Could Season 6 be Arrow‘s last season on The CW? Even through the show just got renewed for another year, its ratings are way down from what they once were, and all of the other CW DC superhero shows are currently doing better. As reported by ITechpost, even the show star Stephen Amell appears to think the writing is on the wall for the hit superhero show that started the ball rolling for The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow.

Arrow Ratings

The most recent episodes for Arrow have the show getting roughly 1.6 million viewers per episode. This is far less that the nearly 4 million per episode The Flash gets each week. Ad buyers can’t like the direction things are going for Arrow these days. And since producing a show like Arrow can’t be done on the cheap, The CW needs all the advertising revenue it can get.

Constantine appears on Arrow. [Image by The CW]

Stephen Amell seems to feel that the show has lost its way over the last few years by moving away from the gritty street fighting of the first and second seasons. Although they are still trying to get their old mojo back, they don’t appear to have found the right formula yet.

“That happened for me in the latter half of season 4, where I feel like there were just a few things that got lost.”

And the recent “gun regulation” episode didn’t seem to help. It was one of the lowest rated in some time. Playing around with serious, real-world problems might not be in the show’s wheelhouse. People don’t necessarily want controversial topics in their superhero shows.

There is also the fact they viewers may have become used to the idea of having super powered people in a superhero show. Green Arrow may be amazing, but he has no powers. The Flash can zoom around, Rip Hunter can time travel, the Atom can shrink and Constantine can do magic. Ordinary bows and arrows might seem a bit lame compared to that.

Arrow Direction

There also the issue of writer and actor fatigue. After completing a 6th season next year, will the cast and crew have anything left to give the show? And if they keep Arrow going to Season 7, will they fall into the traps of either jumping the shark or retreading old plot lines viewers have seen many times before?

Speedy returns to team 'Arrow'. [Image by The CW]

Amell himself seems to be interested in moving on to a movie career –which he tried with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie last year to questionable results. Other actors on the show have already either left or have become part-timers.

Another question is whether Arrow could continue without Amell’s Green Arrow? If the actor left the show, could one of the other characters step up to take over the team? More than this, would the audience accept such a major shift?

Maybe they could have Diggle as Spartan become the new leader of the Arrow team, but Arrow without the Green Arrow would feel a bit like Gotham without the Batman. On the other hand, they could have him take up the mantle of the Green Arrow, which we saw him do in the Crossover Dominator dream machine.

While Amell is still with Arrow, one change they might be about to make for the better is the elimination of the flash backs. While they served a useful narrative function in the first few seasons, they are now just getting in the way.

Unless things change drastically for Arrow in the coming months, there seems to be a very good chance that the Season 6 Arrow outing will, in fact, be the last. This would be bittersweet since we have Arrow to thank for The CW DC TV universe.

[Featured Image by The CW]