tofutan
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So I guess I'm alone in finding her acting pretty obnoxious sometimes? I think she often really, really overdoes the weepy eye stuff. (the episode with Rhea was particularly bad).
For the record, I think most regular actors on the show are at best solid, outside of "Alex" and and "J'onn" who are actually good.
I like the Lena/Lillian scenes but to me they are carried by Brenda Strong.
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Also - when fans on twitter mentioned the exact same thing - that Arrow airs at 8 - the writers claimed that Flash skews much younger than Arrow in demographics. I'm inclined to believe that - since Arrow is actually rated TV-14 and The Flash is rated TV-PG. Supergirl is rated TV-PG, with some episodes rated as TV-14.
Where can this be looked up? Is there a website for this?
Can somebody link me this behind the scenes version of the reunion that apparently was more passionate? I haven't seen it, but everybody talking about it got me interested.
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I dunno, considering how many seasons OUAT got, I think there's definitely worse examples to look up to. I guess I just think that if a show runs for a while, going soapy is a fairly normal direction for it to take.
I could maybe see how one might argue that OUAT might have worked better and been more interesting as a mini series, but Supergirl? They are based on comics so it's basically wired into their DNA that they should go on forever and have ridiculous and over the top plots. Especially if you look at Supergirl as being a female companion to all these male superhero shows like Arrow or Smallville (which I think one should, it's pretty insulting if all those male superhero shoes go on forever and go soapy, but no, the female superhero show can only be a more limited run). I personally never watched OUAT, but I think it's a fairly big compliment to the show that it went on for that long while being centered around an (action-y) female hero.
If anything I think the mistake was right in season 1 when they decided against going the Smallville route and started Kara off with all of her powers and already a clear picture of where she wanted to be superhero-wise. I can sort of see where people think that okay, she is already mostly formed as a superhero, she can have all her progression in her civilian job. But as others have pointed out, the DC superhero shoes have never actually been good at that part of the story and I think it's fairly natural that there are many casual viewers out there to whom civilian job is always gonna be less interesting than the superhero angle of it.
I guess I think it's fairly natural that when a show starts everything is shiny and new and with endless space for people to project themselves into and hopes to put into the show and the longer a show goes down the more hokey it gets and the more of those "directions it could have gone into" get cut off. Particularly how Supergirl went "wide" as in giving characters like Alex or Winn or even James with Guardian their own stories makes a lot of sense to me, since that is a lot easier to write for, especially for a show you intend to ideally be around for many seasons. It just broadens the scope of stories they can write.
I'm definitely very interested in where Black Lightning goes, because with the superhero being older and having a family it's bound to be different. At least I hope that that means that they won't be able to just do the standard CW love triangle or even if they do, the vibe is gonna be very different. But I also worry it might just be an experiment and not last long (then again there's plenty of shows like The Game that went on a lot longer than everybody expected,, so maybe there's hope).
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I don't think that they will go for death for a variety of other reasons. As others have said, there are definitely other options, such as Alex and Maggie being happy on the backburner (the way it's on Arrow with Diggle or Legends with Stein). They could break up and Maggie could move to a different city, leaving Alex to date other people for a while. They could even have a separation that isn't necessarily a beak up (job offer in another city and long distance relationships, witness protection program).
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The crossover is supposed to be pretty early in the season, right? I would expect him to at least be revealed around cross over time.
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Most people seem to think that they will just tech-tech it that the Legion ring will make him immune. I was watching a lot of those comic book speculation videos and youtube and I was quite surprised that a lot of them talked about how they wanted to at least see some updates (like maybe along the lines of how we saw mysterious cuts towards Mon-El's parents before the showed up? Rather than us having no idea where he is the entire time and suddenly *wham* Legion).
I'm also curious whether they'll just write it as Team Super accepting that he's gone without investigating. Like it's one thing that he can never return to earth and lead a normal life again. But one would think that if he's leaving in a ship he would go ... somewhere. So they put him on a ship and never check where he's going? It would be one thing if they like had him walk through a portal and nobody knows where that leads to. But a ship in space you can track. Like will we get a scene like "we were tracking Mon-El's ship and suddenly it vanished without a trace" or "Alex programmed it to go to place X, but he never arrived there".
