Arrow / The Flash / Supergirl by Informant (Page 3 of 18)

The episode was okay.  What's strange is how they kept forcing situations that they knew would be awkward.  There's no reason why they needed to press issues like interracial dating/marriage when it wasn't necessary to any plan.  I know the show wants to be progressive, but it put Jackson and Kendra in unnecessary danger.

Alan Sepinwall noted that they separate Jackson and Stein as quickly as possible because Firestorm can handle pretty much any problem the team can face.  Now it's all I can think about.

Red Kryptonite, in the comics, has completely random effects. It might turn Superman transparent or make him evil or whatever and wears off after a day or so. In LOIS & CLARK, it made Superman apathetic. SMALLVILLE and SUPERGIRL seem to be using the same playbook.

Melissa Benoist continues to amaze as an actress. It's easy to forget that her goofy, dorky persona is a performance until you see a flash of crazy, demonic rage such as when she fought Red Tornado or came out of the simulation -- but Red!Kara was almost unrecognizable in demeanor and temperament and she scared the hell out of me.

I'm looking forward to reading STARMAN at some point. It's in the queue. I knew of STARMAN and Opal City by reputation. It was nice to see proper references to the DC Universe. It's a nice change from the SMALLVILLE days where they would mess up their references to the comics, like referring to Edge City (which is actually the city in THE MASK).

The Supergirl/Flash crossover worked really, really well.  I thought it was great.  The way the fight ended was super cheesy, but most of the Barry/Kara scenes were pretty great.  I also thought it was a bit silly how he ended up in the Supergirl universe, and I thought it was a bit silly that they assumed running fast would send him back.  But, oh well, it was worth it.

I do wonder if it's going to have any impact on the Arrowverse.  Will Barry try and look for alien life?  Will Kara ever reference the Flash again?

I know that one of the producers has said that Barry's trip to Kara's Earth will be referenced in an upcoming episode of The Flash. The production team wasn't able to nail down exactly when the Supergirl episode would air (different networks) in order to make it tie in directly. I expect it won't be more than a throw away remark.

Well, Alan Sepinwall had a great point.  Supergirl's numbers jumped when Flash was on board.  Meaning that CW fans came over to watch Barry on Supergirl.  In other words, CBS (the #1 network) depended on the CW to boost their ratings.  That's simply incredible, and it shows how the CW has really done well in terms of producing original programming.  They really took advantage of the superhero craze, and the other networks either failed to take advantage or simply failed when they tried.

And I'd like to see more crossovers.  What's interesting is the complete lack of overlap in the two universes.  If Kara or Clark exist in the Arrowverse (and Rip Hunter implied Superman exists), then they haven't made themselves public.  And they flat-out said that Flash, Green Arrow, and Black Canary don't exist in Supergirl's universe.  Not only that, but none of the Flash cast existed. 

I know it was done to avoid more crossovers in that episode (because Barry would use Team Flash to get home instead of Team Kara), but it is interesting that they've basically set up a Venn Diagram where nothing really crosses over.  Although I gotta think that Kara looked up Barry on her earth, and Barry looked up Kara when he got home.

Okay, let me try and tackle all that.

SUPERGIRL - I agree that Kara had better chemistry with Barry than anyone on her show.  While that's a problem, it's not necessarily a huge problem.  I think Melissa hit a high point with her character (she was so much fun), and they just need to channel that with the existing characters.  As far as success goes, on TV Line's Renewal Scorecard, Supergirl was recently upgrade from "A Safe Bet" to "A Sure Thing."  He's usually right so there'll be a renewal.

LEGENDS - I liked the Chronos reveal too.  Once again, a season-long baddie ends up being a former hero, but that just seems to be par for the course in the Arrowverse.  I liked this last episode a lot, and I think it did much better than the previous 1950s episode.  The whole 2-year thing was pretty cool, and it'll be interesting to see how it affects Ray, Kendra, and Sara.  Regarding the cast for next year, Michael Ausiello (TV Line again) said that he doesn't believe there will be a wholesale change in the cast to season two.  So it won't be an anthology series....which is both fine and disappointing.

ARROW - You still hate this show more than I do.  I thought this last episode was pretty good.  I don't love Curtis either, but he was fun like Felicity used to be.  And it seems like we'll find out who's in the grave this week.

FLASH - The past was changed but not really.  I think we're supposed to believe that Hartley is supposed to be the biggest change.  Outside of that, Barry didn't change much.  Thawne knows, but I think Barry covered that.  The team knows, but they know not to mess with history too much.  Not much else was changed, was it?

TALIA - Well, Talia would be way older, right?

SUPERGIRL's main problem is that it makes choices that are mutually exclusive. The creators wanted Kara to be in her late 20s and gainfully employed, but they also wanted Kara as socially undeveloped individual who doesn't know how to use her powers. They wanted Kara working at a newspaper, but they also wanted her working in an espionage agency. They wanted Kara to have a secret identity, but they also wanted to surround Kara with a supporting cast who are all in on the secret. They wanted a football player type love interest, but they wanted that love interest to be Jimmy Olsen.

