[QuickTidal]

Well, the trailer dropped for this show. And it's MOSTLY bad. Like typical girl-trope bad. io9 likened it to the SNL Black Widow movie spoof...and that's not far off the mark. The first half of it feels like the Superman origin story mingled with THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA.



That said, the second half has MUCH more promise with more action, and Kara (pronounced fucking WRONG!) actually enjoying her powers like Barry on The Flash. I'm not sure I buy Melissa Benoist as Kara or Supergirl...but she may grow on me.

Basically I come down like this: This trailer is pretty bad, but it MOSTLY looks like pilot stuff so my hope is that it moves beyond that and builds in its first season like THE FLASH did. This is the same people who make FLASH and ARROW (Greg Berlanti) so it SHOULD be in safe hands...and beyond that they have now said that even though ARROW and FLASH are on the CW and SUPERGIRL is on CBS...they could crossover. If I get to see The Flash, Arrow, Atom, and others interact with Supergirl on a crossover episode, I might just lose my shit.

It also plays a little fast and loose with the SG mythos...she's supposed to come to earth as a fully grown girl in her late teens/early twenties...not a kid...but I'm willing to buy it.

Cautiously optimistic...but worried by that trailer.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 14 May 2015 - 12:58 PM

[Kartoolian Spider Squisher]

The Supergirl mythos is fast and loose. Kara isn't even the first to don that name.Then add the multiverse and the new 52. IMO the broad strokes of her origin are done right in the trailer. Early 20s is Power Girl's origin.

This post has been edited by Kartoolian Spider Squisher: 14 May 2015 - 02:53 PM

[Primateus]

Agreed. The first half of the trailer looks like your generic gossipy girl garbage while the Supergirl half looks rather promising with decent CGI.

Yes, if indeed this could result in crossovers with Flash and Arrow, that'd be immensely awesome!

[Primateus]

Kartoolian Spider Squisher, on 14 May 2015 - 02:53 PM, said:

The Supergirl mythos is fast and loose. Kara isn't even the first to don that name.Then add the multiverse and the new 52. IMO the broad strokes of her origin are done right in the trailer. Early 20s is Power Girl's origin.

I don't think it's the SUPER part of her origin that is the problem. That part has long been pretty solid canon. It's more the forced effort to fit her into a stereotypical girly role that seems outright insulting (She has to be a secretary at a fashion magazine? What, she couldn't be something better?) Oh well, in a series there's certainly room for character growth. Look at AoS' Skye! She started out as a juvenile delinquent hacker and she has certainly grown.

I know we only have the trailer to speculate on at the moment, but so far the strongest female character in these Superhero comic shows has been Agent Carter, and for good bloody reasons!

[QuickTidal]

Okay, here's a new and WAY, WAY better trailer for the show.

This right here is the show I want. Now I'm chuffed.

[Abyss]

Nothing about this should appeal to me in any way whatsoever, ...maybe i'm just coasting off the Arrow / Flash /AoS / Agent Carter goodness of this past season , but dammit i'm likely to watch this, at least at the start.

[Grief]

QuickTidal, on 14 May 2015 - 12:57 PM, said:

Well, the trailer dropped for this show. And it's MOSTLY bad. Like typical girl-trope bad. io9 likened it to the SNL Black Widow movie spoof...and that's not far off the mark. The first half of it feels like the Superman origin story mingled with THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA.

Yeah, that was essentially my initial reaction. The trailer made it look like lazy writing really and it bugs me that, while playing the superhero genre straight is more successful than ever, the tone of the first half looks more like the equivalent of the Batman film we might get were Hugh Grant the lead. Origin/Self discovery stories I've not got much issue with, they're a staple of the genre (though they start feeling a bit tired). Similarly, having a human/private storyline isn't new; the trailer just doesn't fill me with confidence that it'll be well handled. The first season of Heroes has a great mix of private and heroic, whereas the trailer gives the impression of an episode of New Girl being weirdly spliced with a Superman film (not to criticise New Girl in itself, but rather that it's not really something I've seen happen with male superheroes). Hopefully it's just the way they've handled the trailer (which is much more tonally inconsistent than you'd think a show would be). The second trailer is better but mostly because they've focussed more on the action scenes, so it's hard to tell which is more representative. At the end of the day we've not seen all that much content to judge it on, and it's easy for trailers to be misleading.