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I was just confirming/underlining your POV. Whatever the backstory is, it's definitely not due the CW having problems with LGBT content or actors (it's just something I've heard people speculate about in other context, like real person shippers putting out conspiracy theories about actors being gay and being forced by the network to stay in the closet and I just really disagree with it). I'm sure there might be creators who work for the CW who might make questionable choices (I think Riverdale used a girl on girl kiss for promotion with no intention of ever following up on it) but I'm fairly confident that whatever they do isn't because the CW mandates it. The CW seems to be cool with LGBT content that shows suggest and even comes across like they are actively seeking it out.
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I thought I read somewhere the Anne Dudek would go on to Legends. I swear I read that before her first appearance on Flash, but now I can't find the source anymore.
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Iris shooting Savitar reminded me so much of ... General Hospital of all things. Where they have like these mean, supposedly dangerous mobster characters, but they can next to never show them killing somebody on screen or else the fans would be upset. So they always have the "mob moll" characters come in and do the kill for them.
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On 27.5.2017 at 4:24 AM, Oreo2234 said:
That is interesting. I wonder if Mon-el was supposed to be a one season character originally too. His arc really works best as a one season thing but it seems TPTB are continuing his time as a regular. Which is strange because his storyline was much more divisive, multiple articles from legitimate sites wrote about why his character/storyline wasn't working for them. I actually really like him when they reign his screentime in but he didn't get the sort of response that usually leads to extending a character's time on a show.
Based on the interview with the actor when he started working for SG it seems like the originally pitched at least 2 years to him. So anything less than that would be actively cutting him down from what was originally planned.
I don't think that not being a regular HAS to be bad. After all, Maggie and James were regulars last season and Lena wasn't, but I would say their affect on the plot felt roughly comparable. So you can have a sizable presence of the show even though on paper you are a regular. I guess it depends on what other roles Lima takes and how that cuts into her availability.
I don't think that they would kill her though. I think they made too much noise about not killing lesbian characters around the "Alex" episode. But they might break up Alex/Maggie, like by Maggie moving to a different city or something like that if it turns out that Lima is too wrapped up in her other jobs.
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I just can't shake the idea that if this was Clark instead of Kara and he was crying over some bitchy alien princess he met, nobody would be asking the question about why he was dating her. (remember Clark and the random native American chick from the caves in Smallville?)
It's not like Winn has a deeper reason to start dating Lyra other than she is good looking and interested in having sex with him.
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I think the idea that the CW as a network is homophobic is pretty ridiculous, especially considering they seemed to be superproud to show off their new female/female (Life Sentence) and male/male (Dallas) kiss/sex scenes during the upfronts. Not to mention the looooooooooooooooooooooong loooooooooooooooooong list of out gay actors currently working for the CW. Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure homophobia on part of the CW has nothing to do with it. In fact, judging by those upfronts, they seem to be quite eager for more LGBT content.
It's probably just short sightedness that they didn't nail her down for a longer commitment. Or maybe she's another person who doesn't appreciate the long commute.
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Do you think they'll try to give Iris another love interest since they included a line about Barry asking Iris to move on and live her life etc? Personally, I really doubt it, because it just feels like they have done that already. Plus with the way they wrote them, it just seems it would require a massive time jump before that would seem even remote realistic. As a viewer I would expect for one Barry to be back and Iris just carrying the torch for him the entire time.
I'm just kinda sad that we'll probably not get a proper portrayal of Iris grief outside of fanfiction, you know, going home to the empty apartment, cancelling all the wedding stuff, etc.
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I read some interesting speculation about the new scheduling. Since it is supposed to be
MONDAY
8-9 PM — Supergirl
9-10 PM — VALORTUESDAY
8-9 PM — The Flash
9-10 PM — DC’S Legends of TomorrowWEDNESDAY
8-9 PM — Riverdale (New Night)
9-10 PM — DYNASTYTHURSDAY
8-9 PM — Supernatural
9-10 PM — Arrow (New Night)That would mean that the crossover would skip Wednesday. So one person on youtube was speculating that rather than having the action go Supergirl -> Flash -> Legends and then you have an awkward break and the big finale is on Arrow, they might do Arrow (teaser) -> Supergirl -> Flash -> Legends.
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I just find it so amusing that on most other shows I watch all the fans complain about is how every supporting character's life only revolves around the lead character and they never get their own storylines and POV and on Supergirl it's just the opposite. I still think Winn benefitted the most of the change. Yes, they broke up the Kara/Winn/James at Catco unit, but in exchange Winn got to interact with a lot of other characters (like Superman, J'onn, Lena), got to be a hero plenty of times, got a romance, etc. It has expanded him a lot as a character.