I think Informant would agree that writing is about choices. Either Supergirl is an adolescent or an adult, a journalist or a spy, a loner or a team player. The show tries to do both and it just gets confused -- Kara has to hide her identity, but everyone knows it. She's had her powers for years, but isn't sure she's bulletproof. She's got government black ops access to information, but she's basically an intern at her job. She wants to work in journalism, but she never writes stories and works as a gofer. It's like there were two different pitches for SUPERGIRL -- Kara Danvers, the college student interning at Catco who feels compelled to fight crime and Kara Danvers, secret agent and superheroine -- and they smashed the two together.

The crossover episode was a very nice script that was very awkwardly executed. The climax is bizarre: there is almost no footage of all the civilians and Kara in the same shot, so the sense is that the people and the superfight are footage from two different locations stitched together.

The shot of Livewire and Silver Banshee suddenly getting electroshocked has no visual information to explain why they're suddenly going down. The firemen appear out of nowhere and the low-angle shot suggests that the fireman was actually introduced earlier in a cut scene -- the composition would imply you're supposed to recognize the character as opposed to seeing a stranger.

It's almost as though footage was lost or unfilmed for some reason and the editors had to put the sequence together with shots of extras, close-ups of Benoist and a few shots of Livewire and Banshee being defeated by some off-camera force -- and do without scenes of the firemen arriving, Supergirl surrounded by the people in the park, the water hitting Livewire and Banshee with Supergirl and the people in the same frame, etc..

Did they get kicked out of the park early or something? Did an actor get sick? Was there a hard drive crash? Something clearly went wrong during production.

EDITED TO ADD: Oh. The fireman was in the Red Kryptonite episode in which Kara saved him. Well. I stand by my reasoning.

It's not always the writers and producers. CBS might say they don't want a youth show; it has to be adults. The studio might have a relationship with certain actors they want and require the series to write in a football player type as the lead love interest. The studio might declare it's vital that Supergirl be working with an establishment agency while the network wants a supporting cast of attractive people who hang out and therefore all need to be in on the secret. It's hard to say. The truth is that the CW is remarkably open-minded these days; a lot of networks might take issue with the distinctly non-model looking Grant Gustin as a lead character or demand that Caitlin be seen in the shower once a week.

You never know. Best we can do is review the aired product.

I actually agree with all that.  Kara's character doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  And another one - they want Superman to be a presence in the show, but they don't want him to be in the show.  They want it to sorta be in the DCCU but also be its own thing.  Which leads to a ton of problems.  When Kara goes evil, Clark is either trusting J'onn to do what was necessary to save National City, or he's allowing the 2nd/3rd most powerful being on the planet to run amok.

I'm not sure I could give you five reasons why I like Supergirl.  I just think it's enjoyable to watch

It could be worse.  It could be a FOX show, and Kara could be police consultant.  Like every show on their network.

I think it'd take an incident where Alex is killed.  Maybe with J'onn responsible.  So he goes off on his own (sorta like his arc on Justice League Unlimited) to live among the humans.  And because Kara truly has lost everyone (I assume Dean Cain stays/is dead at this point too).  So she goes off on her own.  Leaves CatCo and National City and does her own thing.  Maybe have her travel the country like Supernatural for a year before she settles somewhere else.  Or maybe she goes on some season-long journey as part of her job at CatCo so Winn and James could continue to guest star.

Other than that, I think the status quo will continue.

Well, on FOX, it would actually be her working with a policeman.  Both as her regular job and her secret job.  Jimmy would've quit his job as a photographer to work as a cop in National City (because that's what his dad was or something).  And Kara would be an expert on alien life or something, and they'd solve cases together.  Like Minority Report.  And Lucifer.  And Almost Human.  And Sleepy Hollow.  And this new Houdini and Doyle show.  And so on and so on and so on.

But, yeah, I see what you mean.

I tend to agree.  I was trying to think of a way to reinvent the series, but I'm still enjoying it as is.  When Info pointed out the duplicity in the series, I nodded because he's right.  But I also haven't really noticed it because I enjoy watching it.  I watched "World's Finest" the night it aired because I was *excited* to see what they'd do with him.  And I smiled the whole time watching it because Kara and Barry looked like they were having such a great time working together.

If we never get another crossover, Supergirl is going to have a place in the Arrowverse.  And that's cool.  Kara, and by connection, Clark is now in the universe started by Oliver Queen.  That's awesome.  But Supergirl isn't like Constantine - I don't see it as a failure that needs to be reabsorbed by the CW.  There's things that Supergirl does better than its cousin's shows on the CW.  And I'd love to see it continue so that we can get Stephen Amell over on CBS and Melissa Benoist on the CW.

For the record, the idea of killing Alex made me sad.  I think she's a good character.  And I think that's why I picked her - she's the one who would need to die to shake up the show show.  Killing off anyone else wouldn't do the job.