[Primateus]

Sooo, the pilot episode has been leaked and....tadaaaa, I watched it.

Now, It wasn't as good as the Flash and yes, the teen-angst-gossipy-girl parts was cringeworthy combined with the usual "You're just a girl and therefore useless" bullshit, which is just what we predicted from the trailer.
But the Superhero parts? The part with the IT guy and the flying around part, those were actually pretty decent. Also as predicted. But man oh boy, Jimmy Olson is going to be annoying, I think (unless I decide not to watch the next episode once it airs officially),

The acting? Well, the acting wasn't bad, nor was it stellar, it just seemed like your standard weekly soap/adventure series acting. Though whatsherface did pull of a sorta semi-convincing nerdy superhero, so I guess there's that.

Am I going to watch the next episode once the show airs? I don't know. I might, but it'll be because it's Supergirl. And that will be what I'd watch it for, not the teen-angst parts!

But, like a good friend said to me, "Teen angst has its audience, but its audience is not me"

But I suppose Supergirl could have be as an audience, if only because it's a superhero show.

[Kartoolian Spider Squisher]

The pilot embraces "superhero show" way more than I thought it would. It's basically the trailer + 40 minutes.

[QuickTidal]

Well, that's more uplifyting to hear than I was expecting. Cool.

[QuickTidal]

So I watched the leaked pilot.

Urg.

I'll say this for it, it's not nearly as bad as that initial trailer made it look. The music is wonderfully heroic and swelling. I don't MIND the outfit...but it could have been a chance to make it different and fresh, and more like the New52 SG outfit (which is more sensible than a skirt), that's a nitpick tho.

Issues:

- So far I think Melissa Benoist is miscast as Kara and Supergirl. I don't buy her as Kara (who's should be FAR more self-assured and not a bumbling Devil Wears Prada Get-Girl as she's portrayed) and winced at a LOT of her delivery. Her emotional scenes are abhorrently poorly acted...Grant Gustin has more dramatic emotion acting stored up in his pinky finger (honestly the first time Barry broke down on THE FLASH and cried to his father in like episode 2 or 3 it hit me like a tonne of bricks) than Benoist can seem to conjure. Her Supergirl persona is a tad better...but when a gov't secret project commander says she should go back to "getting people coffee" and she turns away, head down and goes off to be upset I was like "No! Supergirl does not sulk. She also doesn't take shit. FROM Anyone." I'm not feeling that much either.

- The pronunciation of her name by her character. Kara with a long A sound...is wrong. It should be Kara with a short A sound...and this is further exemplified when Cat Grant mispronounces it CORRECTLY in the pilot three times. So her narration feels WELL off as a result.

- The action sequences, while cool and done decently enough, are not even a shadow of the action sequences on FLASH and ARROW. In the scene where she walks up to bullets hitting her looked ridiculous.

- I don't need Chyler Leigh's sister (who is magically working for the secret gov't alien watchers project) character at all. She's irritating not because of performance, but because a part of what makes SG so interesting is her finding out how to live life here alone, and stumbling along the way.

- You can tell the writers are different, and the production is different. It may be a Berlanti/Kriesberg joint...but you can fully tell this is CBS and not the CW. So while it SHOULD feel like ARROW and FLASH, it doens't. And the comparisons will come fast and furious once this comes out for real.

- Jimmmy Olsen I also feel is miscast. I simply can't buy him as the buff, charming love interest they've painted him on Supergirl as. He should be at least a skinny, moderately nerdy guy. This show needs a Cisco/Felicity character...and no one has popped up to fill that role yet, neither Olsen, or the friend who helps her make her outfit ect. fill this role. The result is no charisma in the secondary characters.

- Calista Flockart's Cat Grant is WAY way way over the top. She's closing in on Fish Mooney-overacting territory in that pilot.

