Pre-Release Pilot Discussion

[Sakura12]

I agree, having suffered through the Flash "Don't Tell Iris, cause reasons" storyline. I was thrilled that almost everyone knows Kara's secret in the first episode. I'm not really sure about the office friend being her BFF, but the fact that she told him instead of him being in the dark forever was a nice change of pace. Then it was her sister that was keeping a secret from her which was also told in the first episode.

 

All these secrets being revealed in the pilot was making me stare at the tv in shock. 

 

Another thing for Kara, I didn't even recognize Melissa Benoist at first as dorky Kara. She does look slightly different when she's in her Supergirl outfit. 

Edited May 26, 2015 by Sakura12

[arc]

I'm not crazy about the escaped phantom zone prisoners' plot, because it gives me unpleasant Smallville flashbacks

I feel like there's a dumb Hollywood rule that everything weird in a show has to have a single source.  Heroes tried this with the eclipse for a while, Smallville had its meteor mutants, Flash does it now with the particle accelerator accident... Just cut it out.  That shit works in movies, maybe, but in open-ended comics and I think in ongoing TV shows, the audience can accept that someone got superpowers from being an alien while someone else got it from drinking a specific soft drink, magic ring, etc.  At least they don't pull this stunt in the MCU.

 

And the fact that she displays her powers in broad daylight is even stupider. Wouldn't the people in her building have noticed a body fall by the windows, wearing Kara's clothes, followed by her zooming back up ? Or people on the street or driving in cars noticed a body fall off a building ?

Agreed that people in the building and in neighboring buildings might have noticed a falling person, maybe.  But people on the street mostly wouldn't.  Catco's in a pretty tall skyscraper, and I nor most people I know look up to the tops of buildings regularly.

 

That said, it was also written dumb for another reason: all she had to do was start flying. Just lift off.  Throwing herself off the building and then flying back up might have been a cheaper stunt (not sure) but it's dramatic overkill and comes off as dumb.

 

"Superman" got said at LEAST three times. And thank goodness. It would have been awkward and weird if they hadn't.

Even so, it felt awkward with all those evasive ways of not saying it. "Him". "The big guy."  It almost comes off as a dystopian world where Superman has decreed you can't say his name.

 

I liked the action sequences. There might have been almost as much superhero action in this pilot as there was in Superman Returns.

 

Benoist is good in the role, and I mostly like it.

 

I'd be happy to watch a feminist show, I just wish this one wasn't super ham fisted about it.

[MarkHB]

I just remembered one particular bit I liked in the pilot, where Kara hugs Alex and then is like, "oh, too hard, sorry!"  Maybe obvious but i thought it was cute.

 

Regarding the character of Wynn, the audition sides I saw

initially had him as even more skeevy, going on to Kara about "superpowers plus boobs" before he knew Kara's secret; that version I could have seen evolving into The Toyman.  There was also another, later version, which included some of the dialogue from the suit-evolution sequence, which may have fit the Jeremy Jordan version of the character but are less Toyman-like, and which explained why he has his sewing skills. 

(Spoiled in case they use that in future eps or a recut of the pilot.)

 

So far as the Lumberjack goes, that was definitely the name used during auditions, as mentioned in some of the audition vids.

[Kromm]

Even so, it felt awkward with all those evasive ways of not saying it. "Him". "The big guy."  It almost comes off as a dystopian world where Superman has decreed you can't say his name.

I think this was just the showrunner's (understandable) belief that they didn't want the show hijacked by Superman--especially since they aren't allowed to actually show him.  That said the fact that we DID hear his name a few times was a clear sign they're at least allowed to say it.  

 

The odder thing is that I don't think we ever heard the names "Clark", "Kent" or the combination of them.  Or rather... it DOES make sense, but maybe needs some processing on our end to think about what it means.  It's not clear who actually knows what about Superman.  Jimmy sort of knows enough to know the baby blanket story, but it's still not clear if that means he knows EVERYTHING about Superman's secret identity.  After all, the "Danvers" don't have any real link to the Kents.  Kara herself you'd think would HAVE to know, if only because it's inferred by her having Superhearing, X-ray vision, etc.  Unless she hasn't been around Superman at ALL, she'd have every avenue to figure it out. But one must assume the other Danvers don't know, including Alex, other than perhaps some vague notion that Superman told them that this was a kind of environment he wanted for 12 year old Kara.  Since Kara doesn't seem to have any great facility for keeping secrets though, I suppose that adds some small doubt.

