Spoilers Supergirl - Season 1

[Christopher]

Well, either way, I don't like the ending. If he "had no choice" because a superintelligent android missed an option that was obvious to me, that's just implausible. If Data was capable of hate and murder, then that's far, far worse.

But we're way off topic now. I should've known better than to bring up a sidebar topic that inevitably sparks debate and expect it not to derail the thread.

In this week's episode, Supergirl landed in the bushes by the school and emerged a second later fully-dressed as Kara. That's pretty super-speedy.

Yeah, where was she keeping her clothes and glasses, anyway? The perennial question. (The Superman radio series once asserted that Superman's cape served to hide the street clothes that he kept bundled up behind his back, like in a hidden backpack or fanny pack or something, I guess. The comics went with the idea that he compressed his clothes into tiny wafers that he could somehow reconstitute at will and kept them and his glasses in a hidden pocket in his cape.)

Of course, Helen Slater's Supergirl pretty much changed clothes by magic, or by sufficiently advanced Kryptonian technology. She progressively changed from Supergirl to "Linda Lee" just by walking behind some trees, and at one point flew out a window and "wiped" from Linda clothes/hair inside the window to Supergirl outside the window.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Could be a lot of things - Red Kryptonite or Mr. Mxyzptlk or Legion of Super-Heroes or the Matrix shape-shifter or Bizzaro. It may be clone Superboy, but I would be surprised to see them introduce him so quickly.

I would, too - IF it wasn't for the fact that Berlanti has already shown a willingness to introduce a LOT of characters on his other shows. It very well could be the clone. It might even make sense that he's the result of something the DOE has been working on, since they're charged with protecting Earth from aliens - a Kryptonian of their very own in case the others get out of control?

 

[davejames]

In this week's episode, Supergirl landed in the bushes by the school and emerged a second later fully-dressed as Kara. That's pretty super-speedy.

Ah, good point. Forgot about that.

 

[Samurai8472]

First potential ratings failure on their hands, so they decide to rework after the hiatus break by doing everything that made their other series work(Arrow) But not change what isn't working on the show as it is now. Seems like the Berlanti way.

 

[davejames]

I really doubt adding a few flashbacks to a younger Clark qualifies as reworking or retooling the show. And it's likely something the writers have been building toward for a while anyway.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

But I do get your point about how Supergirl probably could have found some superspeed solution and deactivated the bomb or ripped the belt off the guy before he had a chance to blink or something.

But there's no drama in that.

As you pointed out yesterday:

Eh, it might be a trademark, but that doesn't always make it the best storytelling choice in my opinion. I think it's far more interesting to see superheroes operating in a world of hard choices and who aren't able to magically save the day every. single. time.

Where's the drama--the challenge if she has a super solution to all problems? That would be an elementary failure in storytelling to have her solve every problem. Consider velour's post:

Speaking of similarities, the dilemma that Supergirl faced between whether to deal with the airport bomb or the train bomb resembled the scenario that Superman faced in the movie Superman. He had to decide whether he should first stop the missile heading to the west coast or the one heading east.

That's where the drama rests; he could not be everywhere at once--that's tension...excitement, so we the audience cannot (and should not) expect him (and now Supergirl) to have a Kryptonian end-all for the crime or disaster of the day. She will and should lose from time to time, lest she become a live-action Popeye, where the moment the spinach is swallowed, he overcomes everything.

 

[davejames]

Yeah I totally agree and really like the way things unfolded in the episode. I was just agreeing with Christopher that yeah, if you search hard enough, you probably could come up with some way for Supergirl to remove or disarm the bomb.

But much like with Superman in that infamous MOS scene, I'm fine with accepting that these characters aren't always going to make the perfect choice or think of every possible alternative solution, and will sometimes have to make a tough decision in the spur of the moment that not everyone likes.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^ Yeah. The possibility of there being "a way" for Supergirl to save the suicide bomber misses the point entirely. There might have been "a way" for her to have stopped the first bomb she flew out of the city from exploding at all. The point is that she didn't know what it was. She's not God.

Was she supposed to prematurely detonate the suicide vest trying to get it off him? If she had, there'd be people calling her a killer. Or, was she supposed to provoke the guy into pressing a trigger to blow himself up immediately? She saved everybody else on the train and resigned herself to not knowing how to save someone from a suicide vest, right then. That, at least, doesn't trivialize the threat of terrorism in-universe.

I can well imagine that, now, she'll be running scenarios in training to figure out how to save people like that in the future, all the while Lord is scheming how he can make it all the harder for her next time.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Maybe...

Supergirl meets Clark (as Superboy) and the Legion of Super-Heroes?

Do NOT tease me with that possibility unless you have solid evidence to back it up...!

LLL!

Well, either way, I don't like the ending. If he "had no choice" because a superintelligent android missed an option that was obvious to me, that's just implausible. If Data was capable of hate and murder, then that's far, far worse.

At the risk of contributing to further derailment, I more or less agree with davejames. I think that the intent was to at least put the doubt in our minds that in that moment, under those extreme circumstances, Data had momentarily exceeded the limits of his programming, but in a negative way.

 

[USS Triumphant]

a live-action Popeye, where the moment the spinach is swallowed, he overcomes everything.

