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When committing to a superhero TV show, does the viewer make a pact to accept bad science as well as the inherently weird science?
It’s a question that comes up now and again, and one that I often raise via TVLine’s TV Questions column, or sometimes with a real-time tweet. And every time I do point out a show’s leap of logic — which is on average maybe once, twice per TV season? — for every person who joins me in picking the same nit, there are at least a couple who snap back, “It’s a superhero/fantasy show! Relax!”
But does buying into time travel, metahuman powers and cold-ray guns mean we also agree to look away when very real science is ignored?
Before we go any further, let me be clear: I get it. If I’m choosing to watch the adventures of a speedster or an alien superhero, I come fully prepared to accept any science that is undiscovered. Could a particle accelerator explosion cause a CSI to acquire superpowers? Who knows! Maybe? Could a tech genius invent a shrink ray? Sure, possibly! Could an archer’s bow double as a handheld winch that generates enough power and torque to zip him as well as a damsel in distress up, up and away to safety? Uh… probably not? But I know that Felicity, Curtis and Cisco are quite crafty.
What brings us here today, to visit this age-old topic? In the Nov. 13 episode of The Flash, Barry, bound to a chair, was pushed off the edge of a building rooftop by the meta dubbed Rag Doll. Iris promptly ran to where her husband had sat and leaped off the roof after him. Over the course of 12 seconds of free fall, Iris not only caught up to Barry but also gingerly slipped a key into his meta cuffs, freeing up his powers to save them both from a fatal impact. (It’s a good thing that Barry conveniently plummeted in a static position versus any kind of spiral.)
Jumping off the roof was a bold move for Iris, and a thrillingly heroic one. No one is arguing that. It did, however, dare to defy that which was drilled into our heads as high school students: “All objects will fall with the same rate of acceleration, regardless of their mass.”
Iris benefited from no additional propulsion, and to those who have argued that she used a skydiver technique à la Point Break to catch up to Barry, at least one tweeter has noted* that they would have had to fallen off of the world’s second-tallest building for that to happen over the course of 12 seconds. (*I didn’t check this person’s math, but it sounds fair.)
I am not picking on The Flash for failing known science, or even superhero shows for that matter. TVLine has similarly called out Black Mirror for suggesting that an “emergency contraceptive pill” could terminate a pregnancy. Timeless outfitted Rittenhouse agents in World War I with cell phones, yet no apparent means of charging them. The Last Ship sailed down the shallow Mississippi River. And yes, we previously chided The Flash for suggesting that a passenger elevator’s pulley system could vigorously shake a cab like a Yahtzee cup. Update: And according to many readers, Caitlin has not practiced the best medicine (despite having cruised through years of med school at a remarkably early age), while Barry often scribbles vector math gibberish on the whiteboard.
Never a site to simply pose questions in a vacuum, TVLine asked Flash showrunner Todd Helbing about the “Doll’d Up” episode’s great leap and similar flights of scientific fancy.
“We like to call it ‘schmience,'” he answered. “I mean, look, none of it makes sense, right? There are no laws of time travel that exist. I read an article that a physicist had written, about how if Barry zoops and catches somebody, then skids to a stop, their neck would break. So yeah, you just have to accept [things].”
The Flash EP then reminded, “In the pilot, there’s a reason why it starts out, ‘I need you to believe in something impossible.’ It’s like, ‘I need you accept that this could exist and go with it.’ That’s what that line was about.”
Where do you stand on giving superhero/sci-fi/fantasy shows free reign when it comes to fudged science? (With reporting by Vlada Gelman)
As a fan, I buy into the superhero being able to defy logic and do super things. However, I don’t buy into others on the show defying that same logic.
Iris Wesr should not have survived that jump off the building to save Barry. I don’t buy for a minute that she would have caught up with him in free fall and have the calm wits about her– during said free fall– to pull out a key and unlock the meta cuffs binding Barry’s powers.
No, just because it’s a fantasy show, we should NOT accept it when they get stuff very wrong. They should know better.