 

Anyway, I think "avoidance" will be the main mechanism for dealing with most of this on the show. Again, even hearing the phrase "Superman" at ALL was a surprise.

[AzureOwl]

7. She totally did not "pull" that ship out of the zone. That literally doesn't make any sense. I see what they were doing with that by giving her a reason why she must continue to save lives and stop these people with a constant impending sense of super danger but no ... that's silly. They should have just said, "They followed you out and that's your fault." Not, "Your tiny ship pulled this big ass ship out!"

Why are you assuming that just because a character used that logic that the character is being honest (or is, but isn't deluded/prejudiced against her and twisting the facts to suit their agenda?) This is S.O.P. for shows like this--just because someone SAYS it doesn't mean the show itself is telling us to believe it.

It isn’t even a matter of honesty. Just because a character believes something to be true, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are right. And the show itself has made a point of letting the audience know that what Henshaw was saying wasn’t entirely true because at the same time that he is saying “you pulled them out” the flashback onscreen is showing us that the fortress “followed” her out. You can totally see the thrusters in Fort Rozz power up and start to follow her:

But I grant that it’s too early to tell if Henshaw was lying of just mistaken. It is an important difference that my ethics professor back in college drilled into our heads on the first day: “Just because someone says something that is not true, it doesn’t mean they are lying”.

Edited May 28, 2015 by AzureOwl

[MarkHB]

I wonder if the "who pulled her out of the PZ" mystery is going to be answered this season (probably as part of the General's story) or if it'll wait for S2.

[Kromm]

It may not be a mystery.  It may just be accident (her entering the Zone in the first place), followed by opportunity (on the part of the Zoners).  Her even being ABLE to get out may have to do with her ship maybe never having been intended to be there in the first place.  

 

Or perhaps the Phantom Zone is used by the Kryptonians for Interstellar Travel (perhaps it has different physics so you can travel between the stars faster) and the "malfunction" was simply her ship going off course inside the Zone, then that somehow eventually being corrected.  Maybe the Prisoners in the Zone are trapped simply because the Prison Ship they were stuck on had no device on it to travel between the dimensions, so that's of course why they piggybacked on hers (presumably because they'd taken over their ship--one assumes they'd normally have guards, since we aren't in the lame Superman Movie version where they're turned into 2-dimensional people screaming inside a pane of space-glass--thus not particularly needing guards).

 

Or none of that.  Seems like the show has a lot of options to completely make this all up fresh, them not being beholden to any previous version whatsoever.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Kromm

[Chris24601]

Based in the description, the Phantom Zone in this series is a region of space (i.e. you can fly into and out of it) and it could be as simple as Fort Raz not having the type of navigation equipment needed to actually plot a course through the zone (or anywhere... space is big and even one degree off course could mean missing a star system by lightyears).

But Kara's ship presumably had a navigation system and so could make those sort of caculations... so the prisoners took advantage of that and followed her out and, since they couldn't plot a course anywhere else, followed her to her destination.

[arc]

Based in the description, the Phantom Zone in this series is a region of space (i.e. you can fly into and out of it)

Well, it's not just a region of space, it's a place where time doesn't pass in the normal way, which is why Kara was 13 years older than Kal-El when they left Krypton and 13-20 years younger than him when she finally arrived on Earth.

 

(Side note: obviously it would mean there's no show, but why not put the two of them in one slightly bigger rocket?)

[ottoDbusdriver]

(Side note: obviously it would mean there's no show, but why not put the two of them in one slightly bigger rocket?)

 

There was a 2-for-1 sale on single-person betta-fish shaped planetary escape shuttles at the Krypton Sharper Image.

[Chris24601]

Obvious the time flow thing is different, but my point was that, unlike other versions of the Zone that are other dimensions, this one is just a region in our dimension and throwing something in there without navigation is probably a good way to lock it away 'forever' until something that could navigate passed and they followed.

As to why two ships and not one... Pretty much for a slightly more castestrophic version of what actually happened. There's a reason some parents choose to fly different flights, just in case something happens to one of them.

If everything went to plan, Kal and Kara both end up on Earth and she looks after him, but if something happened to one of the pods the other would still have a chance at life. But if both were in the same ship and something happened they're both dead.

Basically its better odds that at least one ship will make it to Earth... something proven by the fact that Kara very nearly didn't make it.

[arc]

Obvious the time flow thing is different, but my point was that, unlike other versions of the Zone that are other dimensions, this one is just a region in our dimension

I dunno about that.  Both times it looked like kind of a wormhole in space that Kara went into and out of.