Complete digression: There actually was this one episode where Olive Oyl was singing about wanting a clean-shaven man in hearing of both a scruffy looking Popeye and Bluto, who normally has facial hair. Which resulted in the two of them beating the crap out of each other in a barber shop trying to get cleaned up. They both got shaved, and Popeye won the fight by way of his usual spinach. But neither of them actually gained anything, because at the end, Olive Oyl went walking by arm in arm with this other old guy with a ZZ Top beard, humming the song, because it was just a freakin' earworm she had, and not an expression of her actual desires.

Popeye doesn't always win, either, even with the spinach.

I now return you to your regular Supergirl discussion, already in progress.

 

[Warped9]

I'm generally enjoying this series. Some of the flying shots definitely evoke Goerge Reeves and I love it (even if unintended).

That said the Kara/Jimmy/Lucy relationship triangle bores me to tears.

 

[Commander Richard]

I just saw "Livewire".

Spoiler: "Livewire"

I was surprised to find out that Pa Danvers was dead. His absence was distracting because I was wondering what happened to him. I figured he might not be dead though and events toward the end suggested that as a possibility. It is unfortunate that the girls don't have the kind of family life that Clark had on Lois & Clark but I guess that makes the show more interesting.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Yeah I totally agree and really like the way things unfolded in the episode. I was just agreeing with Christopher that yeah, if you search hard enough, you probably could come up with some way for Supergirl to remove or disarm the bomb.

But much like with Superman in that infamous MOS scene, I'm fine with accepting that these characters aren't always going to make the perfect choice or think of every possible alternative solution, and will sometimes have to make a tough decision in the spur of the moment that not everyone likes.

Agreed.

^ Yeah. The possibility of there being "a way" for Supergirl to save the suicide bomber misses the point entirely. There might have been "a way" for her to have stopped the first bomb she flew out of the city from exploding at all. The point is that she didn't know what it was. She's not God.

Well said. That's a big appeal of super-powered characters: learning to deal with the fact that their advantage over the average person is slight in that they cannot bend all situations to their will. As you said, they are not God, so they will (and should) face failure.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

That said the Kara/Jimmy/Lucy relationship triangle bores me to tears.

But...but Kara so desires her prince charming, so this must be explored. Surely you do not want poor Kara to end up saying...

 

[JoeZhang]

I just saw "Livewire".

Spoiler: "Livewire"

I was surprised to find out that Pa Danvers was dead. His absence was distracting because I was wondering what happened to him. I figured he might not be dead though and events toward the end suggested that as a possibility. It is unfortunate that the girls don't have the kind of family life that Clark had on Lois & Clark but I guess that makes the show more interesting.

I think the chances of him being actually dead are pretty low.

 

[CorporalClegg]

What's with the bad covers of Cyndi Lauper songs?

 

[Christopher]

I think the chances of him being actually dead are pretty low.

Yup. If there's no body, then his death was faked -- that's a basic rule of comics and TV alike. (And in comics, even when there is a body, it usually turns out to be a clone or a Life Model Decoy or an alternate-timeline double or a mad scientist whose appearance was accidentally transformed into the likeness of the dead character he secretly resurrected and transformed into a supervillain.)

 

[Dick Whitman]

Not only did we not see his body but we never even even saw his death. The accident the family was told of probably never happened.

 

[Christopher]

It's interesting how far back the tradition goes of former Superman franchise actors playing the parents of the current actors, or something similar. Kirk Alyn (serial Superman) and Noel Neill (serial Lois and second '50s TV Lois) played young Lois's parents in Superman: The Movie. Phyllis Coates (first '50s TV Lois) played Lois's mother in the first season finale of Lois & Clark (though Beverly Garland took over the role later). Jack Larson ('50s Jimmy) played an artificially aged Jimmy in a Lois & Clark episode, as well as cameo roles in a couple of other Superman productions. In Smallville, Annette O'Toole (Superman III's Lana Lang) played Martha Kent (though that was coincidental, I think), Terence Stamp (SII's Zod) played the voice of Jor-El, Helen Slater (movie Supergirl) played Lara, Christopher Reeve played a mentor figure to Clark, Margot Kidder played an associate of that mentor, Marc McClure (movie Jimmy) played a Kryptonian scientist, and Dean Cain played a character who was essentially Vandal Savage. (Who am I missing?) And now we have Slater and Cain as Supergirl's adoptive parents.

And meanwhile we have 1990 Flash John Wesley Shipp as the father to the current Flash, as well as Amanda Pays, Mark Hamill, and Vito D'Ambrosio reprising their characters (or versions thereof) from the '90 show. In animation, Adam West played Bruce Wayne's childhood hero in Batman: TAS and Thomas Wayne in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and that same BB&B episode also had Julie Newmar as Martha Wayne, Kevin Conroy as the Phantom Stranger, and Mark Hamill as the Spectre. (How the heck did Clark and Bruce both end up with moms named Martha?) The Batman had Frank Gorshin as Hugo Strange, Adam West as Mayor Grange, Kevin Conroy as Dick Grayson's father John, and Mark Hamill as John Grayson's killer Tony Zucco. Let's see, what else... Paul Soles, the voice of the '60s Hulk, played an old friend of Bruce Banner in the MCU's The Incredible Hulk, and Lou Ferrigno had cameos in both Hulk feature films as well as voicing the Hulk in the '90s cartoon. Although I'm getting increasingly far astray from the specific case of actors playing their old characters' parents.

 

[Commander Richard]

Teri Hatcher played Lois' mother on Smallville.