The Flash consistently misuses Iris. She is Barry’s Lois Lane. The show needs to let her be his spouse and reporter and leave the death defying heroics to the Metas.
Iris West…
I agree 100%. This scene bothered me so much! It was ridiculous!!
In the same sense, they just had an episode where Barry Allen was the worst player on a baseball game. He couldn’t catch a ball. His powers are “baked in.” he doesn’t get them from his suit. There isn’t an off switch and it wasn’t presented as him pretending to be awkward to protect his secret identity. It’s the same dumb idea as when Clark played football on “Smallville” saying it was fair because he didn’t use his powers. Again, no off switch.
There’s no off switch but he does have control over his powers. Notice he can walk without always speed running.
…she already had the key out, dude.
You have to consider that everything is done in flash time, so things that appear to be happening at regular speed are actually sped up.
RE: Timeless. I’m not sure this was a good reference point for this piece. “Timeless outfitted Rittenhouse agents in World War I with cell phones, yet no apparent means of charging them.” You said “apparent”, so you’re already acknowledging it wasn’t shown (agreed), but Because it wasn’t shown, doesn’t mean there were no means to charge the cell phones. As I pointed out in the comments after that episode, the agents had access to car batteries, and there are devices today that can charge a cell phone from a car battery, so it’s not too much of a leap to think that the way they kept the phones charged was to bring back a custom cables from the Rittenhouse engineering team that lets them charge their phones from an early 20th century car battery.
Not to mention electricity was a thing and it wouldn’t be too difficult to stuff a plug into a pack. And on airplane mode (which why *wouldn’t* they turn it on?), phone batteries last a lot longer. And also handcrank chargers.
I remember you making that point – but who were they calling/being called by? And via what cellular infrastructure? So many questions! :-D
They weren’t using them to call anyone. They were using them to store data like the plans Wyatt found on the cell phone. Sure they could have just taken a notebook, but that’s less fun and doesn’t give us the super easy way to show they are from the future.
Ah, yes. Gosh, Timeless seems like forever ago. Need the finale now!
If I hadn’t crashed last night this would have been my reply. They were storing the Rittenhouse Manifesto for starters, and who knows what else, on the cell phones. I saw it as an easily concealed/hidden device, as opposed to a larger tablet or laptop, but also a beacon for our heroes to locate and confirm that someone was from the future.
Kudos on remembering details. I’d need to rewatch it. Despite it’s own inaccuracies; 1000000x better than CW’s teeny bopper show’s reimagining of iconic heroes.
Yeah, there’s a difference between “suspension of disbelief” (Barry has super-powers, I’m not gonna argue the science of that. Oliver has a super-bow and trick arrows, I can roll with that given the other tech that they’ve done.) and “suspension of realism”. Iris jumping up and catching Barry was very much an “Oh, come ON!” moment as far as I was concerned.
Except you have to suspend realism SO OFTEN to watch The Flash – they do this kind of crap regularly. I’m confused as to why viewers are so concerned with this instance after five years of the writers suspending realism/conflicting the science that they make up on a regular basis.
This is a universe where people defy gravity and fly, and everyone gets powers in some way shape or form. What is this article about? We’re calling out fiction for not being real enough these days? Must be a slow day at tvline. SMGDH
It’s arguing that while yes people get superpowers, Iris doesn’t have them so she can’t fall faster than science would allow for an average human. It would be like if some normal person on Supergirl got shot right in the heart but the bullet bounced off and expecting us to accept it just because bullets also don’t affect Supergirl. It inherently makes the superpowered less special if anyone can defy science. My rule is I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for the fantasy/scifi aspects, but the realistic aspects of average life must be kept in check to ground the show. If not, then I’m more than happy to snark about them.
People that understand and appreciate the comic book history of The Flash will see a lot of weird inaccuracies not to mention that this Iris is seemingly loaded with fantastical skills simply to conform to modern expectations of women.
Heroes of today are nothing more than paperweights and subservient to the female gender.
Can you imagine if they actually brought The iconic Batman to broadcast TV? Bertinelli would’ve castrated his nut sac and asking for permission from whatever dominant female is cast to de-heroing Bats.
