likeable supporting cast. Mike Genovese as the cantankerous Lt. Garfield, Vito D’Ambrosio and Biff Manard as the two uniforms Bellows and Murphy who bicker with one another and provide comic relief, Alex Desert as the affable Julio (he would go on to play Jake in Becker) – they are all appealing and make the ‘bridging’ scenes in the show as enjoyable as the rest of it.
A female perspective. With writer/executive producer Gail Morgan Hickman calling the shots, The Flash had an unusual (for the period) number of female guest characters. When these ladies are well written – tough private eye Megan Lockhart (Joyce Hyser), the Trickster’s girlfriend (or should that be girlfiend?) Zoey Clark, AKA Prank (Corinne Bohrer) – they add another layer of complexity to the episode. Sometimes the female perspective is painful, however – as evidenced in ‘Be My Baby’ – and Christina McGee, played by the wide-eyed and less-than-brilliant actress Amanda Pays, is, in a weird paradox, terribly one-dimensional.
The Not So Flashy
Computer magic. In the early ’90s, desktop publishing was still in its infancy and most people knew nothing about what high-end computers could do. So the writers on The Flash could quite happily get Christina to “tap into the satellite” to locate something or remotely disable a security system if the plot called for such an expediency. Nowadays, these things are only slightly more plausible than Penny’s magical computer book in Inspector Gadget.
Closing on laughter. Remember how kids’ cartoons used to end with all the characters laughing at some piss-poor joke or one-liner? Too many episodes of The Flash do the same thing. It’s especially cringe-worthy given the other 40-odd minutes are often quite adult in nature.
Multiple flashes. The problem with speeding up the film to make The Flash look fast is that anyone or anything else caught in the frame looks sped-up as well. Whether it’s a car turning a corner in the distance or minor characters not staying perfectly still while The Flash ties them up or rescues them, the effect is usually somewhere between unconvincing and laughable.
Characters in stasis. Christina’s character development pretty much begins and ends in the first episode. For the rest of the series she spends most of her time either spouting techno-babble while staring at a computer screen or nagging Barry about how much danger he will be in if he [insert activity here]. Things aren’t much better for Barry (he gets a new love interest every week) or his sidekick Julio (who primarily exists to deliver quips about Barry’s romantic ineptitude or odd behaviour). Officers Murphy and Bellows have nearly as much character development as the top-billed stars.