I really don't agree with that, production value asides.
I'll just give an example before I go to bed. I think many people would agree that the Huntress episodes of S1 were pretty much a flop but I've always liked them, especially the very first ones, despite the terrible acting. The Huntress and her arc provided a clear theme and foil to Oliver's character at the moment. Someone who like Oliver had suffered loss, slipped into the dark side, and trained themselves to deliver out death as "justice." However, the Huntress quickly shows to Oliver the true ugly side of his pursuit, what happens when you fall completely down the dark path in your twisted sense of lethal justice. Oliver grows as a character through his encounter with Helena Bertinelli and becomes better from it. The episodes weren't just, "Hey look it's the Huntress, look how cool this is." They had themes which also helped spur character growth.
Now, let's compare that episode to the recent episode we just witnessed, which I enjoyed for the most part. Here, we have Oliver having to step in to save his sister by intervening in a League Civil War. Nyssa tells Oliver all that he has to do is kill Malcolm and she'll give him the cure. Now, rather than just kill this fucker whose had it coming for 4 seasons now Oliver refuses because "reasons." These reasons consisting of some warped logic of not wanting to deny his sister a possible relationship with her biological father. He mentions how Merlyn killed Tommy, "killed" Sara, and set Thea up to be stabbed by Ra's but still wishes to respect his sister's ability to have a father. Of course, this explanation is hilarious as it tries to retroactively downplay Malcolm's full culpability as he didn't just "kill Tommy" he murdered over 500 people with the Undertaking. An event the show would prefer we forget.
But, the reason I mention all of this is because I now have to ask what did Oliver learn from this episode? How did he grow as a character? In the end he refuses to kill Malcolm, maims him, and then gives Nyssa leadership over the League after which she proceeds to disband the entire organization. Now, that's a pretty nice sentiment on Nyssa's part but anyone with a brain and some memory might ask, WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T OLIVER DO THAT LAST SEASON IF THAT WAS AN OPTION? At the end of S3 he won, he defeated Ra's, he was the Demon's Head why not disband the League instead of handing it to Merlyn? We have no answer.
At the end, the only character who grew some was Felicity through her sub-plot with her dad which was almost unconnected to the main plot. So we get a flashy episode with some cool fight sequences that is devoid of sense or character development. That in a nutshell is my problem with current Arrow.
. Brilliant episode, although i don´t like how Merlin was stomped so easily by Ollie. Telling Darhk about Ollie´s son is brilliant, and very evil move by Merlin.
