The Flash has been a character that's been around for decades and has been featured in so many TV shows both in animated form and live action form for some reason the character has only had TWO solo live action TV series. While many might think that the 2014 series is the first solo TV series for The Flash they are infact wrong for you see there was a TV series based on The Flash that aired in 1990 and so join me as I review the first the episode the 1990 TV series version of The Flash with the episode itself having the totally original name of simply "Pilot" enjoy everyone.
The plot of this episode is after his brother is killed the leader of a ruthless motorcycle gang forensic scientist Barry Allen must use his newly discovered powers to track down the motorcycle gang and bring them to justice before they take over or destroy Central City. In terms of what I thought for the plot of this episode in all honesty the plot for this episode was at best average since the story tries to be dark and epic that it forgets to be fun but it does help that the plot of this episode was really well told in my opinion.
Starring in the episode is John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen / The Flash and Amanda Pays as Tina McGee. Also starring in this episode is Alex Desert as Julio Mendez , Paula Marshall as Iris West , Robert Hooks as Chief Arthur Cooper , M. Emmet Walsh as Henry Allen , Michael Nader as Nicholas Pike , Tim Thomerson as Jay Allen , Priscilla Pointer as Nora Allen , Lycia Naff as Lila and Richard Belzer as Joe Kline.
As for what I thought about the acting in this episode in all honesty the acting in this episode is at best OK. I say that the acting in this episode is at best OK simply because for every actor or actress who turns in a good performance like for example with John Wesley Shipp and Amanda Pays there's an actor or actress who turns in a bad performance like for example Alex Desert , Paula Marshall and Michael Nader which is a shame because when you see a good performance in this episode it really foes freaking stand out in my opinion.
Now even tho the Arrowverse technically started in 2008 with The CW TV series Arrow with the fact that this show show is now apart of the Arrowverse that technically now means that this show is the first show in the Arrowverse. Yes this show does tack place on a different (the now destroyed Earth 90) it's pretty cool to think that this version of The Flash is the longest running superhero in the history of the Arrowverse.
Now one of the things that I use curious to see how they would pull of in this episode is the effect of The Flash running since nowadays you would just use CGI archive the effect of The Flash running but that wasn't an opinion back in 1990. So how I think they did it for alot of scenes in this episode animation I think that they animated The Flash running and then added that animation to the scene but alot of the time they just use sped up footage of actor John Wesley Shipp which works just as well but you can tell that there just speeding up the footage but given the time period that this show was made speeding up the footage was most likely the only way that they could get the effect of The Flash running.
Now rather shockingly for a TV series based on The Flash this episode is pretty freaking dark because you see people not only getting shot at but you also see people dieing and if i'm being honest this episode being dark is both a good and bad thing. it's a good thing because it means that you can go deeper with your characters however it's a bad thing because The Flash is a campy character heck all superheroes are pretty campy weather we like to admit it or not and as such having this episode shy away from having any sense of fun doesn't really work since to me at least The Flash has always been a fun character and so seeing a TV show with The Flash as the main character not be fun is in my opinion a bad thing.
To me the villain of this episode who is called Nicholas Pike is in all honesty a pretty weak villain and i say that because we don't get to find out that much about him. The only thing that we get to find out about him is that he was the police partner of Barry's brother Jay Allen and that he was a crooked cop bug that's really it we don't get to find out what his end goal is or why he's evil and as such it comes across as him being evil just for reasons which doesn't make him a compelling character it makes him a boring character and in my opinion at least a weak villain.
The running time for this episode is one hour and thirty three minuets and forty seven seconds which I personally felt to be a bit on the long side. Simply because there's only enough story to cover at least forty five minuets and as such there are alot of scenes in this episode that go nowhere and add up to nothing heck even the character of Iris West gets written out of the show in the shows seconds episode which in my opinion makes her scenes in this episode pointless heck you could cut alot from this episode and you'd loose nothing of importance in my humble opinion.
Now then boys and girls this is an action show and that does mean that I have to talk about the action that's in this episode and well there actually isn't that much action to talk about. Since there's only one action scene in the entire episode which is fine for a TV show but it's not fine with your debut episode is over an hour and a half long but the action that we do have is ok given that this TV show is from 1990 there's not really that much that they could do with a character like The Flash in an action scene and so they do the best that they could have done it's just a shame that the resulting effort is at best just simply OK and nothing more.
Overall this was honestly a really good episode for the most part and it was honestly really interesting seeing this version of The Flash differs from the 2014 version of The Flash. However with that being said just like with all of the good things that are in this episode i've discussed the bad things in this episode in this very review and as such this episode gets a 6.5 out of 10 from me , as for where I got the images that I used in this review well I got the images that I used in this review from Google Images and oddly enough the official Arrowverse fandom wiki page with my preferred site for the images that I used in this review being the official Arrowverse fandom wiki page just because the images on the official Arrowverse fandom wiki page are pretty high definition or as high a definition as you'd expect from a TV show that came out in the 1990.