An Open Letter to The CW RE: Your imbecilic decision to cancel Arrow

Good afternoon The CW Television network.  Eugene Pendergrass here, you may know me from such unusually ferocious open letters as, “An Open Letter to www.isleyunruh.com RE: Your comically inept attempts at fictional cartography,” “An Open Letter to Peter Jackson RE: Restricting The Hobbit to Three Movies,”  “An Open Letter to the New York Times RE: Your woeful lack of fictional fact checking,” “An Open Letter to www.isleyunruh.com RE: Your “reevaluation” of The Lord of the Rings,” “An open letter to www.isleyunruh.com RE: The “Make it Rain” parody video,” “An open letter to Wizards of the Coast RE: D&D 4.0 rules changes,” and “An open letter to Wizards of the Coast RE: Magic 2010 Rules Changes.”

What is it that has released my Kraken of internet fury this time? What has your wanna-be “big three” television network done that has loosed such a rage-monster that even Poseiden himself could not contain its wave-born fury? It all started with a phone call from my friend Stinky Dave.  As I rubbed the sleep from the many folds about my eyes and took the phone from where my mother was holding it for me at the foot of my bed, I heard the fateful words “It was just announced, The CW has cancelled Arrow.”  In the parlance of our current crop of misguided youth, I proceeded to “lose my shit.”

After finally managing to “find my shit” and return from a She-hulkesque rage that nearly destroyed my Tauntaun blanket, I knew an open letter was the thing to capture the black heart of a pretend network that wouldn’t know a hit show if it leapt at them and bit the show from their finger on the precipice of the Sammath Naur.

Thus, proceeding straight to my replica Starfleet captain’s chair in front my computer (after performing my morning ritual of moving the pile of unfolded sweat pants and fantasy animal themed shirts back onto my bed, of course), I set to typing this missive in the hopes that it might right one of the most egregious wrongs I have yet to witness in a long career of writing to right egregious wrongs.

Let’s cut right to the “meat” of the matter shall we?  Of all the many things that will be missed about Arrow (brilliant acting, a sense of realism that makes The Dark Knight feel like Knight Rider, and a budget that makes many feature films look cheap in comparison), the main strength of the show, and the reason we all tune in week after week is simple: Arrow boasts perhaps the greatest cast of man meat since Predator. And to think that such a show is about to retired to a bleak graveyard of fan art and fading memories is almost too much to bear, especially since this is a pain that I must bear myself, with nary a Samwise Gamgee to carry me when I cannot go on.

Perhaps I can knock some sense into you with a few visual aids? Let’s start with the man himself, Oliver Queen:

As you can see, this is quite an impressive chunk of man. Arms that could hug you for hours, a chest in which one could bury their face and cry for days, and a perfect pubic V that traces a chisel hard line into pants that, undoubtedly, hold an amply filled “quiver.” But, I’m not here to make bad archery puns like Kevin Smith futilely attempting a run of the comic, I’m here to ask not only how the CW managed to get its own head up its ass, but how it managed to get it SO far up its own ass that it would cancel a show that features such a specimen of manhood.

And let’s not forget his trusty right-hand man, Diggle:

This is a man for those of you whose tastes run a little bigger, and I’m not just talking about how well he’s filling out the front of those jeans. He might not have the fighting skills Oliver has, but he backs up his #1 man with real ultimate power! Any man who can rock a duckface while having pecs like that and somehow still make the whole thing work deserves all the respect a television network can give to him.

And finally, if your tastes run to the more willowy side, I present the case for new sidekick Roy Harper:

Ah Roy, sweet boyish Roy.  Beneath those sensitively sculpted eyebrows lies a youth with the heart of a lion and the abs of a svelte, svelt gazelle.  Such delicious irony that Roy is in fact the strongest cast member despite such a sleek body!

If you cancel the show, so many questions will remain unanswered.  Can Diggle and Roy do the Salmon Ladder?  I mean, obviously Diggle can, but Roy is a real wild card (though his weight would be a distinct advantage). We know they all train shirtless separately, but could there be a training sequence where they train shirtless together? The mind boggles at the thought! And what about groundwork? With so called “ultimate fighting” now a firmly entrenched sport in the public eye (though, my repeated attempts to get equal respect for Quidditch, have, unto now, fallen upon deaf ears, but that is an open letter for the US Olympic Comittee), ripping the still beating heart out of a show that was throbbing with all the vitality of a young man in his prime has also ripped away the possibility of seeing three young men in their prime take each other on with nothing more than their swollen muscles and a firm grip on any number of wrestling holds.

And what of my youtube compilation videos?  What of the hours I put into editing all the training sequences from Season 1 together:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43FMVVTx8-I

I’m already hard at work on the Season 2 video (I’ve edited out the parts with Sara and Felicity training), and if the show is to end like the stillborn offspring of Khal Drogo’s rippling loins, then I ask you, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ME EVEN MAKING THESE VIDEOS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I do not know the reasons for the cancellation, but I put it to you that perhaps the world was not ready for such a perfect confluence of brawny beefcake.  As a network, you have already attempted to dumb the show down for traditional audiences by throwing in token female support in the form of “perky” sidekick Felicity Smoak and a disgustingly muscley new Black Canary.  Perhaps you thought the modern heterosexual male (which we all know is your target audience here) needed such T & A when the only true titillation a man comfortable with his manhood (slightly-botched circumcision be damned!) needs is the thought of the pants dropping effect such a dizzying smorgasboard of well-muscled men might have those who desire them.  It is enough to send one, in the words of the immortal Jane on Firefly, to one’s bunk.  And, I hate to say it, but this line in the sand I draw today will be the least of your worries if you continue to deny me my bunk-time by refusing to reverse your decision on Arrow’s cancellation.

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention by the onslaught of emails I’ve received since this went live (in addition to a 5 second google search), that Arrow is NOT, in fact, getting cancelled and that this was most likely an incredibly poor taste and ill-advised April Fool’s Day hoax by my now EX friend Stinky Dave (do you hear that Stinky? Good luck getting your MECCG cards back now!)

Still, I will leave this letter online as written to serve as a warning to the executives at The CW.  Also, I must say I’m shocked at the amount of homophobic bile I’ve found in the emails I’ve gotten about this article. Seriously, one of my readers wrote an entire email that basically amounted to one big long gay joke? I think some people protest a bit much.