[Kromm]

BTW: if you look across the web there are hundreds of places where people are screaming and yelling and insisting the show is ducking saying "Superman".

 

It's hilarious how people build their own reality to support their own notions.

 

I saw one of those discussions, and knew of a copy of the pilot that was still up, so I replayed it and got an EXACT time-code.

 

The first time "Kal El" is said is time-code 00:04.  Now that's not the same as "Superman", it's true, but it's also no vague nickname like "big guy", "Man of Steel", my/your cousin", etc.  It's him and only him, by a name.

 

The first time (and NOT the only) that Superman is said is in a statement around 02:20, which (and this is verbatim) goes:

 

 

"When I arrived I was still a 13 year old girl. But in that same time my cousin, Kal-El, had grown up and revealed himself to your world... as Superman. The most powerful man in the Universe."

 

So if you're on some other board or see a blog comment where someone is hilariously ranting about this... toss that time-code and quote at them.

[d291173]

I was really not a fan of this. There seemed to be a few too many instances of *blah* happened because reasons (eg I don't know how I got out of the phantom zone, I never used my powers before, literally because reasons), and between the cut-rate Miranda Priestly (Cat Grant) and the off-brand Torchwood (the DEO), it feels like it's just aping more iconic references.

 

I will, however, be eternally grateful that they're giving Laura Benanti work, although when they first showed the Danverses, I immediately recognised Dean Cain and guessed that they had cast Helen Slater as Mrs Danvers

 

BTW: if you look across the web there are hundreds of places where people are screaming and yelling and insisting the show is ducking saying "Superman".

 

It's hilarious how people build their own reality to support their own notions.

I think in the back half of the episode, it does feel like there is a conscious effort to find ways of referring to him without having to call him Superman over and over.

[Cranberry]

Yeah, I only remember hearing "Superman" once. If someone's bored and feels like rewatching, I'd be interested to hear the final total!

[arc]

The first time "Kal El" is said is time-code 00:04.  Now that's not the same as "Superman", it's true, but it's also no vague nickname like "big guy", "Man of Steel", my/your cousin", etc.  It's him and only him, by a name.

Yeah, but "Kal El" is only for the super nerds. It'd be like a show about Loki that tried to not mention Thor, and then they said "Donald Blake" once.

 

The first time (and NOT the only) that Superman is said is in a statement around 02:20, which (and this is verbatim) goes:

Sure, but after that, there are weird circumlocutions.

• To Jimmy Olsen: "He told you!"  Any other character, that would have been "[character name] told you."
• Or earlier "this [costume] has the 'S'*, for super, just like your cousin." Superman is probably the most famous person on earth, and Louis doesn't know him personally and has only recently learned his friend Kara is Supe's cousin.
• Or take that reveal at the end: the Big Bad is told that "the girl" is "Alura's daughter", but will be less formidable than "her cousin".
• Or at the DEO, "But my cousin was here two dozen years before me."
• Or worst of all, post-plane incident, "Metropolis gets 'him' and what does National City get?" -- that last one sounds ridiculous because it is. No real person would have said anything except "Metropolis gets Superman". Do people in this world just say "him" a lot and everyone just knows?
• also, "Do you think there's any connection between this hero and --" "-- and to my friend in blue"? Nice save, Jimmy, someone on the show almost said "Superman".
• "It's funny, that was the first thing he did -- save a plane, I mean." (emphasis added)
• [on TV] "is there a connection between this mysterious flying woman and the Man of Steel"?

 

It just kind of piles up: so many places where, say, if this was a Supergirl comic, they would have just said "Superman" and been done with it.

 

* side note, and I may have said it elsewhere: when she says in response that "it's not an 'S'. It's my family's coat of arms. The House of El", I so want Louis to snark that it should be a letter L then.

Edited June 22, 2015 by arc

[Kromm]

Okay.

 

But who the heck is "Louis"?

[MarkHB]

Yeah, but "Kal El" is only for the super nerds. It'd be like a show about Loki that tried to not mention Thor, and then they said "Donald Blake" once.

 

Sure, but after that, there are weird elocutions.

• Or worst of all, post-plane incident, "Metropolis gets 'him' and what does National City get?" -- that last one sounds ridiculous because it is. No real person would have said anything except "Metropolis gets Superman". Do people in this world just say "him" a lot and everyone just knows?

It just kind of piles up: so many places where, say, if this was a Supergirl comic, they would have just said "Superman" and been done with it.

