Supergirl is an upcoming American television series developed by writer/producers Greg Berlanti, Ali Adler, Sarah Shechter, and Andrew Kreisberg, set to air on CBS. It is based on the DC Comics character Supergirl (Kara Zor-El), created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino. Supergirl is a costumed superhero who is the biological cousin to Superman and one of the last surviving Kryptonians. The series will take place in the same television DC Comics Universe currently shared by Arrow and The Flash.
The series was officially picked up on May 6, 2015 after receiving a series commitment in September 2014, and will debut on October 26, 2015...
But if you're like me, you happened to stumble onto the leak of the Supergirl pilot episode earlier this year.
Cast:
Main
Melissa Benoist as Kara Zor-El / Kara Danvers / SupergirlMehcad Brooks as James Olsen
Calista Flockhart as Cat Grant
David Harewood as Hank Henshaw
Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers
Recurring
Laura Benanti as Alura Zor-ElGuest
Jeremy Jordan as Winslow "Winn" SchottHelen Slater as Eliza Danvers. Slater portrayed Supergirl in the 1984 film.
Dean Cain as Jeremiah Danvers. Cain portrayed Superman in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
Faran Tahir as The Commander
Owain Yeoman as Vartox
Peter Facinelli as Maxwell Lord
Premise:
SUPERGIRL is an action-adventure drama based on the DC Comics character Kara Zor-El (Melissa Benoist), Superman’s (Kal-El) cousin who, after 12 years of keeping her powers a secret on Earth, decides to finally embrace her superhuman abilities and be the hero she was always meant to be. Twelve-year-old Kara escaped the doomed planet Krypton with her parents’ help at the same time as the infant Kal-El. Protected and raised on Earth by her foster family, the Danvers, Kara grew up in the shadow of her foster sister, Alex (Chyler Leigh), and learned to conceal the phenomenal powers she shares with her famous cousin in order to keep her identity a secret. Years later at 24, Kara lives in National City assisting media mogul and fierce taskmaster Cat Grant (Golden Globe Award winner Calista Flockhart), who just hired the Daily Planet’s former photographer, James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks), as her new art director. However, Kara’s days of keeping her talents a secret are over when Hank Henshaw (David Harewood), head of a super-secret agency where her sister also works, enlists her to help them protect the citizens of National City from sinister threats. Though Kara will need to find a way to manage her newfound empowerment with her very human relationships, her heart soars as she takes to the skies as Supergirl to fight crime.The Verdict:
I remember after the reveal trailers got out I didn't have high hopes for this show and after seeing this pilot episode, that opinion hasn't changed. The series isn't set to debut on CBS until the end of October, but after a pretty big leak on their part, you won't have too much trouble finding this full episode online.
A good friend of mine who is a loyal reader of this blog supplied me with the episode to watch but I didn't get a chance to watch until I had a chance to do so with my older sister, who I regularly weigh in on the female prospective on viewing the superhero genre as of late since we both grew up discussing this stuff for years and finally having the chance to see it in fruition in our adolescent years.
Here's the thing this is tough to watch for BOTH of us - first for my sister who was literally embarrassed at how bad the writing for this pilot just to appeal and cater to a female audience and for me as a comic book fan who's throwing my hands up every few minutes at how absurd all of this is. I was skeptical at The Flash at first and I grew to enjoy that for the most part - up until the season finale but that's a discussion for another day, I suppose.
