(Pre-written cover for travelling)
After a fairly stinky season finale, it's time to talk about the season as a whole. For our purposes, this is a wrap for 'Supergirl', and we have to ask the question, 'Was it any good?'
It was both very good and bad. The writing was sometimes excellent, and sometimes very lazy and dumb. For every inventive and authentic use of Supergirl's powers, we also had a opposingly stupid brawl or angrily dumb heat vision staring duel. There was much heart and warmth, but it was sometimes ruined by spells of cynicism and tediousness when dealing with the arching thread of the escaped criminals from the crashed space prison Fort Roz. Most of the casting was great, except for the small portion which was plain bad. When every supporting character is absurdly beautiful, it's easy to switch off for a few minutes.
However, on the whole, it can be described as good. There are some nice moments wedged into the rickety composite framework of the show, and it was lovely to see the Martian Manhunter become part of the series, vastly improving David Harewood's role in the process. It was great to see Super-mythology being tapped into, and to have lovely touches like the Key to the Fortress of Solitude and Kelex, the presence of ex-Daily Planet staffers Cat Grant (the brilliant Calista Flockhart) and James 'Jimmy' Olsen, and some casting tie-ins with practically every available person who has been in a Super-show in the past. It would have been nice to not have recycled so many of the standard superhero series episode plots, but that's to be expected. Probably. Maybe. I don't know.
The stand-out episodes are 'How Does She Do It?', 'Human For A Day', 'Solitude' and then one of 'Manhunter' or 'Worlds' Finest'. When it works, it does so thanks to a great cast and a deep reliance on Melissa Benoist as the titular character Kara Danvers. When the show doesn't work, it's usually connected to the structural flaw that is having her work with the DEO, a para-military organisation that is essentially everything the Super-characters would hate, and an accompanying avoidance of the character of Kara/Supergirl. That deeply divisive flaw at the centre of the series is what stopped it being great. It's also why season two doesn't sound appealing at all, sadly, as all the character relationships are apparently trashed and Kara moved away from the centre of the show? Oh, CBS, why couldn't you just keep the series? Why?
Good character relationships, good acting, decent writing, some good to great directing. It was a solid show. It will never leave the DVD collection. Golly, if only they had tried harder and not been so lazy when it came to villains and nefarious deeds. Is it a good plan to just have your heroes turn up and wait stupidly and brainlessly to be engaged in a fight? I despair. Moving on, they actually dealt with the absence of Superman pretty well for the whole season. It was a good idea to not have him there, but be more of a legend, and an occasional chat partner with Kara.
Overall, Kara Danvers is there for the win. Melissa Benoist was wonderful. Not many people can pull off a cape and humanity at the same time. Mehcad Brooks and Jeremy Jordan get mentions for being lovely too, and it was nice to see Dean Cain again occasionally. Ah...
O.
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