The Flash

Summary

Barry Allen, a forensic scientist working for the Central City police, is struck by lightning and doused in chemicals in his lab. He develops superspeed and creates a superhero identity for himself to fight crime: The Flash. Research scientist Dr. Tina McGee works at S.T.A.R. Labs and helps Barry fight crime while trying to understand how his powers are developing. As well as his superheroics, Barry tries to maintain a private life, and tries to keep his superhero identity from his colleagues, his boss Lt. Garfield, and his best friend, Julio Mendez.

Cast and characters

Main

John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen / Flash: A forensic scientist in the Central City Police Department (CCPD) who gains the power of super speed after his lab is struck by lightning causing him to be doused with chemicals. Shipp also portrays the Flash's clone, Pollux.

Amanda Pays as Tina McGee: A scientist at S.T.A.R. Labs who provides the Flash with experimental inventions to adapt and overcome his enemies and learn about his powers. She is also a love interest of Barry.

Alex Désert as Julio Mendez: A Central City Police Department scientist who is Barry Allen's co-worker and close friend.

Recurring

Richard Belzer as Joe Kline: A WCCN TV news reporter, known as the "Voice of the City", Kline often does tabloid-style news stories about the Flash and his exploits.

Jason Bernard as Dr. Desmond Powell / Nightshade: A 1950s vigilante who captured criminals using tranquilizer darts. Desmond gave up being a vigilante after he stopped The Ghost in 1955; later he became a Doctor and Chief of Staff at Central City Hospital. When the Ghost reappears in 1990, Powell becomes Nightshade once again and teams up with the Flash to apprehend the Ghost. Later, he unknowingly inspires the Deadly Nightshade. He later reveals his secret identity and becomes a celebrity.

Vito D'Ambrosio as Officer Tony Bellows: A CCPD patrol officer, partner of Murphy; in the early episodes, Bellows notices whenever the Flash appears, Murphy is never around. Bellows accuses Murphy of being the Flash, until he sees Murphy and the Flash at the same time.

Biff Manard as Officer Michael Francis Murphy: A CCPD patrol officer and partner of Bellows, he does not believe the Flash is real because he has never witnessed the Flash (until he saw the Flash save hostages trapped inside a frozen bus, courtesy of Captain Cold). Murphy has served the CCPD for many years and is considering retiring to a job where he does not get shot at all the time.

Mike Genovese as Lt. Warren Garfield: A Lieutenant in CCPD and Barry and Julio's supervisor. Despite his gruff demeanor, Garfield actually cares for his men. Garfield deduced the true identity of the Nightshade, Desmond Powell, who has been a friend of Garfield for more than 30 years.

Mark Hamill as James Montgomery Jesse / The Trickster: A psychopath and delusional mass murderer with multiple personalities, and a con artist. Wanted for murder in six states, he is obsessed with Megan Lockhart and kidnaps her to be his fantasy sidekick, Prank. Believing that Megan is under the influence of the Flash, the Trickster challenges him to be rid of his "evil spell", but the Trickster fails and is arrested. He is put on trial & awaiting his verdict, when he is freed by Zoey Clark, who becomes the second Prank. As revenge, the Trickster captures the Flash and brainwashes him to do his bidding. The Trickster wreaks havoc upon Central City and puts the entire city on trial with the aid of his new partner. The Flash overcomes his programming and turns the tables on the Trickster, who is sent to a padded cell.

Guest stars

Corinne Bohrer as Zoey Clark / Prank (2nd): The owner of Clarx Toys and a huge fan of the Trickster, her obsession leads her to free him during his trial. Originally, the Trickster intends to recreate his criminal life but Zoey seduces him back to his Trickster self and becomes the Trickster's true sidekick, Prank, which is what she always wanted. Prank uses her wealth to finance the Trickster's evil schemes, including the brainwashing of the Flash. The corrupted Flash becomes the Trickster's favored sidekick and she is locked and tied up in her own toy store for complaining about it. Despite her best efforts, the Trickster has lost interest in Prank and ultimately boots her out of the getaway truck that they are in, resulting in Prank's arrest.