It would be a lot easier to suspend disbelief if the show was remotely consistent. But they establish one set of rules, and then completely break them in the very next episode. It is similar to witch shows where they cart out the most convenient spells to resolve one plot-line, but ignore the fact that the spell exists in another, when that spell would have solved everything. If I couldn’t suspend my disbelief I would have stopped watching the Flash ages ago, because it is by far the worst violator on every level – powers, physics, medicine and computers. But sometimes the writers push their luck to such an extent that it is beyond ludicrous. Sloppy writing people, very sloppy. And please stop pushing Iris as a super hero, that just doesn’t fly. (Sorry for the bad pun)
“And yes, The Flash once before flubbed physics by suggesting that a passenger elevator’s pulley system could vigorously shake a cab like a Yahtzee cup.”
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This is nowhere near The Flash’s second time using “schmience” – the show has been consistently flubbing science throughout the show since the first season. One that always sticks out to me is the fact that there is no consistency when it comes to when Barry’s speed will hurt someone or not. Why does the supersonic punch break villains’ jaws while Barry catching Iris freefalling out of a skyscraper not break her back? Does the speedforce protect those Barry comes in contact with at high speeds or not?
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That being said, I think it depends on the show. Some shows feature so much fudged science that it seems silly to get caught up in it (cough*The Flash*cough). But for those that are much more careful, they should definitely get called out when an inaccuracy is particularly blaring.
I wholeheartedly buy into the premise that to watch and enjoy superhero or sci-fi shows, one must accept that the entire premise of these shows is often rooted in something we haven’t yet discovered or that might never be possible. That said, I do often get taken out of these shows with glaring issues such as the Iris-Fall or when “normal” people seemingly withstand repeated pummeling with 50 pound weights (Arrow). If The Flash had followed-up that Iris-Fall with a pseudo-scientific explanation about how she did it, great – I’d accept it. Absent that explanation, I have to question the laws of physics and how they were ignored here. And in the case of Arrow, that just … I…. well. That was just laughable that the inmate survived and remained breathing when he should have had a crushed skull. There’s no amount of explaining that would ever let me accept that…
😑 a man traveling faster than the speed of sound and soon perhaps light. A talking shark, ungodly numbers of PhD’s handed out, gorilla that can control minds, a doctor that somehow specializes in every field but still can’t see the problem with injecting multiple people with the same needle or grasps a simple skill such as b/p check but NOW is when y’all are ready to question the validity of the science on the show?? I wonder whyT.
The worst example of this was the episode of Arrow where they pretended the entire internet existed on a single server farm instead of as its own name states the interconnected network of all connected computers worldwide.
That WAS a good one!
Arrow fails on everything related to computers. I live with a tech guy who can’t refrain from commenting.
As a techie myself; the Arrow Cave has a sweet setup anyone kill for. So computer inaccuracies are acceptable!
The internet doesn’t weigh anything, Jen!
LOL! IT CROWD POINTS!
This is the same show where two people “downloaded a processor” (which is, you know, a physical object).
It’s sad too since the stories are more interesting when they step away from the tech and technobabble.
It’s not just superhero shows, I’ve caught it elsewhere. I can’t think of any specific instances, but I remember an episode of SVU that used faulty logic.
A doctor said that Misty Traya’s character had to be older than eighteen (or so), because her wisdom teeth were missing…which would be fine, if everyone had theirs out at the exact same age. I had an orthodontist who demanded everyone get their wisdom teeth out as soon as they were done with braces, so mine were gone before I was sixteen.
Exactly. For example, think of how many “serious” dramas still do the whole “we’ve gotta get the bullet out now!” thing — when in reality, it’s usually much safer to leave it where it is, in most instances.
It annoys me very much is cop/fbi show where you have one single agent following a very dangerous trail i.e. designated survivor… sure have to be careful about who they share info with, but sending Hannah by herself on foreign sole, and then she randomly met a MI6 agent…
A general one is when people enter someone else’s house (crime) and start looking everywhere with NO GLOVES- their fingerprint will be everywhere. Veronica Mars came to some kind of explaining saying she uses her sleeve because the gloves are creepy
Veronica has/had the right idea–at the very least, use a tissue! (Or the popular thing now seems to be to use a glove like a tissue and pick the item up.)
