In their endless TV race with Marvel, DC pooped out yet another show this time featuring the beloved Comic Book heroine, Super Girl. If you were waiting to see a badass heroine fighting crime and being awesome, don’t bother with the show.
On the other hand, if you like silly dialogue, characters who act like teenagers and dull plot lines, all buried under a thick layer of melted cheese, give it a go.
The main plot is about Superman’s cousin, young Kara (played by Melissa Benoist) struggling to balance her ordinary life and the desire to better the world through her super powers. Problem is, she’s not very good at either, so a long journey awaits her on the path to being a true heroine.
The acting is okay to mediocre. They don’t overact as much as in other DC shows, though the actors can be quite plastic-doll like. Especially in the more emotional scenes. Visual effects are passable and just like in other DC shows, the sound is unleveled with quiet dialogue followed by exploding music and sound effects.
That about sums it up. Another lazy DC production that promises more sparkle and glitter than actual content. I’d give it a pass.
But let’s fly into spoiler territory and look at the Pilot episode.
It starts with a narration of the protagonist’s backstory.
And I’m already bored.
Though they did add some footage to make it more visual.
And we arrive at the first nitpick. Kara’s mother somehow knows that Earth’s sun would give her superpowers. How?
But no time to address that, the narration carries on. In this iteration of the story, Kara is sent to protect Kal-El. But things immediately go awry, her ship is knocked by a shockwave and she drifts into the phantom zone. For twenty years she remains frozen in time before finally crashing on Earth, where her cousin, now a grown up Superman, greets her.
Without explaining much, in fact we never see his face or hear him talk, he leaves her to some random folks and zooms off.
We jump several years into the future, where our ditzy character has an unspecified media job, bitchy and powerful boss, a friendzoned colleague and a potential love interest/the new guy at the company. And not to forget a sassy best friend/sister who shows up as Kara prepares for a date. We’ve never seen that set up before.
We are more told than shown that our protagonist is trying to blend in without using, or even understanding her powers. This constant denial frustrates her and she wants to use her powers, only she doesn’t.
Her date is a total jerk, asking her checklist questions and dumping her for a phone call. Because in this universe, no one wants to date gorgeous blondes.
But we don’t have time to dwell on it as the news conveniently show a plane experiencing troubles. It’s her sister’s, and Kara dashes to help.
She runs into the street where the plane conveniently passes over her, its engine on fire. Kara attempts to fly but she hasn’t done it for years so taking off isn’t smooth. For a whole two seconds anyway. Quite anticlimactic. She stumbles a few times and then flies perfectly.
Meanwhile, the plane’s engines are popping like popcorn. That must be the most unfortunate or ill maintained plane on the continent.
A very short action scene later, Kara safely lands the plane in the river. But, as usual, the media are divided and blame her for much of the destruction. Needlessly in this case considering the alternative: half a city on fire from a plane crash. I’ll put this reaction under ‘people being assholes for the sake of being assholes’.
Even though Kara just saved her life, her sister isn’t happy either. She quickly crosses the line between being worried and being ‘a bitch for the sake of being a bitch’ as she yells at her about exposing herself.
Despite the headlines, life continues as usual at Kara’s workplace.
With the added bonus of her boss obsessing with the new heroine. And then like no superhero ever, Kara tells her best friend the truth. Okay, points for that. Even if it’s for the selfish reason of needing a sidekick. Which he immediately agrees on, and even sews her a costume. And I feel that they should address the fact no one recognizes her without her glasses. Maybe? No? Okay. I’ll assume her face is so generic that people forget it two seconds after they see her.
Somewhere halfway in, we get our first bad guy: a man in a hat watching the TV report while digging a hole in the table with his nails. Turns out the plane was sabotaged to draw her out. Good on justifying that convenient breakdown though it raises the question of how they knew she was in that particular city. Or did they crash planes over every single city in the country until they got to hers?
So while the villains are organizing their forces and traveling to location, our girl takes on the city criminals with uplifting success.
She responds to yet another distress call but never makes it to location, as someone shoots her down with kryptonite darts. The bad guys have arrived.
