Arrow Season 6

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

This is the absolute worst season of the show to date, and the prior season was no award-winner. Inconsistent characterization (highlighted by characters turning on each other, characters betraying their ideals, for two examples), nonsensical plots (don’t get me started on how ludicrously laughable the US legal system is portrayed in the investigation of Ollie as Green Arrow, from the federal level on down), dry heave-inducing developments simply to adhere to the nonsensical season arcs (first half’s main villain being a stooge and the second half being an absolute psychic criminal genius surpassing Lex Luthor and the Kingpin)… I could go on and on, down to the episode level and even to individual scenes to illustrate how badly written this show is. The acting is no better, mostly because the actors couldn’t being themselves to do more than phone it in on such terrible scripts. From trusting conscienceless murderers, to characters completing globe-trotting trips so quickly they must have access to teleportation, to friends becoming enemies, to literally every cop being on the take from one criminal… This show is no longer watchable. I can’t fathom how it got another season after this one. The Arrowverse needs to implode.

– Doc

++++Warning, this will contain spoilers from earlier seasons, but no major giveaways from season 6++++

This season was almost a reset of the show. There is a lot of cast turnover, first as a part of the conclusion of the cliffhanger from last season when we learn the fates of those on the island as it blew up. As you would expect not everyone made it off the island safely. Then during the season itself, there was even more shakeup with two main characters leaving the show, and a some returning characters (Colton Haynes returned as Roy for a couple episodes, Manu Bennet reprised his role as Slade for a couple episodes, and Colin Donnell returned as a part of the Earth-X crossover, then a later season episode and a very short cameo by John Barrowman).

The season saw a big swerve with the “big bad” which was different from anything the series has done before. It was a bit silly mid-season but turned out very well at the end. As a part of that it there was a team arrow vs. Oliver storyline where the team initially split in two, and then Oliver pretty much went back on his own. The end of the season was a mix of sad and suspenseful, seeing more character exits and a big cliffhanger to set up season 7.

For those who get the discs, the show looks and sounds great on blu-ray. The non-crossover related extras are a bit light this year. There is a feature on Slade/Deathstroke, a feature on Cayden James, a main bad guy this season who was set up a bit last season, played by the great Michael Emmerson (of Lost and Person of Interest), and the highlights from all the comic-con panels from the various DC shows (the same as on the disc sets for Gotham, Supergirl, Flash, and Legends). The second disc has all the episodes from the Earth-X crossover (not just the “Arrow” hour like season five’s set had) and a feature about the crossover which was a discussion with the showrunners of the four shows (again repetitive if you got the series sets from the other shows). As has been the case with all the blu-ray sets put out by WB, there is no true season play mode that allows you to keep your place when you stop an episode, so you have to keep track of where you left off.

Overall, I think the show is still good, but not as good as in early seasons. I am lukewarm to the new team members who were introduced in season five. With the cast shakeup (Willa Holland and Paul Blackthorn leaving, Katie Cassidy returning along with the addition of Kirk Acevedo) it does in a sense reset the show. Hopefully that will give the writers a chance to do different enough storylines that the show can stay around without getting too stale as series which go 7+ years tend to do. I do think the end of the season was good enough to keep me interested in what will happen in season 7, but I definitely understand those who think the show has gone downhill, or just has fatigue from all the superhero shows and movies.

– Mike S.

It is worth having the blu-ray edition of this just for the 3 extra episodes that correlate with the storyline from Supergirl, Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. Without them, that crossover episode in Arrow 6 will not make much sense to you, so it’s nice to see them included here. And the crossover set this year was a lot of fun, lots of good fight scenes and just having all the characters together was worth watching more than once. Heck, Felicity and Oliver got hitched in one of those episodes, which was NOT under the Arrow set, so you really need the extra episodes from the other series in the overarching ‘Arrowverse’ or whatever they call it.
Besides that, this 6th season was good but it’s starting to feel a little old, same old storyline, same kind of personal conflicts, (for awhile, the team splits in two because half of them had been spied on for a couple hours by the other half and apparently that kind of distrust sent them away with hurt feelings). Oliver asked John to take over his mantle as the Arrow so he can be a better father, but then takes it back and of course John has mixed feelings about all that as does Oliver. Also, some old characters pop in and then out again before I’m ready to see them go, (like Speedy and Roy). There were not 1 but 2 appearances of Tommy, Oliver’s old friend, and each time I got excited to see him back, only to realize it was a brief cameo and not going to last. Oh well. Arrow is the one that started it all, with no less than 3 spinoffs so far (well, Supergirl might have spun off from one of Arrow’s spinoffs but that still counts). But I feel it might not continue for too many more years. It’s had a good run and it’s going into Season 7 with Ollie in jail again, so perhaps it could get more interesting. We’ll see.

-Kindle Customer

DVD Wholesale Main Features :   

Directors: James Bamford
Format: NTSC
Region: Region 1
Number of discs: 5
Rated: NR – Not Rated
Studio: WarnerBrothers
DVD Release Date: August 14, 2018
Run Time: 1380 minutes
ASIN: B0776K45PL