I thought this scene was badass even if it was based on real science. There are plenty of horrible shows to nit pick on. For instance.. i feel its unrealistic for modern family to still be on the air. Human logic dictates that the kardashians should not have more than a couple episodes but here we are. Real world physics should be stretched when watching shows where the impossible is possible.
Do you accept when shows have a character get injured (shot, stabbed, etc) and can immediately move on like it was a scratch, or be back at work by the end of the episode?
If you do, then you shouldn’t have issues with the physics of a superhero show. All shows have things where you need to suspend your disbelief.
Or all the movies and shows where somebody gets a serious bonk on the head, knocking them out, and it’s presented as an “oh, they’ll be fine” sort of situation. Real life ain’t that simple.
Almost every single show that has had a character in a coma has had them speaking, walking, and talking within scenes of waking up. Where’s the article on this ridiculousness?
Yikes – speaking and talking are the same thing. I need to go to bed lmao
Typically broadcast tv needs to wrap everything up within the time allotted..40min minus 20min of commercials. The beaten and dead shall rise!lol! Cable/streaming shows…shoot even comics are more realistic when it comes to injuries, etc. I fast forward all these shows and only watch certain scenes because I get bored of some of these sub plot relationship soap box dramas. I love to see why Flash disappeared in the future but would care less about Caitlyns emotional hang ups or Ciscos moodiness. A good solid hero story to me requires the main character up and center. The Iris many have grown up reading is a simple supporting character. None of this bossy, jumping off buildings bs drama queen.
Matt, I think you are bored and just need something to post. It’s a tv show. Let’s all just move on and except what a science fiction/fantasy/comic book show gives us: Escapism
I could accept how bad Flash is with science if they simply adopted the same “don’t worry about it” mentality as Legends of Tomorrow (Time travel? It works. Just go with it.)
BUT… Flash constantly throws in science-y exposition scenes where they “explain” what is going on. And those explanations are often BLATANTLY WRONG. I it’s cool if there’s sci-fi jargon involved (Star Trek has been using warp fields and inertial dampeners for decades), but when it’s actual physics and biology that they’re just explaining incorrectly, that’s when I get mad.
😑 it’s a superhero show. Everything is supposed to be suspended in disbelief. The fact that this is the moment you choose to talk about science is troublesome
It’s television. Plus, added to it is that it’s superhero show. I was never was going to follow the Flash or any other superhero for true science otherwise the premise would not be supported. You have to take it with as it is, and for the entertainment value. Now if the show was trying to be supported by real science than maybe but still… A guy who got blasted and got superhero speed, yeah I am not going to say real science is involved. It’s not a documentary or real life. It’s television so I am not looking for real life or real science. If it entertains me, than I can deal with it.
If viewers are required to accept pseudo science; why do writers force us to also accept their characters as somewhat “grounded” in reality?
If that’s the case; then they need to follow the same reality based rules.
All i care about with these hero shows is kicking a$$ with unbelievable powers.
Point being…let’s leave super heroes SUPER. Leave out the rest of the nonsense of Iris jumping, etc. That way nobody would’ve brought this all up.
Oh please, this is far from the first time The Flash has flubbed science – they have been doing so on a regular basis since the first season, and it’s honestly silly that people are complaining now. If you have a problem with this one, why haven’t you had a problem with all of the other instances of flubbed science?
The show doesn’t even follow their own pseudo-science rules: Barry’s supersonic punch breaks villains’ jaws but his catching Iris falling off a skyscraper in season 2 doesn’t break her spine? Barry’s shoes and other articles of clothing would catch on fire due to “friction” when he first got his powers, but not only did that problem go away for him, but it also never happened for Wally or Jesse even though Wally was faster than Barry when he first got his speed? Literally earlier this season, the plane that Barry, Wally, and Nora were phasing was seen hitting the water at the same time it was still phasing through a bridge – how can it be phasing through one thing and hitting another at the same time?
