Supergirl Should Be Super
This article is written from the perspective of someone who has not watched the pilot that was leaked onto the internet several days ago. It’s written from the perspective of a hopeful likely viewer.
Sure, when CBS released the six-minute preview for Supergirl, alarm bells went off. It burst a few eardrums and also became a hope-crushing machine, stomping on any viewer who hoped that this show would be different than expected. It’s on CBS. It’s a superhero show. A former Glee actress portrays the titular character. The costume is quite sucky. The point being – it does not look all that great for those hopes.
When Melissa Benoist was cast as Supergirl, it made this prospective viewer cringe like hell. Girl who was on Glee will now portray a female superhero in an attempt to put women back another few years. In the six-minute preview, those fears were pretty much warranted. Rom-com trope after rom-com trope was unleashed on the poor viewer like it was the trailer for a terrible new Katherine Heigl-starring film. Kara appears to be an anxious and quirky assistant who fetches coffee for her bitch of a boss, who is super awkward around hot guys (groundbreaking!), and just another bright-eyed girl who is yearning for something more. I was half-expecting Kara to break into a wonderfully cheesy version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” at any second. Supergirl meets Glee.
It’s still a mystery how this show ended up on CBS, a network whose viewers still enjoy Golden Girls reruns. Its only real good show is The Good Wife. It was worrisome from the start. You’d be forgiven if you thought this show was going to be on the CW where it would fit well with The Flash; a Superhero show with an awkward hero who doesn’t know his shit around girls. That, however, is a great show - fun, but still badass, and possibly the best superhero show on television. It is highly likely that it’s the success of that show that made the executives at CBS latch onto Supergirl. Barry and Kara could probably be love interests on a show with incredible crossover appeal.
The biggest pitfall this show has to avoid is Kara being a complete cliché. A smart, confident and total badass is what this show needs. Nothing would be more refreshing than to see a female superhero who is fearless and strong, but vulnerable without being perceived as weak. A cool girl who kicks some serious ass. This show can be a totally cool kickass girl power show that empowers young viewers without portraying Kara as a super awkward girl who stumbles over her words when speaking to guys. If guys can have it, girls sure can too.
One thing that Supergirl has going for it is showrunner Greg Berlanti, who is also the brain behind two very popular superhero shows on television, Arrow and The Flash, both currently on the CW network. If he can replicate the successful formula of the latter for Supergirl, it could work. The question is whether or not it will find its audience on CBS, and I hope the answer is yes. Berlanti called Supergirl “the Annie Hall of superheroes”, a phrase that does make me a little wary, but please Greg, we trust you to nail it. Make it three out of three for you, bro.
Until the show premieres in a few months, we can only just speculate and hope for the best, but I urge you to go into this with an open mind. Tune in, give it its fair shot, and let us be super about it.
Make Supergirl super!
