Watch Footage from CW’s ‘Arrow’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’
Posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2012 by Angie Han
One year after the end of Smallville, the CW is trying to lure back fans with a couple of new shows. The most obvious replacement is Arrow, which, like Smallville, tells the origins of a DC Comics character. In this case, it’s Green Arrow, a.k.a. Oliver Queen. But for Lana Lang lovers, there’s also Beauty and the Beast. Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan star in the drama, a sorta-remake of the 1980s show starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. Watch sneak peeks for both after the jump.
First we have footage from Arrow, which consists mostly of a long, intense training montage that emphasizes exactly how ripped star Stephen Amell is. And how good his aim is with a bow and arrow. Between The Avengers‘ Hawkeye, The Hunger Games‘ Katniss, and Brave‘s Merida, archery is definitely enjoying a big media moment right now.
Here’s the official synopsis for Arrow, which boasts a very dramatic premise even by comic book standards:
After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the Pacific. When he returns home to Starling City, his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his ordeal on the island. While Oliver hides the truth about the man he’s become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as the boy he was. Most particularly, he seeks reconciliation with his former girlfriend, Laurel Lance. As Oliver reconnects with those closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow – a vigilante – to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society, and restore Starling City to its former glory. By day, Oliver plays the role of a wealthy, carefree and careless philanderer he used to be – flanked by his devoted chauffeur/bodyguard, John Diggle – while carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under cover of darkness. However, Laurel’s father, Detective Quentin Lance, is determined to arrest the vigilante operating in his city. Meanwhile, Oliver’s own mother, Moira, knows much more about the deadly shipwreck than she has let on – and is more ruthless than he could ever imagine.
Colin Donnell, Katie Cassidy, and Willa Holland also star in the show, which will air Wednesdays at 8 PM starting this fall.
(As a side note: If you’re wondering what happened to Justin Hartley, who played Smallville‘s Oliver Queen, the answer is that he’s now starring in another new CW series with Meryl Streep’s daughter Mamie Gummer. Titled Emily Owens MD, it looks like a bland but harmless mash-up of Mean Girls and Grey’s Anatomy. You can check out the first clip here, if you’re curious.)
Unlike Arrow and Smallville before it, Kreuk’s Beauty and the Beast has nothing whatsoever to do with comic books, DC or otherwise. Instead, it seems to fall in with the current trends of fairy tale re-tellings and paranormal romances.
The CW offers up this detailed explanation of the plot:
Detective Catherine Chandler is a smart, no-nonsense homicide detective. Several years earlier, Catherine witnessed the murder of her mother at the hands of two gunmen. Catherine would have been killed too, but someone – or something – saved her. No one has ever believed her, but she knows it wasn’t an animal that attacked the assassins…it was human. Years have passed, and Catherine is a strong, confident, capable police officer, working alongside her equally talented partner, Tess. While investigating a murder, Catherine discovers a clue that leads her to a handsome doctor named Vincent Keller, who was reportedly killed by enemy fire while serving in Afghanistan in 2002. Catherine learns that Vincent is actually still alive and that it was he who saved her many years before. For mysterious reasons that have forced him to live outside of traditional society, Vincent has been in hiding for the past 10 years to guard his secret – when he is enraged, he becomes a terrifying beast, unable to control his super-strength and heightened senses. Catherine agrees to protect his identity in return for any insight he may have into her mother’s murder. Thus begins a complex relationship between Catherine and Vincent, who are powerfully drawn to each other yet understand that their connection is extremely dangerous for both of them.
Fortunately for Vincent, when he’s not Hulking out, he looks more like less like a freakish outcast and more like a male model:
Beauty and the Beast will have the Thursday 9 PM timeslot this fall.
[Sources: TV Line, Blastr]
