Spoilers Supergirl - Season 3

[Romulan_spy]

Yeah... I'd be glad to see more Superman, but he's already busy defending Metropolis.

First of all, Superman is known for protecting more than just one single city. Also, Superman is fast enough and powerful enough to multi task and protect more than one city. He can probably zip between National City and Metropolis in less than an hour.

 

[Christopher]

First of all, Superman is known for protecting more than just one single city. Also, Superman is fast enough and powerful enough to multi task and protect more than one city. He can probably zip between National City and Metropolis in less than an hour.

Obviously, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a hypothetical scenario where Supergirl is out of National City for weeks or months. The suggestion that Superman would move in and take over her place in National City as a steady gig, not just on an occasional basis, is implausible because it ignores his existing commitments, both as Superman and as Clark. It's not a realistic thing to expect the show to do.

 

[Kirk Prime]

First of all, Superman is known for protecting more than just one single city. Also, Superman is fast enough and powerful enough to multi task and protect more than one city. He can probably zip between National City and Metropolis in less than an hour.

You think it would take him an hour?

One of the problems with this show is that they set up several situations where Superman absolutely should be involved, and when you have someone like Reign, there is no reason he wouldn't help. Unless Doomsday or some other threat of equal or greater importance is happening at the exact same time, a world killer from Krypton would pretty much have his attention.

Every time Tim Russ spoke I kept wanting to yell, "shut up Tuvok!"

I wouldn't worry about Benoist's show on Broadway--it's a short run and likely timed around Supergirl's shooting schedule.

And to fix that, all that needed was a few lines of exposition to state "Kal/my cousin/Superman is at the Fortress of Solitude going through historical crystals, looking for anything that may help, but he's also been dealing with <insert fairly significant local threat here> in Metropolis, so it's slow going."

Yes. 100 percent yes. To pretend Superman doesn't exist is a weakness of the show.

Likewise, Kara discovers an entire city of Kryptonians and Clark doesn't hear about it or care?

 

[dahj]

It won't. Her run ends in August, and shooting on Supergirl will start thereafter.

Isn't that a wee bit late? When do they usually start filming the season?

 

[Christopher]

Isn't that a wee bit late? When do they usually start filming the season?

As he said, they could delay the start of the season. Networks air shows year-round these days. Not everything debuts in September anymore.

 

[dahj]

^^
But Supergirl is launching new CW Sundays, so I imagine it should be ready by the start of the season.

 

[DigificWriter]

Isn't that a wee bit late? When do they usually start filming the season?

Filming typically starts in July for an October premiere.

Melissa's run on Broadway will delay the start of filming by a month, which could possibly delay the start of broadcast into November, but that is yet-to-be-determined.

 

[Romulan_spy]

You think it would take him an hour?

Well, I just made up the 1 hour off the top of my head. National City and Metropolis are about 2700 miles apart (assuming National City is LA and Metropolis is NYC) so that would be a speed of 2700 mi/hr. I figured that sounded like a pretty fast speed for Superman to fly but it probably violates comic canon, doesn't it?

One of the problems with this show is that they set up several situations where Superman absolutely should be involved, and when you have someone like Reign, there is no reason he wouldn't help. Unless Doomsday or some other threat of equal or greater importance is happening at the exact same time, a world killer from Krypton would pretty much have his attention.

1000% agree.

Likewise, Kara discovers an entire city of Kryptonians and Clark doesn't hear about it or care?

Not just that, but she found out that her mom is alive too. Considering that Kara and Superman are related I would think that Kara would want to tell him that one of their family members is still alive. We used to see Kara text Clark in season 1. Since we can't see Superman show up in every episode, just a quick scene where we see Kara texting Clark about her visit to Argos City would have been great. A little text message from Kara like "Hey Clark, I found Argo City with Kryptonians and my mom is still alive! Can't wait to tell you all about it!" That would have been a very sweet scene to throw in there.

