Thursday, November 11, 2021

My Review of Legends Of Tomorrow's 7x05: "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Scientist"

 


Written by Paiman Kalayeh And Mark Bruner
Directed by Andrew Kasch

Gwyn (re the Legends): "How many bloody time travelers are there?"

Um, a lot more than the group of people who have crash landed into your life, Gwyn. For a man who made his life work in relation to time travel, he certainly took some convincing to get on board with actually doing it.

There's no denying that Matt Ryan has made a profound impact during the time on the show as John Constantine and he's now the third regular actor to be put in the position of playing a brand new character and making them stand out as much as the character they started the show with. Gwyn Davies definitely feels like a different character to John Constantine and that's a good thing.

He's initially standoffish, nervous, prone to panic attacks and his attempts of mastering time travel are enough to get him sectioned, courtesy of Thomas Edison. Of course, with Sara's knack for getting out of tight spots and her heartfelt plea about possibly losing Ava forever, Gwyn seemed moved enough to help the Legends with using his machine to get out of 1925.

The other problem being was that for the last few episodes we were told that Davies experiment would result in killing both him and the Legends. It was up to Astra, Spooner and Gideon to prevent that from happening. The amount of roadblocks that prevented them from going to New York certainly became comical. Fortunately a 'lucky' rock and Gideon's own motor skills managed to prevent disaster. Okay, perhaps Astra causing a blackout might have helped too.

With Gwyn and the Legends not being killed and a rogue Waverider out to kill them, the episode did end with at least getting them out of 1925. However I'm not sure that was entirely the best thing as they all seemed to end up somewhere else not helpful altogether. I hope for their sake that new time machine hasn't crapped out already. 

As for the rest of the episode, yup messing around with Gwyn's stuff did write both Ava and Gary briefly out of history. We also had Nate and Zari navigate the possibility of living together in either the manor or the totem while causing the Hoover bot to malfunction royally and accidentally kill Edison. It's been only five episodes and two historical figures have been killed and replaced with androids. Who else are the Legends gonna bump off?

- Sara thought Gwyn looked like Stein, Gary thought Mick with hair and Zari thought Ray. Behrad just felt like he knew Gwyn.
- Gwyn has lost a person he wants to get back and seemed intrigued that Sara had a wife. It's nice the show are letting Matt Ryan use his own accent for this character.
- Edison wasn't the only history figure in this episode. Astra, Spooner and Gideon also met race car driver, Erwin George Baker.
- Chronology: November 7th 1925 in New York.

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Scientist was a strong introduction for Gwyn Davies as a character, though a part of me wonders if he might be a short lived regular for the show. Outside of this initial plot and the likelihood of the Legends keeping up their side of the bargain, I'm not sure if he'll remain beyond this season, though I'm happy to proven wrong. 

Rating: 8 out of 10

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