 

* side note, and I may have said it elsewhere: when she says in response that "it's not an 'S'. It's my family's coat of arms. The House of El", I so want Louis to snark that it should be a letter L then.

 

I'll give you the "Metropolis gets him" one, and maybe the one with the Big Bad could have used Kal-El, but most of the others seemed fair enough to me.  Maybe there's a contractual restriction on using the Superman name -- foolish given that we're already into the Kryptonian family -- or maybe they just don't want to drown us in saying "Superman" over and over and over, since it's a semi-awkward 3-syllable name.  Or maybe (and it seems this way to me) "Superman" is almost like a more formal method of referring to him, but saying "Kal" over and over could prove confusing to audience members who missed or weren't attentive to the reference at the beginning, and "Clark" could be giving out info that isn't hers to give out (we know James is friends with Superman and was told about Kara, but we -- and she -- don't know if he knows Clark Kent's secret).  So although the pronouns could seem offputting in RL, I think they best allow each audience member to make the connections as he or she sees fit.

 

So far as snarking about a Kryptonian's family's coat of arms -- to her face -- goes, I think there's some sound wisdom in the lyrics of this song :) :

 

[arc]

Okay.

 

But who the heck is "Louis"?

The costume-designing sidekick? I was skimming through the ep so I just guessed at his name.  [looks it up]  Oh, it's "Winn Schott".  So (a) I was super off, and (b) that is not a good name.

[tessaray]

Yeah, but "Kal El" is only for the super nerds. It'd be like a show about Loki that tried to not mention Thor, and then they said "Donald Blake" once.

 

Sure, but after that, there are weird elocutions.

• To Jimmy Olsen: "He told you!"  Any other character, that would have been "[character name] told you."
• Or earlier "this [costume] has the 'S'*, for super, just like your cousin." Superman is probably the most famous person on earth, and Louis doesn't know him personally and has only recently learned his friend Kara is Supe's cousin.
• Or take that reveal at the end: the Big Bad is told that "the girl" is "Alura's daughter", but will be less formidable than "her cousin".
• Or at the DEO, "But my cousin was here two dozen years before me."
• Or worst of all, post-plane incident, "Metropolis gets 'him' and what does National City get?" -- that last one sounds ridiculous because it is. No real person would have said anything except "Metropolis gets Superman". Do people in this world just say "him" a lot and everyone just knows?
• also, "Do you think there's any connection between this hero and --" "-- and to my friend in blue"? Nice save, Jimmy, someone on the show almost said "Superman".
• "It's funny, that was the first thing he did -- save a plane, I mean." (emphasis added)
• [on TV] "is there a connection between this mysterious flying woman and the Man of Steel"?

 

It just kind of piles up: so many places where, say, if this was a Supergirl comic, they would have just said "Superman" and been done with it.

 

* side note, and I may have said it elsewhere: when she says in response that "it's not an 'S'. It's my family's coat of arms. The House of El", I so want Louis to snark that it should be a letter L then.

 

I may have watched and then nuked a certain video file under discussion, so I can't go back and look but didn't the bold incident happen when Cat was pointing at a newspaper story about Superman?  Or am I remembering it wrong?

 

I took the various "cousin" references differently.  I thought sometimes they were just trying to be discrete and other times, a little like celebrity non-name dropping.  I've seen this IRL a couple of times.  Where someone has said "your relative" in a weird half sarcastic (I'm so not impressed), half OMG star struck tone of voice. :-)

 

Can someone explain the S as a family crest?  I was comics deprived as a child. 

Edited June 19, 2015 by tessaray

[MarkHB]

Everyone, I have moved the discussion of @tessaray's question re: the S-shield as the El family crest to the comics thread since it's gone way off-topic.

[Danny Franks]

Holy crap, but this was lame! I decided to give it a shot, as I had a bit of spare time with nothing to do, and wish I hadn't bothered.

 

The girl playing Kara was clearly told, 'give us your best Felicity Smoak, people like her', but she just seems all awkward and no charm. The two love triangle legs were pretty terrible, especially Jimmy 'I Get My Own Twinkly Music Cue' Olsen

 

Calista Flockhart looks more like a Spitting Image puppet now, than a real human being. And I guess someone who wrote this really likes that Devil Wears Prada movie. That's the overriding feeling I had of it all: that everything else they were doing had been done better elsewhere, and it was all just derivative and limp.

 

I'm trying to think of a single thing I liked about it, and I'm coming up blank. So... no more for me.

