Despite being a self-proclaimed aficionado on Superman I surprisingly know very little about Supergirl other than what I gather in the Justice League cartoons and a handful of comics. So with that being said all I really know about Supergirl's personality is that she's bubbly, impulsive and headstrong, which is pretty much what we got here. In the pilot to Supergirl we see Kara Danvers AKA Kara Zor-El finally come to embrace her powers after living a life in the shadows to become to hero known as Supergirl. Sort of your typical origin episode, they cut out a lot of the fat of her putting her costume together and becoming known and just went straight into it. On one hand I kinda like that, rushing through all the crap we've seen over and over again, but on the other hand it makes this episode feel clunky and unfocused, honestly i feel like they should have gotten rid of the villain of the week here because it makes the episode jarring, going from the rise of Supergirl to her sister being a secret agent and now there are hundreds of aliens to hunt down, these feel like two episodes mashed together.
So let's get to what I really liked about this episode and the promise of the show overall, Melissa Benoist as Supergirl, I thought she was a great character, her bubbly personality and excitement for being seen as a Superhero is infectious. Also she looks damn good in a cape. I do feel like my enjoyment of this show is going to lie mostly on her, so far she's the most fun and most interesting thing about this show, which is kinda important when it comes to tv shows, if you don't care about the protagonist, why would you keep watching? Though her awkward persona as regular old Kara seems...odd. I don't know if that's her natural personality or it she's putting on a show like Clark Kent does but they really don't make it clear. For Clark it's there as a disguise so people won't see the similarities between himself and Superman, but it also comes across as a rehearsed personality so it's obvious to the audience this isn't who he really is. Kara seems to be naturally awkward, which granted a lot of awkward people can be really excitable when they open up, but it doesn't feel natural that she would be this open about herself this quickly to the world. Also they need to explain why she doesn't wear a mask, she's a symbol of inspiration i get that but they need to make it more clear like they do for Superman. I'm really trying not to compare this show to Superman too much because they do want to be there own thing but it's just too damn easy, the awkward and bumbling human is actually a superhero from Krypton who wants to inspire people and oh yeah, she's called Supergirl!
Then let's talk about the supporting cast, Kara's co-worker who helps her with the costume seems fun enough while her boss was enjoyable to start but quickly became irritating and even kinda dumb. My biggest problems are with her sister Alex and Jimmy Olsen. Let's start with Jimmy Olsen...that ain't Jimmy Olsen, not only with the change to James Olsen but also a young pasty awkward kid is now a strong handsome and confident man. I don't even care about Jimmy Olsen as a character but this is one of those cases where I have to ask if you're going to make so many changes to a character then what was the point in adapting them in the first place? They could have made this an original character but they needed someone who had a connection to Superman of course...seriously though, what's the point? Her sister on the other hand comes across as unreasonable soap opera bullshit, getting mad at her for saving the plane, i can understand her being worried about her actions but seriously, i think she deserves a little bit of praise for saving a fucking plane from crashing into the city! Then the weird twist of her being a government agent...okay? And the big cliched apology scene where she admits what Kara was doing was right all along. Yeahhh I fail to see the point in this character and she just kinda irks me as of now.
Thematically take a wild guess at what this episode was trying to get across, i'll give you a hint, even mentioning the word is enough to have 1000 angry commenters jump down your throat: Feminism. A large focus of the episode was the idea of a female superhero taking the spotlight and having strong female characters to look up to. Not a bad ideal to have but it's always a tricky subject to talk about and can easily get it wrong...this episode got it wrong. Firstly with the line some random waitress has "Finally my daughters will have someone to look up to" here's a hint show, telling your audience how they should feel about a character isn't as strong as actually showing it happening, having her do awesome shit is enough for people to be invested, you don't need to say that's what's happening. But the worst part was during the final fight between Supergirl and the villain, when the commander guy says she can't win and her sister responds "Why? Because she's a woman?" No. Because she's been doing this for about a day with no training and is fighting an axe wielding criminal, just saying, i'd know who i'd put money on in that scenario.
Speaking of the fight scenes, the action in this was weak. No punch looked that painful, no set piece was that exciting and it looks like Benoist didn't do any training for this. I know i just said she's supposed to be an untrained character but seriously, there gets to a point where the action looks like it came from an episode of Star Trek. Finally there is the involvement of Superman, or lack thereof. I understand him not showing up due to the problems with the movie and tv universe, even if it doesn't make much sense logically, you woulda thought he'd come have a chat with his cousin after she decides to be a hero. But seriously, why didn't they ever refer to him as Superman? Or Clark Kent? They call him Kal-El, The Man of Steel, reference his actions, show his shadows, if you're going to have him be referenced in your show then at the very least call him by his name!
So to sum up, while I loved Melissa Benoist as Supergirl, as well as several supporting characters the direction and choreography sucked, the message was forced and I don't care for the villain set-up. 7/10.
-Danny
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