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Tuesday, July 19, 2022

TV Show Review: Legends of Tomorrow - Season 7

Stars: 5 out of 5
Pros: Great characters in a zany, fun story
Cons: Ends with a cliffhanger; show now cancelled
The Bottom Line:
Wacky antics here
Show back to what it does best
Sadly, now cancelled



“We Really Should Be Better at This by Now.”

I’ll admit that I struggled a bit with the last couple of seasons of Legends of Tomorrow.  It took some bizarre and dark turns that I wasn’t always comfortable with.  I’m pleased to say that I found season 7 refreshingly fun again.

We pick up moments after the season six cliffhanger.  That means our team of heroes just watched as their ship, the Waverider, was blown up by…the Waverider…stranding them in 1925 Texas.  Of course, it isn’t long before Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) comes up with a plan.  It turns out that the inventor of time travel is just about to perfect his invention…in 1925.  They just have to get to New York City in time to make sure it happens and then use it to return home.

So Sara sets out with her new wife, Ava Sharpe (Jes Macallan), Nate (Nick Zano), Gary (Adam Tsekham), Zari (Tala Ashe), and Behrad (Shayan Sobhian).  However, they quickly find a problem when Sara and Ava are mistaken for the bank robbers who have been dubbed the Bullet Blondes, and they find J. Edgar Hoover (guest star Giacomo Baessato) on their trail.

Meanwhile, Astra (Olivia Swann) and Spooner (Lisseth Chavez) have been left behind to keep others from finding the remains of the Waverider.  Astra’s attempt to resurrect it via a magic spell succeeds in destroying the ship further, but it has one interesting side effect – their computer, Gideon, suddenly appears as a real woman (Amy Louise Pemberton, who has also voiced the computer all series).  What complications will that give our team?  And what will happen when they meet up with time travel inventor Gwyn Davies (a recast Matt Ryan).

I commented to a friend who also watches the show that it felt like the writers of the show had been kidnapped by aliens, and they were finally rescued in time to write this season.  This had the fun and hijinks that I associated with the show when it was at its best.  Is it wacky?  Absolutely.  If you are looking for something realistic, you won’t find it here.  This show is over the top in the best possible ways.  The plot holds together unless you start analyzing it too hard, then you’ll find some of the holes.  But if you sit back and enjoy the ride – what a wonderful ride!

I also told this friend that this show was my favorite sitcom.  And yes, the laughs were on purpose.  The situations the characters found themselves in were created and played for laughs.  And the show was filled with one liners as well.  I haven’t laughed at a show as hard as I did here since The Big Bang Theory went off the air.  No, not every episode was a laugh riot, but the laughs were plentiful overall this season.

Now this isn’t to say that we didn’t get more serious character moments.  That was another way the show felt like a return to the earlier, better seasons.  We actually got character growth throughout the season.  In most episodes, each character got a small moment to shine, with one or two doing the heaviest lifting.  It felt like an ensemble, and I felt like I got to know the characters who have been introduced in the last couple of seasons better here than I had when they first showed up.  As a result, I rooted for them more than I had the last two seasons.

Given the premise of this season, it should be no surprise that we spend a lot more time in one year than we have in past seasons, but rest assured that we do find ourselves in other times later in the season.  The hijinks continued no matter what year we were in.

Yes, the show does offer some political opinion a few times throughout the season.  However, I did feel like it was organic to the story that was being told.  I also appreciated that it was only a handful of moments over the course of the season, sometimes just a line or two.  I would have preferred that it was left out, but it didn’t feel like a lecture.

The show hit its 100th episode this season, and they had a great episode that brought back some familiar faces from earlier seasons.

With all this praise, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that I thought the cast was wonderful.  The writers gave them so much to do, and they did it perfectly.  Likewise, the special effects and costumes were wonderful.

Of all the shows that The CW axed this year, this is the one that hurt the most because I was enjoying it against so much.  There’s also the fact that the show ended with yet another cliffhanger (after almost offering up the perfect series finale).  I really need to know what happens to these characters next.  I do feel like, after seven years, we should have gotten a much better ending.  However, I’m willing to overlook that because I had so much fun overall.

The show has always had shorter seasons, so the thirteen episodes we got here feels natural for this fan.  The main storylines for this season were wrapped up nicely here.

If the show had ended after season six, I wouldn’t have minded.  However, after the outstanding season 7, I’m really going to miss Legends of Tomorrow.  If you want something completely different and out there, but with characters you’ll love, this show is for you.

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