Unfortunately, most of the musical numbers were pretty generic sounding, which tends to be a problem if you’re making a musical. This isn’t a knock on any of the actors, all of whom are gifted singers especially the Broadway veterans Jesse L Martin, Victor Garber, and John Barrowman; the music just didn’t meet their level of talent. None of the songs were bad, they just didn’t rise above Top 40 radio quality. And perhaps that’s to be expected when a show ventures into a completely different genre for a one-off episode, but it’s a little hard to get into the spirit of a musical if you can’t appreciate the soundtrack.
All that said, the musical dreamworld was still great fun because it allowed us to see new versions of characters we already know and love. Although THE FLASH has already used this gimmick several times before, it still hasn’t gotten old. Candice Patton and Jesse L Martin were clearly milking every moment of New York gangster-dom that they had, right down to the Brooklyn accents. Even the characters who weren’t in the alternate dimension still got to take on different roles than we normally see with their heroes of commission. J’onn, Wally, and Cisco’s team up was one of the episode’s best sequences. While Kara and Barry are always enjoyable peppy together, I do hope at some point we get a crossover that isn’t centered on the two leads; there’s clearly a lot of interesting potential dynamics between the supporting characters.
The episode did at least show a slightly different side to Barry and Kara’s friendship by having them moan over their troubled love lives together. On paper, Barry and Kara both being forced to confront their respective relationship problems through the dreamworld sounds neat enough, but the execution of this storyline often made it seem like we were watching the same scene twice in a row by showing Barry and Kara confront the alternate versions of their significant others back to back. Seeing true love’s kiss save the day is charmingly cheesy; seeing it twice in a row just makes it feel hokey and cheap.
Furthermore, trying to equate Barry and Iris’s relationship with Kara and Mon-El’s rang false; Barry and Iris were engaged and in love since childhood, while Kara and Mon-El’s turbulent romance has lasted a few weeks, and the two have already broken up before. Thankfully the episode managed to focus in on Barry and Iris for the last ten minutes to allow them their sweepingly romantic (re)engagement, but the ill-fitting parallels ended up being quite distracting during the earlier parts of the story.
Even if the crossover didn’t quite live up to the hype or live to its musical premise, it’s still exciting to see that the DCTV creative team isn’t afraid to to go outside the box and try something different. At times it can feel like these crossovers happen more due to network mandate rather than having a legitimately creative and interesting story to tell. But while this episode may not have been a bullseye, it still managed to be new and different, which, let’s face it, is a always a good lesson for a long running show like THE FLASH or SUPERGIRL to take to heart.
Written by Kaitlin Roberts, THE FLASH Beat Writer -- Click to read Kaitlin's posts
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