TVC: Supergirl S1 Review!
Supergirl is a hard pill to swallow. I'm not sure if it's more controversial than most of Arrow's seasons, but when it was airing on CBS it felt like it was the easiest show to talk shit about. Everybody was curious when it first premiered, but something about the show just couldn't keep people coming to it week after week. For all the hate this show gets, especially now that people are viewing the second season on the CW network and are making comparisons that it's a hundred times watchable now, I couldn't shake the feeling that people just weren't looking at all the good this season brought to the table. I won't say it didn't have trouble, and it sure tumbled here and there, but overall season one of Supergirl brought me so much joy that other superhero shows didn't do.
Now for me, Supergirl wasn't aimed at a guy like me, so I was never fully interested to start this show. I gave it a chance, watched a few episodes here and there when it was airing, and I honestly couldn't get into it. Now, months after the premiere and the whole season was uploaded onto Netflix I decided to sit down and try it again, and you know what? It still sucked. Maybe "sucked" isn't the right word, but those first few episodes are really hard to get through.
What made me continue with the series is that even though I wasn't totally enjoying the episodes, the actors, and the passion that was brought to the show made me feel good and it felt like Supergirl was radiating positivity like no other show. At the time Arrow was in a slump, as some fans might say, while the Flash was taking a darker season. Legends of Tomorrow was fun, but it never held my attention long enough. Supergirl, on the other hand, was able to spotlight happiness, positivity, and had a really good message that made me feel good and fuzzy. That's why I continued with Supergirl, but I had to endure a lot when the show was still finding its footing.
My biggest turn off at the beginning of the show was Cat Grant, and the obvious feminist marking. The feminist issues weren't that they were tackling weren't bad, but I felt the show was putting too much emphasis on them and it felt like they were shoving it down my throat, especially in the first episode. Whenever it was brought up it took me out of the story. For instance, there's an oil tanker on fire and the Firemen on duty question Supergirl because she's new, and they don't know how to handle her yet, but what Supergirl says in their response was "Why? Because I'm a girl?" Nobody said that to her, and nobody was implying that. It drove me crazy because there was no need for that line, and it painted Supergirl in a light that I didn't like. She's supposed to be everything Superman is and more. She isn't a Superman knock-off, even if technically she can be called that, but telling everybody that she's a woman and she can do things on her own only paints her as bratty, selfish, and at times juvenile. Maybe it's me, but I just wanted a Supergirl who did her job because she wanted to, not to make a statement.
Unfortunately, the biggest advocator for Supergirl to act this way was Cat Grant. She's essentially the Perry White of Supergirl's city. The big shot reporter who owns a company, and Kara (Supergirl's real name) works under her. In the beginning, Cat Grant is the most annoying person I have ever seen on television, at least on a superhero show. She was the character who really preached what a girl/woman should do, react, and behave. While I think the character and the writers had good intentions about her, as I'll get to later on, I just felt really put off by her character and thought she was pushing too much and thus made me care less about the topics she'd bring up.
Thankfully that doesn't last long. I noticed around episode five that the show started to change. Kara was being a little bit more kinder, and softer, and while she was still tackling feminist ideas she was doing it in a more subtle, and better way. This was also the episode where Cat Grant started to grow on me. You learn that she has a son, and that she doesn't have the best at home relationship with her family, and this made her more human to me. I felt like for the first time in the show I should give a damn about this character. She wasn't just a screaming totalitarian boss. She had her personal issues that she trudged through, and some part of her needs Kara to make her life bearable. This was also the start of what I thought was a great Mother/Daughter, Master/Apprentice relationship that Kara and Cat would share throughout the series.
In the pilot episode you are introduced to Kara's evil aunt, Astra. She's the overarching villain for the season, and sadly I didn't feel the need to see what her plan was, or really get to know her as a villain. She was forgettable, and her conflict with ruining Earth and trying to be Kara's aunt just wasn't doing it for me. However, I thought the show did a much better job at focusing on villains of the week. The ones they did have seemed fleshed out, and had really cool superpowers, but in the end I felt that was also the downfall of the season's momentum. Because I felt the overarching story was weak, and the villain of the day episodes were strong, it never felt like I needed to watch the next episode. Supergirl as a show didn't feel like a priority to me, because I knew these characters weren't coming back even though that's easily wasted potential.