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I know that this also happens in the comics, but "oh, yet another person escaped Krypton" really cheapens the whole "last of my kind" thing.
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Do they really conclude the Cadmus storyline though? Cadmus just seems like the kind of thing that could always be around in the background, but with new leadership every few seasons. Wish they could bring Maxwell back.
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4 hours ago, Oreo2234 said:
I think that is a lot of people's problem with Mon-el. He became the main supporting character over every character left from season one. Whether he was supporting Kara or not too much of her time was eaten up by their relationship.
And if a new villain comes who has characters who are associated with them then those people will get a bump in screentime. Lena was just the same way with them declaring to be best friends after like 2 episodes and 2 conversations. It didn't take as much screentime, but it just as much Lena being suddenly planted in a role that was previously occupied. Most of Lillian's meaningful scenes were with Lena, a character we just met and they were about them and their past together and not Supergirl, and at the end of the season it seemed like Rhea cared more about Lena than about her own son.
Both Lena and Mon-El came as characters who were intimately related to the villains of the season. Kara is a superhero. She needs more villains. The villains brought their own supporting cast.
Mon-El as a character basically smacks tragedy to me (there's probably a reason why they kept referencing Romeo and Juliet and being star crossed). As in, his entire reason to exist is to make Kara sad in ways they don't want to do with Alex or J'onn. Even if he lives, my bet is it will probably just lead to another probably slightly more mature goodbye in the end where he leaves to be a superhero elsewhere. Because his point as a character is to make Kara sad, but with the consolation that she has added another nice person to the universe.
The writers wanted to add this aspect, to have loved and lost, to *Kara* and they did. Arcs come and go and it's not unusual for arcs to bring their own temporary characters with them.
The show already decided that they weren't gonna do Smallville's way of dishing out powers bit by bit in season 1, long before Mon-El was even a glimmer in anybody's eyes. Kara's problem in season 1 was self confidence, but that was done by the end of season 1 when Cat told her to stop being an assisstant and pick a real grown up job.
Again, to me this often uncomfortably close to people wishing Kara to remain emotionally weak just so Alex or James can have a stronger role propping and cheering her up. Rather than Supergirl being allowed to be a strong and mature person in her own right who deals with more sophisticated challenges as a true blue hero. I think getting Alex her own life and stepping away from that borderline co-dependency stuff from season 1 was probably the healthiest thing they could ever have done for Alex as a person. You can't just freeze a relationship in infantile state. It's creepy and undignified for Supergirl, even if it leads to scenes where Chyler can do good acting.
Supergirl isn't some macho because of this. She still cries, she still cares, but it's GOOD that she can push through it the way Cat talked about rather than needing her sister to chew her food for her. And it's not like the writers didn't write in episodes this season, specifically giving the sisters a chance to do something together or hash something out (we have Alex supercreepy appeal to stop Kara from leaving with Clark, we have Alex coming out to Kara, Kara comforting Alex when Maggie shoots her down, the episode with the shapeshifting Martian, the episode where Alex saves the aliens from Cadmus, "Alex" of course and the super fake drama of "will Alex shoot the gun while Kara is up there") [and that's not even mentioning scenes where Alex gives Kara advice, like when she told Kara to back off from trying to turn Mon-El into a Catco intern). But many of them had a different dynamic, because lot and behold, Kara got to do the caretaking and saving this season more.
If Alex and Kara are as clingy as sisters that it keeps them from having romantic relationships, that's not cute, that's unhealthy. So it's good that particularly Alex went out and got a life outside of Kara. Something that the show has specifically addressed.
QuoteI remember the scene but there was never anything where Supergirl was like, "Oh, so that's why I couldn't hear Alex. She was in a lead box!" I took it to simply mean that she could not single out where Alex was through super-hearing, rather than muffling the area with lead meant that she couldn't hear.
But the initial accusation was that the characters never use their powers for the plot. "Alex" the episode of all is a poor example for this because they went through the effort to put in a scene where Kara tries and tells us, the audience that it's not working.
IMO the far bigger crime in this regard is J'onn next to never using his mind reading and the show not giving us any consistency on how easy it is to block J'onn and how easy it is or isn't for him to mindwipe people.
