ARROW: Marc Guggenheim Teases a New-Viewer Friendly Premiere, Oliver and Felicity’s Explosive First Date, and More

ARROW returns tonight for its third season, and while fans have been counting down for the show’s return, executive producer Marc Guggenheim told reporters that “The Calm” is accessible to new viewers, too.

“I kinda feel like this episode is a really good jumping on point for new viewers,” he said. “We sort of closed a chapter at the end of season 2 and this is a brand new opening, and I don’t really think there’s anything you really need to know coming into it. It’s pretty new-viewer friendly and that wasn’t necessarily by design.  It just happened that way because of the story we were telling.”

One of the new things the show will be exploring in the premiere? Felicity and Oliver’s shift into a potentially romantic relationship.

“Oh, God, I’ve been teasing them mercilessly on Twitter,” Guggenheim acknowledged of the Oliver/Felicity fans. “I like to say it’s an explosive first date! It’s so hard to tease it without spoiling it but I’m very happy with the circumstances under which they have their first kiss. I hope it’s unexpected, I hope it plays as unexpected, I hope it plays as emotional.”

And there is a new character on the scene, in the form of Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer…who takes an immediate interest in Felicity.

“There are several things we wanted to do [with Ray Palmer],” Guggenheim admitted. “We started off with this notion that a lot of third season dramas bring in new characters to sort of shake things up. [ARROW executive producer] Greg [Berlanti] did it with Scott Wolf’s character on EVERWOOD…It happens. It happens on dramas with great success. And we were thinking, who’s the kind of character we haven’t seen on the show? And one thing that we haven’t seen is someone that can play at Felicity’s level in terms of the banter. Felicity, we always say, we write her as if she came in from a different show. But the problem is, she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to like that. You can’t write WEST WING-y banter with Felicity and anyone, because banter requires two people. Well, lo and behold, here’s Ray Palmer. I always joke, we basically came up with Felicity because we needed one character on the show we were able to write. Greg, [ARROW executive producer] Andrew [Kreisberg], and I, our voices are so banter, quippy, quip, quip, fun, fun, fun. And we have Oliver, super taciturn, Dig, man of few words. No one was talking on the show. Felicity was supposed to be a one-off, but Andrew and I both, independently, had the same instinct of, let’s just write a character who is easy for us to write. Because we were exhausted in season 1. And, I will say, Ray is a joy to write for. His banter with Felicity is a lot of fun, and is a quality of the show we’ve never seen before.”

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ARROW airs Wednesdays at 8 PM on The CW.

Related:

ARROW Season 3 Poster
ARROW Casts THE CARRIE DIARIES’ Austin Butler
ARROW: Matt Nable Joins as Ra’s al Ghul
ARROW Season 3 Premiere: ‘The Calm’ Photos

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