My Thoughts on the First Season of "Supergirl"

So I made it through Supergirl Season 1. Aaaaand...it was good. Great? Not quite. 

In a nutshell. Supergirl benefits from a light-hearted tone and well-developed characters, but stumbles with writing.

If you just thought out loud, "I wish he'd go into more detail," then it's Christmas in mid-late June for you!

What I Liked:

A Lighter Tone

This "light tone" I'm talking about isn't exactly the same as The Flash. While Flash's lightheartedness seems present to incorporate more comic book-y elements, Supergirl's has more to do with creating a sense of optimism. From the get-go, the show knows exactly how to balance the dark and the light. For the most part, the series is fun and bright, but knows when it needs to be somber and serious. Dark events have consequences, but they never compromise that optimistic feel. Think of it like the patches of light moments in Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. They're needed, but never get in the way of the feel the film/show is trying to emanate.

The Cast and Characters

There wasn't really a character in the main cast that I didn't like, and the same goes for the actors too. All do a good job of embodying their roles and working well with each other. Melissa Benoist is, well, a pretty great Kara Danvers. Chyler Leigh and Benoist are fantastic when it comes to displaying the sisterly relationship between Alex and Kara.Even though the decision to turn small, white, scrawny Jimmy Olsen a into a big, black, muscular James Olsen still seems a bit "forced" to me, I still ended up liking Mechad Brooks and this new take on the character. Jeremy Jordan provides some good comic relief as Winn, David Harewood is an awesome Hank Henshaw, and I was surprised at how much I liked Calista Flockhart's Cat Grant. The writers don't seem to know whether she should be be the diva boss or the wise mentor, though, and that creates some dissonance with her character. 

What I Didn't Like:

The Relationship Drama

Goodness. And I thought the CW was bad. I'm pretty sure a large chunk of every episode in Supergirl's first season deals with a romantic subplot. Maybe there's one or two that don't, but wowee is it still an overload. There's Winn's unrequited love for Kara, Kara's unrequited love for James, James and Lucy's drama, that one episode where Kara was dating Cat's son, that weird sexual tension with Alex and Maxwell Lord. Ugh. The CW's DC shows suffer from the same problem, but at least it's kind of kept to a minimum (ie. There might be only one or two romantic subplots per season). Here, it's so dominant that it's easy to forget you're watching a Supergirl show and not a soap opera. Hopefully, the romance is fenced in next season, but seeing as how it's on the CW now, it'll still be an issue. Maybe not as glaring, but it'll still be there.

The "Berlanti" Formula

Greg Berlanti is one of the guys in charge of Supergirl, and is also in charge of Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, and that's evident seeing as how many of Supergirl's episodes play out. See, Berlanti has a formula of sorts that can be found in many episodes of Arrow and The Flash (Legends, not so much). It goes something like this: 

Hero goes about life. Hero encounters some sort of personal struggle, or hiccup in current romance, etc. Villain arrives on scene and commits a crime. Hero gets info on villain while dealing with problem. Villain commits another crime, and is confronted by hero. Hero is defeated and villain gets away. Hero gets pep talks and learns to overcome problem, which the audience begins to realize is thematically related to the villain or something. Hero faces off against villain again. Villain defeated. Hero gets closure for problems of the week, and then we get a set up for next week's episode. 

This isn't used for every episode, but is usually the basic plot for the filler episodes. Arrow has grown to rely on this formula more and more (which isn't good) and it's seen in The Flash's "Metahuman of the week" episodes. Supergirl uses it not any more or less than the two, but it makes the formula more apparent. It's not a "bad" formula, per se, and I don't expect it will be thrown out any time soon. It's just that when it's written poorly, it's a lot more plainly seen than it usually is.

Pop Culture! Pop Culture!

For some stupid reason, Supergirl feels the need to shoehorn in multiple pop culture references in each episode. Sometimes it's Cat name-dropping a celebrity ("Tell Bernie Sanders I'm not interested in hot yoga.") or another character name-dropping another TV show ("I've been wanting to catch a corrupt cop ever since we binge-watched The Wire!") Sure, maybe in the beginning it's a cute way of showing how Supergirl's sort of-kind of-not really set in our world, but then it becomes a way for the show to be like "Look how caught up we are on what is relevant!" It's really distracting and just, well, really dumb. 

Songs in the Background

CAN ANY ONE OF THESE SHOWS PLEASE STOP PLAYING SONGS IN THE BACKGROUNDS OF SCENES?!?! IT'S SO ANNOYING! I CAN HADLY HEAR WHAT THE CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT! GRRRRRRR.

Had to get that off my chest for a sec. Sorry for the outburst.

My 5 Favourite Episodes (in chronological order):

1. "Human for a Day"" (Episode 7)
2. "For the Girl Who Has Everything" (Episode 13)
3. "Falling" (Episode 16)
4. "Worlds Finest" (Episode 18)
5. "Myriad" (Episode 19)

I'm definitely interested in seeing what the next season has to offer, and, of course, how the show will tie in to the Arrowverse now that it's on the CW. 

If I had to rate it? Mmmmmm...how about 7.3/10. 

The next show on my docket is iZombie, but I'm gonna wait a bit before I start on that.

Catch ya later.

Noah