Well, Supergirl launched on CBS last night, and I think that it’s likely to be a hit for them. They’ve certainly put the requisite amount of marketing into the show, and they’ve gotten the right people to make the the show.
The thing that drives me nuts about DC’s films and television shows is how fractured they tend to be. If you look what Disney and Marvel are doing, they treat their movies and shows as part of one whole. Whereas DC keeps their cinematic endeavors separate from their television shows. And they’ve been pushing way too hard for a Justice League movie, trying to get to that point with less than half the number of movies Marvel used to build up to the Avengers. To be fair, DC’s shows have done quite well, which is why it’s frustrating that they don’t apply the same degree of care that goes into them for their films.
But back to Supergirl. Pilots are rarely indicative of the highs of a series, and Supergirl is no different. A large amount of the Pilot is very fast paced, to the point where it really feels like it’s going too fast. It just feels like they were really trying to get all of the basic introductions out of the way as quickly as possible, so that they could get to the super stuff. Which is fine; it just feels like the pilot could’ve used more than the basic hour allotment.
The special effects were on par with, if not of a higher quality than, other DC shows. At one point, Kara saves a plane full of people in a fashion that brings to mind Superman Returns. Which is interesting, as I recall everyone crying bullshit because the plane would pancake against them or whatever other physics related reason. Well, you’re watching something which asks you to believe that an alien can fly and have super strength because the sun is yellow. This isn’t Indy’s fridge moment, okay? But other than that, the flight looks good, and the other special effects work.
I’ve danced around the casting enough. Melissa Benoist is excellent, and I have to say that the pair of glasses she wears as Kara are perfectly terrible by design. They’re an excellent example of how a pair of glasses could throw someone off a secret identity. They literally change the shape of her face while she’s wearing them. Whenever Calista Flockhart is on screen, you’ll likely swear that you accidentally flipped channels and got stuck in the middle of The Devil Wears Prada. Excellently sharkish. Which brings me to Jimmy Olsen, as played by Mehcad Brooks.
Everybody threw a shit fit about Jimmy Olsen being black. I personally don’t care about that; there’s 90 bajillion universes in superhero books, I can imagine at least one in which Jimmy is black. My problem is that, as good an actor as he is, he’s also a former Calvin Klein underwear model. When you think Jimmy Olsen, you generally think of someone who used charisma as a dump stat, who stumbled out of a Goodwill into a never-ending struggle with gravity. We’re talking someone who, outside of friendship with Superman (and thus being open to superdickery, depicted below), occasionally sprouted unwanted superpowers that are homaged to this day, and got involved in hi-jinx like becoming morbidly obese to impress a circus fat lady. The Silver Age was not kind to Jimmy. But my point is this; they got Stefan Urquelle, when a lot of people would have expected Steve Urkel.
Honestly, though? They really put too much plot into a single one hour episode. because the latter half deals almost entirely with the weekly aspect of the show; all of the escaped Phantom Zone convicts that Kara’s ship accidentally freed. Convicts that Alura Zor-El, who all have a vested interest in trying to kill Kara. And also the Department of Extranormal Operations, meant to deal with all of these aliens and superpeople. Who also employ Kara’s adopted sister. I honestly think that a lot of this could’ve benefitted from having it’s own episode, rather than being crammed into the pilot. But perhaps that’s just me.
As far as pilots go, it’s not bad off. I’m an adherent of the three episode rule myself, anyway, so we’ll see where this goes. I do wonder at its timeslot, though. 8:00 pm puts it against a crazy number of established shows, including Gotham.
Final Thoughts:
- They make a quick throw away Superfriends joke. Joke’s on them, they don’t have a common room couch for Aquaman to sleep on.
- Krypto the Superdog and Beppo the Superchimp didn’t seem to make it off Krypton.
- Their twist with “The General” was well played.
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