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BTW, the Kara/Mon-El goodbye scene is Kara and Mon-El and nobody else and it's 1:44 in length. While Flash is Barry saying goodbye to everybody and their dog and it's only 1:28. That sure makes it seem like Flash rushed all of it. (even if you account for the alien ship taking off taking longer than walking into the portal, you can like at the most shave off 20 seconds for that, so at the most equal length except that Flash has like 4 times the amount of people in it)
[commenting on that because I came a bunch of people drawing parallels between the two finales, with one part of the couple walking/flying off into an unclear future]
ETA: Here is a more flattering comparison, compairing similar shots of the two end scenes, that I think comes off more flattering, especially since it focuses more on the first part of the kiss, the one before they cut to Cisco and Gypsy, which IMO was very good the way Iris grabs his neck and you can see the ring:
http://taurusclh.tumblr.com/post/161010655940/misomeru-supergirl-2x22-the-flash-3x23
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I'm not sure whether length was really the problem. the Kara kiss was interrupted very quickly by, well, Kara sending him away. And the camera was so close for most of it that you can't really see much of it for all the hair and hands in the shot.
While for Westallen, I thought the camera did give them nice framing and did linger on them at least for the bits before, where his hands are also on face. I dunno, I just have a hard time picturing somebody from the directing being there and telling them "hop, hop hurry it up".
That said, that reaction shot cut to Gypsy and Cisco really was completely unnecessary.
Still my full hate on is mostly for "Stop looking so damn happy, Barry, that you are leaving your fiancee to go to jail!".
BTW, Supergirl also featured this short but really pretty full body shot of Martian Manhunter and Miss Martian:
That's a case where I don't mind the camera cutting for further away because it actually lets us see better how they are touching each other.
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I liked it when I saw it but now this thread made me paranoid and doublecheck and analyze every instance of "body acting". It had many things I liked/wanted, the Iris/Joe scene was glorious. They kinda put Westallen into an impossible situation, since HR's sacrifice would make it kinda seem inappropriate if Westallen were too happy.
Still, kinda sucky that Barry taking part in the big HR death scene was more important than him reacting to Iris being alive and when he reacts it's right back to "chase the badguy".
I think they could have kissed quickly when they see the changed newspaper (before the Savitar stuff hits them full force). And they could have stood closer to each other in the plan making discussions. And of course then Iris immediately finds the time for another scene where they sit together and listen to him waxing on about Savitar, hate and heroism. And they really sat too far away from each other in the couch scene. I wasn't the hugest fan of how when Barry says his goodbye, he says it to a bunch of people, then talks to Iris, then to a bunch of people again, then final goodbye with Iris. It just felt like Barry and Iris were being interrupted, they could have done it in a "save the biggest one for last" kind of way. Of course this doesn't mean that Westallen were bad, those are just some things that could have been done to make it more personal.
Overall, since we were talking about how Flash does it versus how Supergirl does it, I think the Westallen kiss was much prettier in the way it was shot. But overall I think I prefer how Supergirl did it. It was messier overall and the focus was on what they were saying but I liked it. Probably because both of them were crying (hint: you can cry and kiss at the same time). It really didn't sit well with me how happy Barry looked to go to the speedforce (even though I'm glad that Barry if getting punished for Flashpoint). When Iris just got "them" back.
On the plus side, that save from the building looked pretty epic.
This is where I think they should have shared a quick kiss before going in to hug joe.
Anyway, Supergirl goodbye versus Flash goodbye:
I don't have it from the same yet, but yeah, that was one ugly, messy kiss on Supergirl:
Westallen makes a prettier picture. On the other hand Kara can snuggle like a champ.
Though I think my favorite part of physical acting in Supergirl was the way she gave him the necklace.
In a weird way, Iris touching Savitar was probably the second most shippy moment after the kiss at the end.
And I notice that the show took another dig at Snowbarry by having Savitar threatening Caitlin to get Cisco to comply. To me it even came across like that was his main purpose for working with her. BTW, Cisco's love for Caitlin was once again front line full force. So why isn't that a ship? Even if the show wants to the see the beauty in platonic love, it just smacks of a thing where at least there should be shippers who want more.
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I never perceived Scott as looking very POC, so I just assumed fandom wouldn't either (like with Wentworth Miller). He for example doesn't strike me as darker than let's say Bellamy from The 100 who is popular. But I was always puzzled by the lack of Scott shipping, so maybe you do have a point.
I'll never get over how there is more Shawn/Lassiter than Shawn/Gus in the Psych fandom: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Psych/works
I can get that antagonistic personalities are appealing, but then I remember that there was next to no Ronon slash in SGA despite the show having Jason Momoa, somebody who is arguably one of the most attractive people in Hollywood and his character was if you look at the writing and setup basically perfect to be either an angst bunny in fandom or a growly top guy.
