stargazer_1682 — 9 years ago(December 24, 2016 12:38 AM)

I was re-watching episodes of this season's The Librarians, and it struck me that there are parallels, at least in terms of production value and tone, to Legends of Tomorrow.
For those not familiar with The Librarians; the show expounds on a series of made for TV movies starring Noah Wyle as "The Librarian" - very Doctor Who meets Indiana Jones in some sense, with just a dash of Buffy. The Library is this vast repository of collected works and ancient artifacts. The Library is sort of alive; and there's generally a single Librarian in all the world, tasked with defending the Library and protecting the world from certain threats, like ancient artifacts or people who would misuse them, or magic in general. Noah Wyle's Flynn Carsen was chosen by the Library about 12 years ago to be it's next Librarian; on account of Flynn being something of a literal no-it-all. He was basically a professional student, constantly taking some sort of class, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, but lacking direction for what he wanted to do in life - that is until he received a letter to apply to be the next Librarian.
He went on a few adventures, and the show picked up about 10 years after he was called; where Flynn has become the longest serving Librarian (high risk job, that tends to result in a lot of turnover; in spite of Librarians having Guardians, who also don't tend to live long either). Suddenly the Library has decided to call three new Librarians, which is unprecedented, especially since Flynn is still alive; and it calls a new Guardian, Eve, played by Rebecca Romijn. John Laroquette is also featured as sort of an administrator/mentor to the new Librarians. The Library's Annex, which the new team works out of, has a "Clipping Book," an enchanted device that produces news clippings about places and/or phenomena that the Librarians should investigate and resolve.
I'm surprised it hadn't occurred to me before, but I find myself thinking LoT would do well to take some cues from The Librarians. It's not exactly the height of profound, cerebral TV; it's campy at time, it's definitely fantasy driven, but it's also well structured and the characters all work well together. It typically has a fairly short season, but they still have a season arc running through each season, even if it's not at the fore every episode. The episodes tend to be more standalone, but often some element from those episodes will come back and factor into the resolution of that season's plot; so it's well paced.
It's not without it's flaws, there's a low-budget feel to it, but's also a TNT original series; so they get creative. Their main mode of travel is a door in their Annex that can be configured to "resonate" with virtually any other door around the world; allowing them to step from their home base into any other location.
I think the biggest thing that stood out to me, in contrast to LoT, is that this show has between 5-6 main characters in any given episode (Noah Wyle tends to only be in about half of each season, but broken up, so his absence isn't as noticeable); yet each character has their own personality, and they manage to give each of them something to do. Sometimes they get stuck in their own character molds, but they do often try to add some depth, which they usually do well.
After a season and a half in with LoT, I don't feel like I've gotten to know these characters any better than I did; and some of them feel like they've lost a certain quality they had before joining this show - mostly Sara and Ray.
LoT also seems largely directionless. They're mission, at least this season, is to protect time at all cost, but most of the time they seem to do at least as much harm to history as they're trying to stop; and the objective kind of makes them seem callous and indifferent to the problems being faced by the people they meet. So besides coming off as incompetent about their jobs, they also seem like jerks. The Librarians aren't always perfect; there are clashing egos, and they don't always agree on what their priority should be, but they generally try to be a force for good for the people they meet, while following through with their major objective of the week.
He lied to us through song! I hate when people do that."