Richard Burgi as Curtis Bohannan / Deadly Nightshade: A philanthropist and son of mob boss Derek Bohannan, an enemy of Nightshade, he decides to atone for his father's sins by becoming a vigilante resembling Nightshade, except the Deadly Nightshade wears red-glowing goggles and uses real bullets. The Deadly Nightshade guns down a terrorist group and several of Derek Bohannan's former mob associates before the Flash confronts him. Due to their similar appearances, the real Nightshade is framed for the murders. Using his wealth, Bohannan builds a high-tech lair inside his mansion and an advanced cybernetic exoskeleton, which gives Bohannan super-speed similar to the Flash. The Flash then attempts to apprehend him, but is nearly overwhelmed by the exoskeleton and an injury he sustained earlier in the leg, but then it is Bohannan who is then tranquilized by the original Nightshade and arrested by the police.

David Cassidy as Sam Scudder / Mirror Master: A professional thief who is an expert with mirrors and holography, he steals a crystal from S.T.A.R. Labs and attempts to kill his ex-partner Stasia Masters, a high school girlfriend of Barry Allen. The Flash (with help from Tina) uses a high-powered spotlight to blind Scudder and drown out his illusions, allowing the Flash to capture him.

Michael Champion as Leonard Wynters / Captain Cold: An infamous albino hitman known for freezing his victims to death with a nuclear-powered freeze gun. Cold is captured by the Flash and arrested by CCPD pending trial, but later escapes using concealed freeze weapons. He is seemingly killed by his own freeze ray when the Flash deflects the ray back at him.

Jeffrey Combs as Jimmy Swain: A mob boss who hires Captain Cold to eliminate his enemies, including the Flash. Since Captain Cold initially failed to kill the Flash, Swain refuses to pay Cold, who kills Swain with a freeze bomb and takes his fee out of a twisted sense of honor.

Production

Development for the series began in 1988 when Warner Bros. Television tried to develop television films based on some DC Comics characters for CBS. Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo conceived one titled Unlimited Powers that featured several superheroes, including the Flash, forming a resistance in a dystopian future where superheroes had been outlawed, taking cues from contemporary comics such as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. That project was not made, though from it, in January 1990, new CBS Entertainment president Jeff Sagansky expressed interest in creating a series featuring the Flash, and The Flash was announced a few months after.

Bilson and De Meo were tapped to write the pilot episode, which they completed in January 1990. Filming for the episode took six weeks, from May through June 1990. The final effects for the pilot were completed a week before airing in September 1990. Bilson said that 125 special effects were done on "a grand scale". The 2-hour pilot cost $6 million, and each subsequent episode of The Flash cost around $1.6 million to produce.

Costumes

The four Flash suits made for the series for John Wesley Shipp cost a total of $100,000. On the suit, De Meo said: "John had to have his entire body cast. The suit is made out of latex. It was quite a process getting it". Bilson added: "The suit was critical. You can't, after Batman, have a guy running around in tights". The Flash's costume was designed by Dave Stevens, who removed the yellow boots, muted the redness, changed the yellow trim to gold and added refined art deco bolts on the temples. Robert Short was tasked with supervising its fabrication and they were built by Stan Winston Studios. Short said the latex suits were specially treated to disguise their rubber surface so they would look like basic stretch unitards, and Shipp wore a water-cooled undergarment to combat the heat of the suits. Bob Miller, costumer on the series, gave Amanda Pays "unaggressive clothing" though she is "an aggressive career woman", with retro 1930s and '40s long tapered skirts, pleated slacks and vests.

Music

Danny Elfman composed the series' title theme, and Shirley Walker composed each episode score for a full orchestra. In 2010, a limited-edition two-disc soundtrack was released by La-La Land Records, featuring Elfman's theme and the scores by Walker for the pilot and the episodes "Captain Cold", "The Trickster", "Watching the Detectives", "Ghost in the Machine", "Done With Mirrors", "Fast Forward" and "Trial of the Trickster".

Release

Broadcast

The Flash was originally scheduled to debut on CBS in the 8 pm (EST) slot on Thursday, to go against The Cosby Show on NBC, in an attempt to attract younger viewers, before Fox moved The Simpsons from Sunday to the Thursday 8 pm slot for the same reason. After debuting on September 20, 1990, at 8 pm, CBS moved the series to 8:30 pm with its second episode, in an attempt to broadcast opposite less formidable competition in Fox's Babes, NBC's A Different World and the second half-hour of ABC's Father Dowling Mysteries. The move was done because this was part of CBS' programming realignment that also involves placing Lenny on hiatus, the delay of Sons and Daughters, and the cancellation of another sci-fi show E.A.R.T.H. Force. Eventually, CBS moved the series off Thursdays entirely, moving the show to Saturday nights. Had the show continued, it was revealed the second season would have opened with the Flash's rogues teaming up to take down the hero.