The part of the season that I thought got really good, and made me want to watch the next episode was the story arc about Martian Manhunter. CBS did a great job with that character, from his writing, to his make up. Out of context I think he looks silly, and weird, but when you're watching the show it all makes perfect sense, and I literally fan boy out every time he transforms. When you see him in his martian form you know shit is about to go down, and when they showed his back story on Mars it was so emotionally well done. But, Martian Manhunter isn't just a cool character, he actually helps Kara control her powers and helps her fly better. He quickly becomes a father figure to her as Cat has become her mother figure and when you see what Martian Manhunter had given up for her you're just rooting for him all the way.
Other characters that I thought were really fun were Kara's adoptive sister, Alex Danvers, and Winn, the boy who always has a crush on Supergirl. These characters have their moments, but sometimes they're not written with the most consistantly. Alex really changes depending on her emotions, and I think that's a flaw the writing team has come up against time and time again. Because the characters are taking drastic measures to solve sometimes simple problems it really makes the story telling feel wonky and sometimes forced.
The best episode for me was definitely when they introduced Red Kryptonite. The episode itself was really well done, but it was the fallout from that episode that I loved. Because Supergirl went on a rampage the city can't trust her anymore. No matter what she does she can only suck it up and help whether people want her to or not. Some of those scenes were really heartbreaking and touching. Sadly, how they resolved that arc was a little sloppy if not cheesy. The firefighters were one of Supergirl's earliest supporters, and I just couldn't see them turning their back on her. Literally no one tried to stand up for her, and in the end everybody does when they see Supergirl losing a fight. It would have been much more powerful story telling if say the firefighters always had faith in her, and when they joined in to help Supergirl it would start making people realize that what they have been doing was stupid.
Honestly I felt that most of this season was like that. Great starts to story arcs, wonderful points that introduced interesting questions, but poor executions as a whole. For example, the finale of this season was being hyped up so much, and I thought the showrunners had some balls on them to do something this big, and awesome on a network television station, but in the end I found the finale to be slightly disappointing. So, for me, I found the start and end of the season to be painful to okay while the middle was mixed with great and good episodes. They may not have all been executed well, but what they brought to the table was refreshing and inspired.
Lastly, I just want to talk about Supergirl herself. Melissa Benoist does a spectacular job at playing her. She has so much positivity, and happiness that you can't help but smile when she's on screen. You can tell that she loves this, and that makes you start to love this as she finds her own Supergirl. Her relationship with Cat Grant started off as something I wished never existed, but as the show went on I not only started to like Cat, but started to look forward to her pep talks between Kara and Supergirl. She really is the mother figure in Supergirl's life, and a lot of their scenes are just so touching. Likewise, Martian Manhunter does great as her father figure, but I couldn't help but notice that these scenes would be much more powerful if Clark/Superman was the one telling her them. He was in the show, but you either saw him texting Supergirl or you were lucky to see his boots. He doesn't offically appear as a character until season 2, and I know they were trying to show that Supergirl can work on her own, and can be just as good as Superman, but I still can't help but feel the show would have been more powerful if Superman just sat down with Kara and they talked.
That said, I thought this season was overall better than I expected. The first batch of episodes are definitely a hard pill to swallow, especially since the show is still finding their voice, but as you go along and take the journey with Kara and everybody else I couldn't help but start falling in love with everyone and what this show was doing. Each episode turned into a jolt of happiness that I needed in my daily life, and that's what any Super show should do. The story telling does get cliche at times, and the romance triangles are a plenty, but I felt that this season gave more positves than most people would give it credit for, and for me I'd say that while it may be a rocky journey it's one that I'm glad I gave it a shot.
7/10
