Super Supergirl

So I was naughty; as soon as I got in from work and saw that the ‘Supergirl’ pilot had leaked I ordered Dominoes pizza, cracked and the laptop and hunted it down. Yeah I know it not reeeeeaaall allowed but she’s my favourite DC character and I pay TV license and sky bills so I would see it eventually anyway!
 
But yeah, enough of that. For those of you who are doing the right thing and are waiting to watch the pilot he’s a review that might put some of your fears to rest without revealing any spoilers that will ruin the big surprises.
 
First of all, let us address the main problem many of us had with the trailer and the one that had me pooing myself that the show was going to suck it big time; the fact this looked like it was going to be ‘Devil Wears Prada’ with superpowers. These fear comes largely from the fact that around 90% of the trailer focused on Kara’s silly job as an assistant to a bitchy media mogul. In fact this only made up around 10% of the episode. Cat Grant was undeniably the episode’s worst feature; although the job itself was made more relevant by focusing on the news aspect of Cat’s media empire, the character seemed 2D and frustrating. The “icy bitch boss” character, or the Sandra Bullock special as I like to call it, is rather played out nowadays and the character’s lack of morals set her paper up as a clear antithesis to the Daily Bugle. Whilst the latter has always been presented as a symbol of hope, truth and morality against the backdrop of depression,  Grant’s paper feels like a gossip rag. Whilst Clark Kent changes the world through his investigative reporting and human interest stories, we feel that Kara is more likely to be assigned an article investigating where Superman buys his red underwear.
 
After ten minutes or so we have a Kara that flies through the air saving her sister (incidentally another unlikable character who lies and manipulates throughout the entire episode) from a plane crash. There we have it, this show is not Smallville. The special effects on show are brilliant, about on par with ‘The Flash’ but with a little more variation; flight, strength and [blue] heat vision are all portrayed in a believable way that makes the climactic fight scene feel grounded and exciting.  The villain himself, Vartox, is not an incredibly originally character but he’s a good punching bag for Kara and has a nice hammer.
 
Other props on the show are pretty cool as well, in particular Kara’s costume looks even better than the photographs suggest. Whilst I am of the opinion that a slightly earlier version of the suit that features in the episode with leggings is a much cooler look, the Super suit is pretty darn awesome and the cape especially seems to make every Supergirl scene feel really iconic and special.
 
We also have all the classic Flarrow tropes that we have grown to love or hate on case-by-case basis. We have the geeky hacker with a crush on the hero (Felicity, Cisco), the walking pep talk (Diggle, Caitlin) in the form of Kara’s dull sister and the grumpy authority figure (Det. Lance, What’s-his-face who adopted Barry). In this incarnation the grump is Hank Henshaw, head of Star Labs... I mean head of an organisation that protects people from metahumans, particularly those that come from space. One imagines these characters will develop as time  goes on and that it is from their changing relationships that the shippers will get their kicks.
 
Jimmy Olsen, controversially cast as Mehcad Brooks- a very good looking black man rather than a ginger nerd, was an unexpected highlight. The character brought a cool calming presence to scenes at Grantco and served as a really nice nod to the Superman mythology, describing the Man of Steel as “Everthing you want him to be.”
 
These leads me to the final point I want to make; the presence of Superman in this film is fantastic. We only catch brief glimpses of the hero in flashbacks to Kara’s arrival but the way this is shot and the warm references throughout conjure feelings of a Golden Age Superman, Earth’s hero. This Superman’s first appearance on Earth was to save a plane, not to level Metropolis. Once could happily see Christopher Reeve scenes interspersed with the pilot and feel that the other characters are referencing the legendary incarnation of the hero. In showing Superman for twenty seconds this pilot does a better job portraying the character than MoS did with a whole movie.
 
To conclude, we knew going into this pilot that we were going to be confronted with various clichés established within the genre already. Like the latter half of The Flash’s first season though Supergirl rides  this wave and comes through as a decent showing. The heart of the two main characters, Kara and Jimmy, shine through and lend a soul to the whole show. As someone who prefers Arrow to the Flash largely due to the poor acting in the Flash pilot, I have come through this episode optimistic for the future of the show.
 
Also I can’t wait for Kara to race Barry  ;-)