Marketing

Warner Bros. Television and CBS began its promotion of the series in July 1990 during the 1990 NBA All-Star Game. It also had ad campaigns on radio and cable television during "wrestling matches on USA Cable and during [Batman airings] on the Family Channel", as well as ads in The Flash comic book and posters for the series in malls and Kmarts across the country. Four-minute promos of the series aired at all Six Flags amusement parks and a few weeks before the pilot's debut, Warner Bros. flew banners over beaches on both coasts. Describing the marketing, George Schweitzer, senior vice president of communications at the CBS Broadcast Group said: "It's not being sold as a comic book. It's being sold like Batman [the 1989 film] – dark and mysterious and exciting. The promos have a theatrical quality". The pilot debuted on July 15, 1990, at a "big bash" at the Warner Bros. Burbank lot.

Home media

Some episodes of the series were edited into feature-length films and released on VHS: The Flash, consisting of the 2-hour pilot episode; The Flash II: Revenge of the Trickster, consisting of the episodes "The Trickster" and "The Trial of the Trickster"; and The Flash III: Deadly Nightshade (1991), consisting of the episodes "Ghost in the Machine" and "The Deadly Nightshade" (this third feature-length film was only released in Region 2 PAL areas). An extended version of the pilot episode was released on laser-disc.

The first ever DVD release of the show was the second episode, "Out of Control", which was released as a bonus disc under the Warner Bros. Television Commemorative DVD Volume 9: The Flash, part of a promotional DVD series designed to promote 50 years of Warner Bros. Television and to promote other TV shows that were not yet released on DVD. It was included with the DVD release of the fourth season set of Smallville in 2005 in North America. The entire series was released on DVD in January 2006.

The series was released on Blu-ray in June 2024 and features brand new 1080p HD masters, created from 4K scans of the original camera negatives.

Arrowverse

The 2014 television series, The Flash, features several references to the 1990 series. John Wesley Shipp plays the recurring role of Barry Allen's father, Henry Allen, and Amanda Pays once again portrays a character named Dr. Tina McGee. Shipp eventually portrays the Earth-3 version of Henry Allen, Jay Garrick / Flash. Regarding the difference in his portrayal of Garrick over Allen, Shipp "figured Jay is my version of Barry" from the 1990 series, adding: "I went back and I watched a couple of episodes of the 1990/91 version to kind of remind myself what I did. [Jay] is much more reminiscent of my Barry Allen from 25 years ago than my Henry Allen. I went back and I was amazed how much attitude my Barry Allen had in some situations. I went back and I picked up that thread and I brought it forward 25 years, and tried to weave it in". In "Welcome to Earth-2", as Barry, Cisco Ramon and Harry Wells are traveling to Earth-2, glimpses of the multiverse are seen, including an image of Shipp as the Flash from the 1990 series, implying that the series was retroactively being added to the Arrowverse-multiverse.

In the episode "Tricksters", Mark Hamill returns as James Jesse / Trickster, with images of Hamill as Trickster from the 1990 TV series being used in a police report, and Vito D'Ambrosio plays Mayor Anthony Bellows; a variation of a police officer character he played in 1991, though a later episode revealed Mayor Bellows was formerly an officer. 2014 series composer Blake Neely incorporated Walker's theme for the Trickster into the episode. Alex Désert reprises the role of Julio Mendez in the series' third-season episode, "Flashpoint", where he is the captain of the Central City Police Department in the Flashpoint timeline. Corinne Bohrer reprises her role as Zoey Clark / Prank in the fourth season episode, "The Elongated Knight Rises", which also featured stills of her from the 1990 show in her police file.

Shipp reprises his role as Barry Allen from this series in the 2018 Arrowverse crossover, "Elseworlds". The crossover also links the 1990 series to the Arrowverse, designating its world as Earth-90. Danny Elfman's theme accompanied the Earth-90 Flash's appearance into the episodes. He attempts to warn the heroes of Earth-1 about Mar Novu / The Monitor to prevent a similar devastation that his own world suffered before Novu breaches him away. The character returned in the following year's crossover, "Crisis on Infinite Earths", having been captured by the Anti-Monitor and forced to power his anti-matter cannon to destroy the multiverse. Despite being freed by Earth-1 Flash and his allies, he ultimately sacrifices himself to destroy the machine, seeing his life with Tina (whom he had married at some point) flash before his eyes in the form of a clip from the original series' pilot episode. After the filming of the scene, Shipp told The Flash showrunner Eric Wallace: "Thank you for giving me this opportunity to close a chapter".