Arrow's writers are inept

[Palatinus]

I don't know if it is just me, but the writers for the show Arrow appear to have zero knowledge about how anything in the world works and yet find themselves writing about things like the police, lawyers, businessmen, physics, and a whole host of other subject matter.  It's strange that, despite this total lack of knowledge coupled with this predicament they decided to go the route of not doing research and just make everything up.

Overall, I think the show is bad.  I would place 80-90% of that on the heads of the writers.  There are definitely good things about the show and with better writing, it could probably be pretty good.

I will say though, I seriously doubt that anyone could take the idea of a vigilante who uses a bow and arrow and make him seem badass.  It's just so lame!  At least in the comics he had boxing glove arrows.

[BigBadHarve]

I tend to agree. I don't hate the show - it actually has some stuff going for it. But at the same time it has a lot that's incredibly stupid.

It's like it wants to be smart... yet at the same time it treats the audience like it's retarded.

The opening scene of the first episode was visually perfect. We see the fishermen, the guy on the beach running, setting off the flare. He's clearly been there for some time. Then the voiceover starts and basically tells us everything that we already know by watching.

The visuals are good. I love how they incorporate a shade of green into all the scenes. I like the lead guy, and think he's worthy of better material. But the writing, as you say, is absolute crap. The dialogue is forced and often superficial. Most of the situations are a little silly too.

But then, Smallville started out lame, and got pretty good from what I hear. (I stopped watching after 3 episodes, then caught a few later season episodes that I really liked. Coincidentally featuring Green Arrow...

We'll see. Perhaps they can find their legs and make something of it.

-BBH

I'm going to give it a few more episodes before I give up on it.

[Palatinus]

I think I like everything except the writing.  It has some great acting talent and I think the direction does what it can with the writing.  Within the first few minutes, though, I was blown away by the exposition dump.  "Show, don't tell" should be branded onto the writer's foreheads so when they look at each other they remember that they don't really know how to write a script for a visual medium.

Your information on Smallville is both right and wrong.  It did start off silly . . . but it stayed silly the entire time.  It did get better for a period of time, then worse, then better.  I watched every episode, but I'll admit it wasn't a very good show as a whole and the parts that were good weren't great.  I loved Green Arrow on Smallville, though.  Actually a lot of Clark's "Super Friends" from the show were great with the notable exception of Aquaman.  What that show had going for it that Arrow doesn't, yet, was a likable cast.  Not that I don't like some of the characters in Arrow, but Smallville was smart in that it developed its heroes and villains both.  Lex and Lionel were really fleshed out and played by stellar actors.  It made the conflicts mean so much more and gave them a level of tragedy so that even though you knew it was inevitable that Lex and Clark would be enemies you just wished that they could somehow break the cycle.

I won't give up on Arrow yet.  I hear John Barrowman will be in an upcoming episode so I'll at least stay on board for that.