Arrow was the first superhero show to premiere on The CW. And it was the show that jumpstarted the Arrowverse!
So let’s dig into some more trivia and facts about this show.
- Arrow is an American superhero television series
- It is developed by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg
- It is based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow
- A costumed crime-fighter created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp
- And is set in the Arrowverse
- Sharing continuity with other Arrowverse television series
- The series premiered in the United States on The CW on October 10, 2012
- With international broadcasting taking place in late 2012
- And primarily filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- Arrow follows billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell)
- Who claimed to have spent five years shipwrecked on Lian Yu, a mysterious island in the North China Sea, before returning home to Starling City (later renamed “Star City”) to fight crime and corruption as a secret vigilante whose weapon of choice is a bow and arrow
- The series takes a new look at the Green Arrow character
- As well as other characters from the DC Comics universe
- Although Oliver Queen / Green Arrow had been featured in the television series Smallville from 2006 to 2011, on The CW
- The producers decided to start clean and find a new actor to portray the character
- Arrow focuses on the humanity of Oliver Queen
- And how he was changed by the 5 years he was presumably shipwrecked on an island
- Most episodes in the first five seasons have flashback scenes to the five years in which Oliver was missing
- During season seven, flash-forward scenes twenty years ahead focus on Oliver’s children William and Mia
- Arrow has received generally positive reviews from critics
- The series averaged about 3.68 million viewers over the course of the first season
- And received several awards and multiple nominations
- To promote it, a preview comic book was released before the television series began
- While webisodes featuring a product tie-in with Bose were developed for the second season
- The first six seasons are available on DVD and Blu-ray in regions 1, 2 and 4
- A series of soundtracks was also released
- In October 2014, a spin-off TV series titled The Flash premiered
- This was first extension of the shared universe that would be known as the “Arrowverse”
- The Flash was later followed in 2015 with Vixen and Supergirl
- In 2016 with Legends of Tomorrow
- In 2017 with Freedom Fighters: The Ray
- And in 2019 with Batwoman
- Which are all part of the same shared universe
- The seventh season premiered on October 15, 2018, and concluded on May 13, 2019, with a total of 22 episodes
- As of 2019, 160 episodes have been broadcast
- In January 2019, The CW renewed the series for an eighth season
- Which is set to premiere on October 15, 2019
- In March, it was announced this would serve as the final season of the series
- Consisting of ten episodes which would contribute to the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event
- Season one received favorable reviews
- With a Metacritic score of 73 out of 100
- Based on reviews from 25 critics
- Making it the highest rated CW show in five years
- Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes calculated an approval rating of 85%
- Based on 36 reviews
- With an average rating of 7.47/10
- The site’s consensus reads: “The CW nails the target with Arrow, a comic book-inspired series that benefits from cinematic action sequences, strong plotting, and intriguing characters”
- Arrow’s premiere episode drew 4.14 million viewers
- Making it The CW’s most-watched telecast of any show on any night in three years
And The CW’s most-watched series premiere since The Vampire Diaries in 2009 - In its second episode, Arrow became the only new network drama in the 2012–13 season to hold its ratings in both adults 18–34 and adults 18–49 from its premiere to its second week
- In Australia, the premiere received 1.32 million viewers
- Making it the third most-watched broadcast on the network that night
- The UK broadcast was the highest-rated telecast of the week on Sky 1
- With 1.85 million viewers
- In Canada, the first episode got 1.32 million viewers, making it the fourth most-watched airing of the night and the twenty-third of the week
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