 

[JasonJ]

Not just that, but she found out that her mom is alive too. Considering that Kara and Superman are related I would think that Kara would want to tell him that one of their family members is still alive. We used to see Kara text Clark in season 1. Since we can't see Superman show up in every episode, just a quick scene where we see Kara texting Clark about her visit to Argos City would have been great. A little text message from Kara like "Hey Clark, I found Argo City with Kryptonians and my mom is still alive! Can't wait to tell you all about it!" That would have been a very sweet scene to throw in there.

We won't see that because the writers on this show half-ass it and phone it in almost every week. They're too busy trying to interject social commentary in the screenplay to notice things that make for a good story.

 

[Christopher]

National City and Metropolis are about 2700 miles apart (assuming National City is LA and Metropolis is NYC)

New York City is separate from Metropolis and Gotham City in the DC Universe; it's where the Teen Titans were based, for one thing. The Atlas of the DC Universe put Metropolis in Delaware. Smallville put it in Kansas so it'd be close to the title location. Siegel & Shuster originally based it on their hometown of Cleveland, and the 1950s TV series basically treated it as Los Angeles, where the show was filmed. I think the identification of Metropolis with NYC may have started with Superman: The Movie. Traditionally, the DC city associated with NYC was Gotham City, whose name is a nickname of NYC.

In the Arrowverse, we know from Constantine and Legends of Tomorrow that New York City exists on Earth-1. And it used to exist on Earth-X, before the Nazis bombed it. However, it hasn't been established whether it exists on Earth-38. And there's no mention of an Earth-1 Metropolis to date. We do know of a number of cities that exist on both E1 and E38, though: Gotham, Central City, Star City, Opal City, London, Paris, and Beijing.

 

[DigificWriter]

I can't remember if it appeared in the actual Pilot or just in the casting sides, but there was dialogue for James talking about how he moved "halfway across the country" when he made the move to National City, which, if taken literally, would place Metropolis in the Midwest.

 

[dahj]

^^
"Halfway across" is an expression meaning "a very long distance", not literally half way.

 

[DigificWriter]

^^
"Halfway across" is an expression meaning "a very long distance", not literally half way.

Individual context matters, so it's not that clear-cut, especially given that there is precedent for Metropolis being located in the Midwest.

 

[The Realist]

They're too busy trying to interject social commentary in the screenplay to notice things that make for a good story.

Supergirl's social commentary is a feature, not a bug.

 

[DigificWriter]

Supergirl's social commentary is a feature, not a bug.

QFT.

I'm not a huge reader of the Superman comics, but even I know that the kind of social commentary Supergirl's writers have put into the show is a staple of stories featuring the "Big Blue Boy Scout" going back to his debut 80 years ago.

 

[thribs]

I can't remember if it appeared in the actual Pilot or just in the casting sides, but there was dialogue for James talking about how he moved "halfway across the country" when he made the move to National City, which, if taken literally, would place Metropolis in the Midwest.

The distance between cities is irrelevant for Superman. He’s faster than a speeding bullet don’t you know.

 

[thribs]

Rumour has it that Manchester Black is the villain for season 4. So Spike from Buffy.

That should be interesting since it’s the actual character and not some gender swapped version they like to do. It’s another Superman character but I suppose there’s little they can do since Supergirl doesn’t really have a rogues gallery.

 

[DigificWriter]

The distance between cities is irrelevant for Superman.

It's irrelevant to The Flash too, but you don't see Barry showing up every single time Oliver and his team are dealing with a massive crisis, even when they could certainly use his help.

Also, my point had nothing to do with distance except as a comment on whether or not we knew how far apart National City and Metropolis actually were.

 

[dahj]

since it’s the actual character and not some gender swapped version they like to do

Uhm, who did they gender swap from the comics exactly?

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Uhm, who did they gender swap from the comics exactly?

Maybe @thribs is thinking of Bizarro, but I'm pretty sure there's been a Bizarro Supergirl in the comics before.