Getting caught up in Iris’s jump is so dumb when this show has proven that they don’t care about flubbing science at all.
The Last Ship was non-believable for most of its science and it doesn’t have super heroes. The Mississippi River is very shallow in places and that’s why flat bottom boats were used in the past. And yet they had a submarine and destroyer sail up it all the way to St. Louis without ever having any issues with how shallow it was. It got to the point that is was so ridiculous I quit watching. At least with scifi shows and superhero shows there is supposed to be some suspension of belief on some scientific things.
My rule for sci-do/fantasy shows is that if something doesn’t relate to the sci-fi/fantasy aspect of the show (like Iris jumping after Barry), the actual laws of science should be applied.
Yes. It’s called verisimilitude, a recognised technique of good writing.
This handwaving espoused by the Flash writers and some in this comments section is simply excusing bad, lazy writing.
Generally I expect that there are some in-universe leaps of faith but I prefer the rest to make sense in order to make the characters relatable. So Superman flys and Lois was apparently unable to tell the difference between he and Clark. BUT given we accept those necessary ‘in-universe rules’, other things should make sense. If someone has to drive 200 miles, it should take at least 2 1/2 hrs. When you hit a car, it shouldn’t ALWAYS explode.
So, in this case, Iris’ jump is a bit annoying. Find a different leap of faith that doesn’t resemble our word problems from middle school math.
Meh. Iris was once temporarily a speedster and has been inside the Speed Force before without being a speedster. I say that she still has access to an almost imperceptible amount of residual Speed Force — but only when she comes within a couple of feet of Barry (and, perhaps, any other speedster), who she accesses it through. (Some iterations of the comics even had the Flash — Wally Senior — lending his speed to others, so this would be a reverse of that, with Iris being able to access it.) This is one of those plot holes that they could easily massage into a plot opportunity if they ever wanted to write any similar close saves of a speedster for Iris.
OK, I would allow that.
So it’s like some form of speed force osmosis?lol!
Ehh..why not? Throw in that lucky rabbits foot while we’re at it…
I was thinking about this all the way down to this point in the comments, hoping someone would put forth that theory so I wouldn’t have to. I’m lazy like that. lol.
The Flash: Simply look at the enormous size of the Star Labs building.
Next..look at the same few (set)rooms these characters occupy..not exactly huge in relation to the exterior.
…and you’re questioning whether we as viewers “accept” make believe, fudged science?!lol!!
I DON’T EVEN BELIEVE THAT “THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO THE BUILDING ITSELF!!
…thus it’s simply all accepted as is. It is…what it is.
’nuff said.
You are forgetting the whole super-collider thing, the prison section they held villains, the medical room, the dimensional bridge room, the place where Barry runs around in, if not the collider itself, Cisco’s lab, the halls, Barry’s hidden room with Gideon, and the main control room. Do we need the bathrooms too? It’s almost like complaining about the size of the starship Enterprise by always shooting scenes on the bridge.
It’s simply a basic analogy and not as a perceived complaint.
Even if you added up the SF (square footage), of all these sets (uh yea..including Gideons tiny room)..the simple reality fact of the improbability that ANY city would allow permitting process for some huge LHC….then you are definitely reaching to equate this as remotely probable.
ps..In order to be analogizing Star Trek with Star Labs would only be feasible if Star Labs existed.
There’s a wise old quote I’m reminded of here….”It’s just a show, you should really just relax!” Honestly, when people pick apart shows and films like this, getting into the physics that exist in our world that probably don’t exist in the world of the TV show or film, it truly makes one lose the enjoyment of watching it. It’s just trolls, and always will be, because they have nothing better to do. Me, i just jump on and go for the ride…the hell with physics and stuff…that’s why it’s called “escapist entertainment”. Lighten up, enjoy it, go with the flow, etc…that’s the way to go…
Holy God y’all have too much time on your hands. Unless you are watching a documentary then all TV shows are fiction (even most “reality” shows are not “real”). This implies that you are willing to accept that a show will write its own rules on how that universe works within that show. This should be a double truth to fantasy/scifi shows. It’s one thing to be upset when a show you watch regularly does something you don’t like (like kill a character off likely for no reason or use a deus ex machina ending in a ridiculous manner) but being upset because a fictional show doesn’t apply real life rules within that show is just being petty and you should probably give up TV if it bothers you so much.
