What Flash Showrunner Would Change About Season 3

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What The Flash Showrunner Would Change About Season 3

By Jacob Hill

Published Jul 31, 2017

Executive producer Todd Helbing reflects on what he would do differently with the big villain of The Flash's third season.

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the third season of The Flash.

The third season of The Flash tried to juggle a number of disparate elements, including multiple timelines, a gorilla invasion and the big reveal of the primary antagonist. With the fourth season now in production, the drama's showunner is looking back at what he might've done differently, if he could travel back through time.

"One thing we probably would have changed would have been to reveal Savitar a little bit earlier," executive producer Todd Helbing told Den of Geek, "especially since Grant is so amazing with his evil, future version of himself."

Savitar menaced the heroes from the earliest episodes of the season, but the reveal that the villain was really a future version of Barry Allen was saved for the final episodes. Having actors face off against themselves is a well-established genre trope, and Gustin's performance as Savitar gave him the chance to play a very different version of Barry Allen, and to wear some pretty disgusting makeup too.

As for what's being planned for the future, Helbing is ready to take The Flash in a different direction from last season.

"I think we’ve all had our fill of time travel for a bit. It’s confusing and hard to tell those stories," he said, adding, "It got pretty dark last year, and that’s about as dark as we want to go with this show, so we’re going to dial it a little bit back to season 1 and have The Flash enjoy being The Flash."

Debuting on Oct. 10 on The CW, the fourth season of The Flash will star Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Jesse L. Martin and Keiynan Lonsdale.