Anachronisms Run Wild in ‘DC’s Legends of Tomorrow’ Season 3 Premiere

Des Delgadillo

Everybody knows time can be one messy master. Whether it’s “Doctor Who” muddling up the Elizabethan Era or The Flash creating the alternate Flashpoint timeline, time, much like the Wu Tang Clan, is nothing to mess with. So when “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” everyone’s favorite crew of time-traveling misfits, managed to irrevocably break time at the end of the show’s second season, viewers felt all but certain that season 3 would be chalk full of what another prolific time-traveler eloquently dubbed “wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.” With the opening scene of the show’s third season featuring dinosaurs rampaging through modern-day Los Angeles, it’s safe to say viewers were correct in their confident assumptions.

After the dissolution of the Time Masters, the organization dedicated to finding and eradicating all time anachronisms, former Legends leader Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) forms the Time Bureau. That’s good news for the residents of Los Angeles, but not so good for the Legends themselves, who Rip relieves of their duty to protect and serve. What follows are some fun but altogether plodding scenes looking at the former legends bumbling their way through normal, non-super life: Sara’s (Caity Lotz) working at a tedious department store, Jax (Franz Drameh) is reluctantly hitting the books, Nate’s (Nick Zano) running around with Kid Flash, Stein (Victor Garber) is about to be a grandpa and Mick’s (Dominic Purcell) off vacationing in Aruba. Okay, so maybe those last two are enjoying ordinary life a little bit, but that all gets halted pretty quickly when Julius Caesar (Simon Merrells) shows up in front of Mick in Aruba. Anachronistic much?

“Legends of Tomorrow” has always been quite quirky in the way it handles time travel, from episodes based in stereotypical feudal era Japan or the wild wild West. But the show may have bitten off a little too much this go around. Our heroes spend practically half of the premiere just trying to re-assemble and get back on the proverbial road (do time machines follow roads?) From wrangling Caesar to realizing it’s not the right Caesar, this episode feels like a juggling act with a lot of dropped balls.

After the Legends manage to grab the right Caesar, Sarah decides to defy Rip’s wishes and whisks Caesar away to Ancient Rome, but Caesar manages to swipe a book on Roman history, giving himself enough knowledge to alter time. It’s just mistake after mistake with these Legends, isn’t it? Enter the Rip-led Time Bureau, and suddenly it’s a question of jurisdiction.

Unfortunately for Rip, he’s not the conquering hero he thought he’d be. His right-hand agent gets captured, leaving Rip no choice but to turn to the Legends for help. And boy do they oblige, and after all the time this episode spent building to the moment, it did feel good to see Firestorm take to the air once again. With Caesar put back in his place and having his memory wiped, it looks like the Legends and Rip are back on the same page. Except they aren’t. There’s still quite a bit of tension there, but both bodies recognize a need to co-exist.

Compared to “The Flash,” the third season premiere of “Legends” felt very underwhelming, especially considering the high hopes this reviewer had for a chaotic new reality where time is completely out of whack. The one redeeming quality here was the final scene, which sees Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) back in 1942 commanding an army of panthers who defend her village against enemies. It’s an exciting moment, one that lets viewers know we haven’t seen the last of Nate’s long lost love. With so many gaping plot-holes and questions left lingering, the third season of “Legends” has a lot of work to do to make up for a pretty lackluster opening.

“DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” season 3 premiered Oct. 10 and airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on CW.