It would be interesting to see whether slash, femslash or het is traditionally, percentage-wise more open to characters of color (and whether in het there is difference on whether the man or the woman is POC).
Anyway, back to relationships and Flash, were you happy with how Westallen was done in the finale? I kind of hated how happy Barry looked being all "this is my penance" while Iris is crying.
Do you see things going into the right direction? It would be cool if season 4 could start off with Barry still missing and Iris being the driving force to try to get him back rather than it being about Barry trying to free himself, but what do you think are the chances?
As for Cisco and Caitlin, I still think that on paper they seem perfect to be a couple that has him pining and eventually down the line maybe in the last season have her fall for him for all his loyalty and faith in her. I know that "nice guy" pining has (rightfully) gotten a bad rep but I think it can be done well. I think Kira/Odo on DS9 was a decent portrayal of him silently being in love with her for a loooooooooooooong time and her being floored when she finds out the depth of his feelings.
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And their argument is that opposites attract doesn't come into effect anymore as soon as one person isn't white.
I think there have been many popular ships that were "on the same side". The are often still opposites attract, for example if one character is serious and the other is more snarky or fun loving. Sterek from Teen Wolf are on the same side, Arthur and Merlin from Merlin, McShep on Stargate Atlantis (interestingly both Merlin and SGA had poc canon love interests). Dorky nerd guy and main guy is popular just like dorky nerd girl and main guy is.
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1 hour ago, JapMo said:
I agree that he has been stuck in a bubble with only Kara. People want to see her away from him....I want to see him away from her. Never liked how he rolled over and played dead while Kara humiliated his race. In the beginning he zinged her back, but for the most part he allowed her to slam all Daxamites to anyone who would listen. These were his people and they basically all died because of events that happened on Krypton and the show never allowed him to process that. Instead all he did was pump her up and say what a loser he was.
Well it's not like the show made a good case for the Daxamites deserving that you stand up for them. And sometimes it can be important to cut ties or consciously separate oneself from one's culture.
QuoteThe writers were so invested in putting Mon-El on the Hero's Journey that they forgot to write any discernible journey for Kara at all.
I thought Cat's scene at the end was the writers spelling out to the viewers that experiencing his hardship/setback is part of her heroes journey. So they build something up and then take it away because all other characters who could fit the bill like Alex or James have plot armor. I would say at the very least Kara's life changed quite a bit this season. Precisely for things like relying less on Alex, being there for Alex rather than Alex being there for her, getting a boyfriend and now coping with losing him, making new friendships.
Heck I would argue her being willing to team up with a villain in the previous episode and in this episode being willing to pull the trigger on the atmosphere poisoning stuff is quite the contrast to the end of season 1. At the end of season 1 Kara was willing to sacrifice/risk her own life, now she had to sacrifice/endanger the life of a loved one and give up something very personal. Not have it taken away from her the way Astra was, but SHE pushed the button on that.
I don't think that the way the approached Mon-El were always correct, but when we look at it under the presumption of "they wanted to take something personal away from Kara, so they built something up so they could take it away" would have worked even worse and would have been even less believable if he didn't even have his own personality and inner life. From a writer POV it makes a lot of sense that if you want it to feel meaningful for Kara, you have to make him a fleshed out character too.
And just because he probably will be back doesn't mean that this isn't still a real sacrifice. Chances are definitely there that when he comes back he might be a completely different person and they might never be able to pick back up where they left off.
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Lena Luthor: Can You Read My Mind?
in Supergirl
· Edited by tofutan
I think she's beautiful and charismatic and even likable. But a good actress? I don't get that from her at all. (and she is in good company on this show in this regard)
Especially with how many people say that Cat has no range.
I don't see why masking one's accent should lead to one acting a scene way more crybaby than makes sense for the scene. I just find it distracting rather than touching. (I think Mon-El also made some really distracting/obnoxious acting choices particularly later in the season, while imo season 1 was more about people being pretty bland, so maybe it's a directoral shift that let's the actors go more wild and for some people that kind of freedom just clearly isn't justified; though I think Melissa had more uneven performances in season 1 I think, Melissa I think sometimes puts out amazing episodes, but she's very uneven, she doesn't maintain a clear character line throughout the episode the way I think Alex and J'onn do).
I've seen Katie on Merlin btw, and I got pretty much the same impression from her there.