 

Also, there is honestly no way to make the Superman/Supergirl costume look cool and modern. It's cheesy awfulness, no matter what different spins people try to give it. On the page, it works, on a real person, it does not.

[Kromm]

The girl playing Kara was clearly told, 'give us your best Felicity Smoak, people like her', but she just seems all awkward and no charm.

I honestly don't think Felicity Smoak was the first nerd girl, nor even the first blond hot nerd girl.  And it's not like the actress here picked her wardrobe.  Really it's been a comic book trope long before it came to TV, or even girls like that showed up at comic book conventions.  Focusing on the latest one out of so many and yelling Copycat! isn't exactly accurate, especially when I believe Linda Danvers/Linda Lee (Supergirl's two civvie names before Kara was changed to both her Krypton name AND her "Earth name") was in at least a few versions a nerd girl.  But even if not, Batgirl's civvie self, Barbara Gordon and arguably Wonder Woman's Diana Prince were LONG before Felicity Smoak was on the scene.

 

Comics are recycling.  If you're going to take exception to that, then none of it should work for you.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Kromm

[Danny Franks]

I honestly don't think Felicity Smoak was the first nerd girl, nor even the first blond hot nerd girl.  And it's not like the actress here picked her wardrobe.  Really it's been a comic book trope long before it came to TV, or even girls like that showed up at comic book conventions.  Focusing on the latest one out of so many and yelling Copycat! isn't exactly accurate, especially when I believe Linda Danvers/Linda Lee (Supergirl's two civvie names before Kara was changed to both her Krypton name AND her "Earth name") was in at least a few versions a nerd girl.  But even if not, Batgirl's civvie self, Barbara Gordon and arguably Wonder Woman's Diana Prince were LONG before Felicity Smoak was on the scene.

 

Comics are recycling.  If you're going to take exception to that, then none of it should work for you.

 

I'm sure she's not, and I'm familiar enough with comic books to know that nerd girls aren't rare, thanks. But the similarities in everything from look to mannerisms spoke of a deliberate attempt to recreate that particular appeal. Ignoring that is just being obtuse, in my view. If they'd done it well, the it'd be okay, but they didn't. 

Edited June 20, 2015 by Danny Franks

[Minneapple]

Finally saw the pilot, and...ouch. It was pretty painful all around, acting and writing. And I really REALLY want this to do well, so I'm hoping it improves. But it was so clunky and awkward and parts of it were REALLY clunky and awkward.

 

About the only thing I liked was that the important people in Kara's life know about her secret. I hate the idiotic trope of "WE MUST NOT TELL THEA OR IRIS BECAUSE THEN THEY'LL BE IN DANGER" even though those people wind up being in danger every week anyway.

 

And Jimmy Olsen. Well, I could just look at him all day.

[lion10]

I liked the Supergirl pilot.  Melissa Benoist was very good in the role of Kara and all the actors seem solid.  Her joy when she was flying was fun to watch and I really liked the plane rescue.  I also liked how excited she was when she was watching the news report on her plane rescue.  I'm kind of confused why she thought "the world didn't need another hero".  Superman fights tons of villains, I'm sure he'd like at least a little help, and I find it unbelievable that it would've been years since she flew.  If I could fly, I'd be doing that all the time over the weekends.  The fights were well done and the CGI was very good too.  I thought that the last fight was kind of funny though.  When Kara was using heat vision on the guy's ax and he kept bringing it closer to her, she had a funny "oh shit" expression on her face.  I also liked seeing Kara in hot pants.

 

The dialogue was corny at times.  Kara's boss lecturing her about why "Supergirl" wasn't a derogatory name was strange though I understand that the writers want to address the awkward name.  It isn't derogatory but the media wouldn't call a 20-something man a "boy".  There was also the cringe worthy piece of dialogue where the Lumberjack starts the fight with "On my planet, females bow to males!"  Just...really?  But the worst piece of dialogue was when Supergirl had her final fight with Lumberjack where she's at first losing pretty badly, and Henshaw says "She's losing." to which her sister says "Why?  Because she's a girl?"  Not only is that hamfisted, but the dialogue doesn't make sense.  You wouldn't say "why" to a factual/objective statement like that.  If he had said "She can't win", then her sister's response would've made sense.  As it is, it was nonsensical.

 

Also, why did Henshaw capture and restrain Supergirl just to tell her to fuck off?  Dick move on his part.

[MarkHB]

With the actual airing of the pilot, this topic is finished. Please see the new thread here.