The Flash TV Show Will Have a "Sci-Fi Bent"

It sounds like when The Flash comes to The CW in the fall, it may have more tonally in common with Smallville than Arrow. That's because even though the Grant Gustin-led series spun out of the gritty, street-level Green Arrow drama, it will feature more super-powered villains and, at least on the face of it, a lighter tone than Arrow, according to a new Digital Spy interview with executive producer Greg Berlanti. "We often talk about how Oliver comes off like a pessimist, but deep down he's an optimist and has hope," Berlanti said. "Barry lost his mother at a very young age, his father was sent to prison for murdering his mom, he went through a lot of stuff - on the surface he's bubbly and upbeat and seems like an optimist, but deep down maybe there's no hope left. So they're a really nice contrast to each other and the show functions in that way, I think. Certainly in the pilot script Barry has an effervescence and a lightness, but there's still a dark well beneath that." It isn't just in the spiritual, character-driven sense that the shows will be different, either; while Arrow has so far found Christopher Nolan-friendly ways of dealing with DC's over-the-top rogues gallery, Berlanti said that The Flash will feature more super-powered characters, with the particle accelerator that gave Barry Allen his super-speed continuing to play into future stories. No surprise there--again, the "wave" of energy that rumbled out from the particle accelerator's destruction seemed awful likely to create a lot of heroes and villains, not unlike Smallville's radiation storm. "We've talked a lot on Arrow about the particle collider and Harrison Wells and S.T.A.R. Labs and so you'll see S.T.A.R. Labs as an active part of the show," Berlanti said.