The SUPERGIRL trailer from CBS has gotten mixed reviews. Some viewers love it. Others think it’s an abomination. This particular TVWriter™ leans mostly toward agreeing with what ComicMix writer Martha Thomases has had to say:
by Martha Thomases
My editor suggested, if I was having trouble coming up with ideas about what to write, that I note that the new CBS prime-time show,Supergirl, will air at eight o’clock Eastern time on Mondays when it starts this fall… up against Gotham on Fox.
The assumption, when he mentioned this to me last week, was thatSupergirl would have trouble against the adventures of Bruce Wayne as a boy, since the Batman character has a known success across several media for more than fifty years. Kara Zor-El, on the other hand, starred in one lousy movie and guested on a season ofSmallville.
And then, this happened. Pitch Perfect 2 beat Mad Max: Fury Road for highest grossing opening box office this weekend. By a lot.
“Well,” you say (you being my rhetorical projection), “that’s really irrelevant, because movies are different from television.” This is true.
“And anyway,” you continue, “women don’t like superheroes, so who will watch the show?”
You, my rhetorical projection, are wrong. Women watch the current crop of superhero shows in large numbers. They also watch shows in related genres, including fantasy (Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, for example) and horror (like Supernatural and iZombie).
I’m really psyched because, as you know, I’m a long-time Supergirl fan. I have enjoyed almost every incarnation of the character, including the one who had a flying horse that would turn into a cute guy when the occasion required. This new television version seems to owe a bit too much to The Devil Wears Prada, at least in the trailer, but it is my hope that, as the writers get comfortable with the material they’ll find a more unique take on the characters. It’s what happened in other 0808-produced shows, including Arrow and The Flash.