Speaking of The Flash, let's go ahead and talk about my #1 issue with how Supergirl's pilot is laid out. It's set up essentially JUST like the pilot for The Flash. The adolescent gets (or in this case, is born with them) superpowers and wants to help people with them. Some random bullshit happens that conveniently creates supervillains all over the city that the said hero wants to protect. In The Flash's case it was the Particle Accelerator blowing up and creating metahumans all over Central City, in Supergirl it's her arrival to Earth 23 years later after Superman's arrival that unleashes all of this crazy criminals from Krypton's top security prison in the Phantom Zone (Fort Ross) that she has to locate and recapture in National City. (Sighs) It sounds like the writers were watching episodes of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo when they were brainstorming the plots for this episode. For those who don't know, the plot for that short-lived cartoon series had Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo, Shaggy, Daphne and their new found allies scrambling to recapture the 13 ghosts that they accidentally released from the Chest of Demons. Why does all of these DC Comics related superhero dramas on television have to have that same "Gotta Catch 'Em All" Pokémon style plot? To be quite honest, they have been recycling and rehashing this formula since Smallville on the CW.
The narrative sets an already adolescent Kara up to be Kal-El's protector as he is an infant sent from the dying Krypton to follow him to Earth. Shit happens and she finds herself frozen in time as she's trapped in the Phantom Zone for 23 years. Superman (the grown up Kal-El) finds her after she somehow escapes the Phantom Zone and has her taken in by the Danvers family. This flashback occurs in a span of the first 2-3 minutes of this episode before returning to present day. Due to licensing and cheap storytelling, it's obvious that CBS can't say nor mention Superman by name. Kara happens to work for a news conglomerate, ran by the prima donna Cat Grant.
I can't help but see Cat Grant as a female version of Spider-Man's own J. Jonah Jameson as The Flash was littered with Spider-Man comparisons from top to bottom throughout that first season. It's that teen angst stuff that keeps the CW's DC Comics' fans happens so that's who they are catering to. Whatever floats your boat in my book.
The narrative follows Kara as she struggles with keeping her powers a secret and enduring the challenges of being "normal" when she knows that she could offer the world something more much like her cousin Kal-El/Superman has done for the world (well in that licensed world of Metropolis that they obviously don't have access towards mentioning). Fast forward to after one bad day at work and even worse blind date, where Kara opts to use her powers to save her surrogate sister Alex Danvers from a plane crash. Ironically, Supergirl took this EXACT same concept from the Superman: The Animated Series pilot (which took that concept from the Superman comics) along with the same one that Dean Cain (who just happens to be playing Kara's foster father in this series) starred in. I'm all for tributes or homages to past iterations but this shows a complete lack of originality.
After exposing the world to another super-powered alien, the world is aware that there's a Supergirl in their midst. Kara is excited to jump into this double life and ability to show-off the abilities and powers that she's had to kept hidden for so long. I will give them some bit of credit here - Kara wants to be a hero. She wasn't forced into it unwillingly by some strange chance of dumb luck or fate. Instead, she chooses this destiny for herself as she finds "normal" life is the thing being forced on her. It's an interesting reverse psychology twist on the common superhero trope. Every other superhero out there is forced into this profession. Kara willingly goes into business for herself as it's her opportunity to be her "true" self instead of hiding underneath a mask in her "normal" day to day life. This layer of depth is comparable to Batman's Bruce Wayne where he is truly himself when he's wearing the mask and costume of Batman. The entire persona of Bruce Wayne is an illusion and clever mask to deter people from knowing who he really is deep down.
I have to say that the special effects and fight scenes are almost comical to an extent. I've seen better choreographed fights on Power Rangers than in this crap. This looks worse than most of the misc. live-action fantasy TV shows during the boom period of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess in the late '90s and early 2000s. CBS must either have a pretty low budget with this show are really cutting some corners in terms of production costs. I mean, c'mon, the first few episodes of Agents of SHIELD didn't look this bad in terms of effects.
Watch It or Don't Bother?
If you're giddy with joy with just about everything else in the Arrowverse, then this will definitely be your cup of tea since you're used to this type of teen angst drama storytelling. Everyone else might not be as accepting to this new take on the Man of Steel's cousin... This looks as bad as that upcoming live-action adaptation of Jem and the Holograms...Who knows, this could end up getting better over the course of the first season, but I wouldn't waste my precious time watching and hoping for that. It didn't bother me to miss out on Gotham and I can pass from watching this.
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