Or have they?
Nope, it’s her sister. She brought the DEO, or Department of Extranormal Operations, an organization formed to monitor and protect from extraterrestrial threats. They carry Kara into their headquarters where the head Agent bursts into a narration about stupid aliens ruining everybody’s day.
So how do our humans react to the heroine finally growing into her cape when they are faced with dangerous alien threats beyond their skill and technology? With snarky scorn, telling her to get back to the kitchen- go serve them coffee.
Naturally, she isn’t happy about this treatment and storms off. They don’t stop her, even if the main agent guy keeps ranting about how dangerous she is.
Once again we’ve gone a full circle, it’s the next day and Kara goes to work as usual. Everything is calm until she hears she has been dubbed Supergirl. Why girl? Why not woman? This is obviously a grave offence that requires her to snap at her boss and nearly get herself fired.
Fortunately, the new guy/love interest saves her by crediting her a picture he took of Supergirl. So, are we going to address the whole no one recognizes her without her glasses thing now when they have a clear picture of her? No? Oookay.
Instead of thanking him for saving her job, Kara yells at him. Are all women, and most men, in this show PMSing?
Things pick up when she receives a sonic message from the bad guy and flies off to fight him. Ten seconds later, Supergirl gets her ass kicked.
She is saved by DEO and her sister who rather indiscriminately shoots missiles at the power plant where the aliens are fighting. Talk about possible collateral, the protector humans seem more destructive than the aliens.
And I need to address a minor issue. A few scenes ago her sister claimed to have been selected for her knowledge in molecular biology and alien physiology, so why is she in the field? Shouldn’t she be locked in a secure lab somewhere private? Who the hell gave her control of a military chopper? Does DEO personnel consisted of three agents, two of whom called in sick that day?
But let’s carry on.
In the aftermath of the battle, Kara contemplates on how she felt pain for the very first time in her life. Quite realistically, this makes her afraid. So our brave girl gives up, not surprising considering all the non-support she gets from everyone other than her boytoy. But her sister has a change of hearts and now insists that Kara fights. After a whole episode of bitching about using her powers, her sister’s sudden encouragement has no effect. For a whole three seconds before she hands Kara over an inspiring message from her mother.
She goes as far as to argue with her DEO boss. A debate that takes a whole thirty seconds until he agrees to work with Kara. An inspirational monologue later, the IT team conveniently gets a word of a bad guy attack.
How do they detect him you may ask? A satellite tracked the compound his axe is made of. Now I’m not sure science works quite like that but let’s assume they stole some miraculous tech from the aliens. Yet their weapons are limited to darts and chopper missiles.
Supergirl flies to confront the baddie and suddenly she can fight. Though someone could have taught her how to throw a real punch. She succeeds in destroying his axe and the fight is over. Even though he swept the floor with her without it earlier. Then, refusing to accept defeat, he kills himself. But not before foreshadowing a looming threat.
Kara returns with a victory, but the DEO director is back to grumbling about stupid aliens littering in his neighbourhood. Why can’t he just accept her for the asset she is?
But we’re not done with the episode yet. The next day at work, the new guy reveals he was sent by Superman to watch over her. Okay, now we’re done. And I must ask, how did she not get fired for skipping half a day of work? Does she really work beyond bringing her boss a coffee in the morning?
No matter, it’s over, and man was that boring.
Everything is a bit too convenient, too cookie cut out, it just doesn’t feel genuine or natural and the characters are hard to relate to beyond crappy everyday stuff. The personal conflicts are not well established either, and often characters react negatively for no good reason. Not even getting into the choreography of the fights and the believability of her punches...
So, as it’s often with DC, the show is pretty but shallow. The episode has ups and downs as it tries to do something decent, you can see the struggles for a clever and innovative story, but nevertheless always falls back to the well known cliches and lazy writing.
So if you like generic, comic book, pop series with the barest minimum of effort put in, give it a watch. For something better, and darker try Marvel’s Daredevil, Jessica Jones, or hell even Constantine.
