Arrow Season 1

Right now you can watch Arrow Season 1 on and — and it earns its twists rather than manufacturing them. The 1-season run is exactly the right length for what it is doing. 6,392 people have weighed in on TMDB, and the verdict leans heavily positive. Stephen Amell sets the tone, and the ensemble matches it scene for scene. There is no real reason to keep putting it off.

Arrow Season 1 arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. The plotting gives Arrow Season 1 its backbone, but it is the characters you come back for. Oliver Queen returns to Starling city after being deserted on a hellish island for five years. He decides to become a mask wearing vigilante to fulfil his father's wishes and rid the city of crime. In his journey to do so, he is forced to make tough decisions even as he makes new friends and even more enemies which continue question his lethal ways of controlling crime. Stephen Amell and David Ramsey lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was aired in 2012. The plot mechanics of Arrow Season 1 never overwhelm the human cost underneath them. There is real craft here, even in the moments that do not fully land.

Viewers who think they have seen every crime drama tend to find Arrow Season 1 proves them wrong. It has built its own audience without needing a direct comparison. A contained run means every episode is doing real work. Stephen Amell anchors it, but the writing does the real work. If you are going to commit to one crime drama this month, make it this one.