Basically this pilot isn't even close to the FLASH pilot for me (or my wife, who was excited about SUPERGIRL...but found the pilot boring and rarely exciting) and that's unfortunately what this show is going to get compared to.

I'm fully willing to hold out judgement until it airs and I've seen a few more episodes...but if you were expecting something like FLASH or ARROW with a popular female DC hero...you might be sad when you see this.

Also: The BEST Supergirl has been on TV yet is STILL Laura Vandervoort on SMALLVILLE. Every episodes she was on of that SOLD that character on the small screen. Those were some hefty shoes to fill, and Benoist has an uphill battle to fill them. She also looked the part WAY more.

Spoiler

 laura_vandervoort_supergirl_smallville4.jpg (55.32K)
Number of downloads: 2

[Primateus]

I did see Smallville (to my shame) and yes, Vanderwoort was almost perfect as Supergirl. And I agree, the new 52 Supergirl had made for a more interesting, and FAR more fun, story. The "Supergirl arrives on Earth and has to find a way to fit in on her own" is a way more interesting story than "Supergirl lives with adopted family and sister until she grows up and becomes a nerdy felicity wannabe who's also supergirl".

Yeah, it wasn't as bad as the trailer made it out to be, but for fucks sake! We have seen such an IMMENSE improvement in the quality of tv-shows the last couple of year, did the people behind this show just miss all that?

[QuickTidal]

Primateus, on 27 May 2015 - 06:00 PM, said:

I did see Smallville (to my shame) and yes, Vanderwoort was almost perfect as Supergirl. And I agree, the new 52 Supergirl had made for a more interesting, and FAR more fun, story. The "Supergirl arrives on Earth and has to find a way to fit in on her own" is a way more interesting story than "Supergirl lives with adopted family and sister until she grows up and becomes a nerdy felicity wannabe who's also supergirl".

Yeah, it wasn't as bad as the trailer made it out to be, but for fucks sake! We have seen such an IMMENSE improvement in the quality of tv-shows the last couple of year, did the people behind this show just miss all that?

Yeah, I dunno. My gut screams that this is CBS network interference in Berlanti and Kreisberg's creative process. An interference that isn't present on the CW shows. The CW appears to let them do FLASH and ARROW how they creatively please and it's absolutely soared as a result...and looks like they may get the hatrick with LEGENDS OF TOMORROW next year...for SUPERGIRL even at the pilot stage to look and feel so underwhelming...makes me think that CBS has their dirty little fingers in the creative pie and it's stymieing Berlanti and Kriesberg as a result....which is sad.

But I literally can't explain it otherwise. Same exact creative team...and the only different variable is the network. So it's GOTTA be the network.

Fucking CBS.

[Primateus]

QuickTidal, on 27 May 2015 - 07:56 PM, said:

Primateus, on 27 May 2015 - 06:00 PM, said:

I did see Smallville (to my shame) and yes, Vanderwoort was almost perfect as Supergirl. And I agree, the new 52 Supergirl had made for a more interesting, and FAR more fun, story. The "Supergirl arrives on Earth and has to find a way to fit in on her own" is a way more interesting story than "Supergirl lives with adopted family and sister until she grows up and becomes a nerdy felicity wannabe who's also supergirl".

Yeah, it wasn't as bad as the trailer made it out to be, but for fucks sake! We have seen such an IMMENSE improvement in the quality of tv-shows the last couple of year, did the people behind this show just miss all that?

Yeah, I dunno. My gut screams that this is CBS network interference in Berlanti and Kreisberg's creative process. An interference that isn't present on the CW shows. The CW appears to let them do FLASH and ARROW how they creatively please and it's absolutely soared as a result...and looks like they may get the hatrick with LEGENDS OF TOMORROW next year...for SUPERGIRL even at the pilot stage to look and feel so underwhelming...makes me think that CBS has their dirty little fingers in the creative pie and it's stymieing Berlanti and Kriesberg as a result....which is sad.

But I literally can't explain it otherwise. Same exact creative team...and the only different variable is the network. So it's GOTTA be the network.

Fucking CBS.