I’m usually happy to suspend my disbelief…this is a show about superheroes, after all. It’s fantasy. (Besides which, I’m not a scientist and so can’t be sure what is and isn’t possible in a lot of cases.) But! The last episode of The Flash, where half of the team survived being in a room while the temperature was lowered to absolute zero (-460 degrees Fahrenheit) was the most blatant hand-wavey science I have ever seen. I can buy that Caitlin survived because of her powers, but I really think the rest of them would have died.
If it looks badass, we accept it all the time. Sometimes, I think they have to defy or abandon science principles (or life) completely in order to get awesome or at least less boring motions.
Superman cannot stop a train. Because it’s not a feat of strength but of mass and inertia. Supes weighs about 220 pounds and he only has wooden railway bars to anchor himself against. A hundreds of tons train moving at 60 miles wouldn’t even notice he’s there.
The same things goes for him (and Supergirl alike) for catching people who fell for a while directly above the ground. What’s the difference between splashing onto the pavement or being caught 4 feet above it by “two arms of steel” (as Sheldon put it) ? The impact and sudden deceleration are still the same. Stan Lee git it right when Gwen Stacy died.
Honestly, none of the “schmience” bothers me, but I understand the need to draw lines. For me, it’s Curtis’ ability to go from Afro to cornrows/slicked-back hair and back again between scenes. This is simply impossible. I can believe in time travel, aliens, meta humans, and the multiverse. But as someone who knows how long it takes to cornrow hair, I will never believe Curtis’ hair-care practices.
Plus having to painstakingly paint that black “T” in the middle of his face every time.
“Hey, Mister Terrific, you ready to go? The bad guys are getting away.”
“Hold on a sec, will ya? I gotta put my face on, fer cryin’ out loud. Gimme, like, a half hour — 26 minutes, tops. Yeah?”
Another “can’t suspend disbelief” concern I’ve had with this shows is, who’s paying these people? Maybe I missed an explanation somewhere over the years, but Caitlin and Cisco in particular are officially employed by whom?
Barry Allen. Wellsobard left him S.T.A.R. Labs in his will.
Ok..but how is Barry able to sustain the enormous amount of debt most likely incurring?
And there’s not a SINGLE lawsuit in regards to the explosion that Star Labs caused? It’s not like it’s manufacturing good, services, etc. And if it’s that profitable and apparently self sustaining…whys Barry working as a CSI?lmao!!
Patents. And I imagine everything was (legally) settled before Barry even woke up from his coma.
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Why wouldn’t Barry still work? He loves his job.
ALL litigation settled during his brief time in a coma? I don’t know what reality you’re relating to with the wheels of justice moving at super speed.
The original Star Labs per original comic source materials; was managed by tons of scientists. There’s no way it was maintained by a handful of misfits.
But hey..feel free to rationalize this as thus whole topic is quite moronic and probably meant in facetious manner.
cya
Star Labs has plenty of revenue from patents and licensing, etc. And now only two or maybe three employees, and the facilities to maintain. But you’ll notice they don’t have the cash to replace that satellite this season. And they were NOT happy with the price Sherloque demanded for his help.
There’s still a lot of contradictions just what you stated. What patents are these knowledgeable people referring to?!
And according to the current storyline they couldn’t even afford to replace their satellites or pay Sherloque. Thus this magical revenue stream isn’t infinite.
I still see don’t see how a handful of people can maintain a facility as large as that.
Let’s take a look at real life example…the LHC, CERN. That’s just a particle accelerator and nothing else.
You’re telling me that a handful of people is all you need to maintain something like that?lmao!
Maybe Curtis created hairstyle-specific T-Spheres?
……..
I got nothin’.