SUPERGIRL: Season One

[Grimjohn]

My Monday nights are dominated by Gotham and Scorpion and was expecting to have to catch Supergirl through OnDemand but, CBS smartly sandwiched Supergirl in between Big Bang and an elongated Scorpion episode. That being said when I flipped from Fox to CBS I then decided that I would base my desire to watch the complete Supergirl premiere based on the strength of its back half. Sadly, I do not desire to see it in its entirety as I was not that impressed with what I saw. It felt, as many have pointed out already, forced and poorly written.

I find it pretty bold of CBS to put this up against Gotham and I presume they are counting on DVR/TiVo and/or OnDemand viewings to support its ratings.

[The Toyroom]

I liked it for the most part but have a few gripes...

• Jimmy Olsen has way too much swagger for Jimmy Olsen. A fact that will become more apparent when we meet his ex-fiancée Lucy Lane played by the uber-hot Jenna Dewan-Tatum. Seriously, he let that go?

• Vartox was wasted as a Persuader/Lumberjack clone for a character that had more potential than that.

• With the list of upcoming villains including Red Tornado, Hellgrammite and a newly created evil-twin of Kara's mother it becomes apparent that The Superman Family's Rogues Gallery is kinda weak in the memorability and/or iconic villain department. Of course they probably don't want to necessarily tread the same ground as Smallville with Luthor, Brainiac, Darkseid etc. But I'll lose interest if every week it's an escaped from the Phantom Zone villain, much like how every villain in Season 1 of The Flash was linked to the explosion of the particle accelerator.

• A little over the top with all of the "your cousin wanted you to..." nonsense. I might have missed it while carving pumpkins but WHERE is he exactly?

[Earth 2 Chris]

I loved it. It was the pilot folks. They are always shaky. Plus, we saw all the good parts already! My only gripe is they did try to cram too much into an hour. Should have let it breathe and give it an extra half hour.

Benoist is charming and very easy on the eyes, and can play strong and vulnerable at the same time. They have an interesting set-up and some new wrinkles in the Superman mythos that aren't maddening (you watching this, DC Comics?). I'm stoked for next week.

Chris

[SentientApe]

I was tempted to begin this thread a few hours ago, myself.

Yes, the pilot seemed forced. They tried to cram all the exposition and set-up into the first hour, so nothing felt organic. Every Superhero Movie cliche was included in that one episode, making it feel as if the script had been written by a fifteen-year-old.

I tired rapidly over the continuous use of alternate pronouns for Kryptonian-who-must-not-be-named.

However, the show -- and its lead actress -- had a certain charm. I'm not sure if I liked it or barely tolerated it... I certainly did not love it. However... the heat vision SFX were possibly the best ever -- maybe that's where all the money was spent, instead of on writers' salaries.

[emeraldknight47]

I'm finding my mind blown that no one has started this thread yet, so here I go, a fool walking in to where angels fear to tread.

After watching the preview scenes we saw for SUPERGIRL back in, what? was it July? I had a very positive vibe from the show and felt like DC would have yet another TV victory to crow about, another proverbial feather in their cap whilst MARVEL's AGENTS OF SHIELD seems to continually sputter, lurching forward with good ideas only to be yanked backwards twice as hard when something doesn't make sense or just doesn't play out correctly.

I've long been a supporter of super-heroines. Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl, Starfire, Raven, Storm, Marvel Girl, Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel and, of course, my all-time fave, Phoenix/Dark Phoenix. Heck, a friend of mine and I self-published a very, very, very, VERY small local comic back in the mid-eighties (before the age of the Internet and less expensive printing) whose title character WAS a super-heroine and she was the protector of our very own little hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. So females with super powers get a big thumbs up from me.

Which brings me to tonight's premiere/pilot episode of Supergirl...

As I said earlier, the previews had me very hopeful, which is why finding the show itself to be somewhat humdrum and mediocre (sometimes even bordering on wince-worthy) is so---disappointing. It seems that CBS showed the best parts of the show in the preview. I'm not sure exactly what it is about the show that didn't set well with me, maybe it's just that it felt somewhat---rushed? For being a show that is masterminded by the folks behind both ARROW and THE FLASH, this show felt oddly vacuous and heavy-handed and the joy found in THE FLASH was only glimpsed briefly in Supergirl. Melissa Benoist did a fine job of playing both Kara and Supergirl, but her portrayal felt somewhat undermined by the performances of those around her (most strikingly Owain Yeoman as the poorly named "Vardox"; his performances as Rigsby on THE MENTALIST proves he has acting chops, but the material he was given in this pilot was nothing short of canned ham). And the actor playing Hank Henshaw was so over-the-top that he fundamentally became a parody of the type of character he was playing. Even Chyler Leigh's performance as Kara's (step, half, Terran?) sister was uneven and felt rushed.

I felt like the shows visual effects, for being on one of the big three networks, were a little subpar, as well. Granted, super-powers are difficult to portray on the small screen with smaller budgets, but THE FLASH's visual effects, not to make a bad pun, run rings around the effects in Supergirl. It's like CBS entered into this half-hearted, hoping that the good will from THE FLASH and ARROW on their sister network would translate into instant success for Supergirl. Sadly, I don't think this is the case, but more on that later. Please feel free to chime in with your opinions and/or observations. I have a feeling Supergirl is going to be one of those polarizing shows that you're either going to love or hate with little gray area in between...