True, but consider that CBS also makes Person of Interest, which is an absolutely awesome show. I've no doubt that you're right, because this really seems like a typical generic crappy family friendly show.

[Binder of Demons]

Yeah, but Person of Interest has a completely different tone, and was quite original.

Supergirl has the weight of expectation of an existing (DC) Universe, made worse by the creative excellence of Arrow and Flash in very recent memory. The creative choices they seem to have made for Supergirl does smack of trying to please executives who want to hit certain demographics.

I watched the pilot with the fastforward button regularly on the go. It was really cringeworthy at times, with some bad acting, terrible writing, and so-so special effects. They've established that there is a long story, but it didn't really interest me either. I might give it an episode or two more to see if it imporves, but otherwise I'll wait until the season is over and see if the overall perception is favourable or not.

I hadn't watched the trailer so this really was a surprise (and a disappointing one at that).

[Tsundoku]

Watched the pilot. It seems to be aimed at the female 14-30 market.

Which is not me.

It wasn't terrible, but it didn't make me want to watch the next episode either. Jessica Jones it ain't.

I will await the verdict of others as the season progresses.

Spoiler

If there are a shitload of alien criminals (including at LEAST 1 Kryptonian) wandering about, wouldn't this rock the DC-verse to the core? Wouldn't step 1 for them be: take Superdude out, then shit on the rest of the world at our leisure? I don't get the logic behind staying under the radar this long. And who knows of any criminal gang who can do that for longer than 5 minutes? Plus an axe that cuts Kryptonians! If I was Hank Henshaw (yeah, THAT dude. I wonder where the story with him will go? /sarcasm) I'd be mass-producing that shit.

EDIT:
Actually, did it seem to anyone else like the pilot was written by 2 completely different teams, who had nothing to do with each other? It's like the first part is some sort of typical chick-show start, admittedly with powerz, but then after she is outed it takes a massive left turn

Spoiler

with the sister working for the govt anti-alien dudes, the alien criminals, the evil aunt, all the fight scenes? It's like someone said "this is too girly, we need more "oomph" so they introduced all this stuff that to my mind would have been better as a slow reveal of each piece through the first season, culminating with Evil Aunt in the season finale.

Is this the sort of thing that happens when teams making a pilot show don't think it may go for a full season?

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 24 December 2015 - 09:09 AM

[Coco with marshmallows]

started watching this out of boredom.

It's terrible (only watched 3 episodes so far) yet.... i keep watching.

It's poorly acted, scripted, effects are so-so

It's the perfect "have on in the background while doing something else" show.

[Abyss]

Primateus, on 27 May 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 27 May 2015 - 07:56 PM, said:

Primateus, on 27 May 2015 - 06:00 PM, said:

... for fucks sake! We have seen such an IMMENSE improvement in the quality of tv-shows the last couple of year, did the people behind this show just miss all that?

...

But I literally can't explain it otherwise. Same exact creative team...and the only different variable is the network. So it's GOTTA be the network.

Fucking CBS.

True, but consider that CBS also makes Person of Interest, which is an absolutely awesome show....

This would hold more weight if we had a date for PoI season 5.

[Primateus]

Abyss, on 29 January 2016 - 08:06 PM, said:

Primateus, on 27 May 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 27 May 2015 - 07:56 PM, said:

Primateus, on 27 May 2015 - 06:00 PM, said:

... for fucks sake! We have seen such an IMMENSE improvement in the quality of tv-shows the last couple of year, did the people behind this show just miss all that?

...

But I literally can't explain it otherwise. Same exact creative team...and the only different variable is the network. So it's GOTTA be the network.

Fucking CBS.

True, but consider that CBS also makes Person of Interest, which is an absolutely awesome show....

This would hold more weight if we had a date for PoI season 5.

Yes, that is rather frustrating, it was supposed to have been out by now. But for some reason, I don't know why, they've postponed it. And what's worse, no one seems to know why it was postponed.

[Coco with marshmallows]

watched most of them now - there is a DEFINITE uptake in quality circa epi 4/5

Also, there's a crossover wwith Flash happening...