All 32 DC TV shows ranked from worst to best
21. Constantine (2014 - 2015)
Now here's a show that needed longer to find its footing.
Constantine aired for just one season on NBC in 2014, and it was a bloody thrill-ride at that, mate. The show introduced us to Matt Ryan's portrayal of the Master of the Dark Arts and he very quickly proved himself to be the personification of the character. Honestly, he was born to play this role.
The thing that worked well with the series was that it opted for an adventure of the week format, meaning that we got to see John Constantine battle many different kinds of threats pretty quickly. Not only did that showcase his effectiveness, it set the stage for the show's overarching "Rising Darkness" arc. Unfortunately, its premature cancellation prevented it from resolving that storyline.
I think it's safe to say we were all grateful that this wasn't the last we saw of Ryan's Constantine, as he would later pop up in the Arrowverse.
20. The Flash (1990 - 1991)
Superheroes were all the rage in the '80s and '90s after the successes of the Superman and Batman franchises on the big screen. Naturally, that meant they would return to the small screen, too. With that, the dawn of the '90s saw the Scarlet Speedster headline his first ever TV series as The Flash made an electrifying premiere on CBS in September of that year - and when I say "electrifying", I mean electrifying because the premiere episode was watched by 22 million viewers.
While the first season maintained high ratings after the initial drop-off, the show's huge budget meant that it didn't go beyond the first season. That was a real shame because the series was incredibly high quality for '90s TV, with production values that made it feel very cinematic the whole way throughout. Yes, it was a bit cheesy at times, but it was intentionally so, mimicking the more light-hearted superhero movies of its time.
John Wesley Shipp's performance as Barry Allen is as important to the character's legacy as Adam West's was to Batman and George Reeves' was to Superman, and it's about time we acknowledged that a bit more. He was so good in the title role that we all celebrated his eventual return as the Scarlet Speedster in the 2014 Flash TV series over two decades later.