Spoilers Supergirl - Season 1

[Forbin]

So, Winn was looking at a PC screen that showed nothing but a portion of the National City street grid with traffic light status - no cars, just the traffic lights - showing them all green. Yet somehow he knew that a giant semi and a family in a car were on their way to have a huge collision at a specific intersection. And that was the only bad accident about to happen in the whole city? That was as wonky as the low-level ICBM that maneuvered like a fighter.

 

[dahj]

^^
He hacked into the traffic cameras as well, you could see feeds both on his computer and on that bunch of screens at Catco offices.

 

[Aragorn]

"You hate the show" is the fallback for anyone struggling with the fact that Supergirl has various problems. I guress we should be like a couple of YouTube reviewers (I'll leave nameless) that explode with "oh, that was great!!!" about everything in the series

I'm enjoying the show, but every episode has just as much wrong with it as it does right.

 

[shapeshifter]

Best episode in a while, except for the lame missile chase/climb. Why she didn't just get under and keep pushing it upwards toward space is a mystery. Oh yeah, misplaced drama. Making her late to arrive until the very last moment then dealing easily with the missile would be better, imo.

 

[Christopher]

Best episode in a while, except for the lame missile chase/climb. Why she didn't just get under and keep pushing it upwards toward space is a mystery. Oh yeah, misplaced drama.

Actually, a high-altitude nuclear explosion above a city can be quite devastating due to the electromagnetic pulse effect. In some ways it would cause even more widespread damage than a ground-level detonation. It's something you absolutely want to avoid. So just "pushing it upwards" would've been a really, really terrible idea. Entering the shutdown code was a far better option.

 

[shapeshifter]

I disagree.

 

[Ovation]

I disagree.

For dramatic purposes? Otherwise he's correct.

 

[shapeshifter]

I simply don't like the sudden defanging of her super ability's, it's jarring. Watching her climb the missile, struggle with the panel and inputting the code wasn't dramatic, (to me) it was painful.

Count the seconds from the time she eventually caught up with the missile (which was over dramatized too, imo) until it splashes down. She could have ripped out the warhead and taken it beyond the orbit of the Moon in that time. That would have been Super.

You're thinking, "That's been done before." Well, If they cannot revisit something done before then don't revisit it unless you can do it better than before, not worse than before. As it happened an otherwise great episode was ruined at the end.

But yeah, this is all just me here. I get that allot of people probably liked it. Great! I am just saying I didn't.

 

[Christopher]

I disagree.

It's a matter of objective physical fact -- there's no room for disagreement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_nuclear_explosion
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/hane.html

Prompt radiation includes ionizing radiation from the nuclear reactions in the warhead and decay of fission products left by the explosion. These radiations, particularly neutron radiation, are significantly attenuated by the atmosphere for low altitude bursts. For explosions above most of the atmosphere, ranges of prompt radiation effects are greater than for atmospheric bursts.

Several effects are relatively unique to high altitude bursts:

• Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is important only for high altitude bursts. For such detonations, ionization of the upper atmosphere can produce a brief intense pulse of radio frequency radiation which can damage or disrupt electronic devices. For explosions above most of the atmosphere, EMP can affect large areas.
• Ionization of the atmosphere from explosions in the atmosphere can interfere with radar and radio communications for short periods.
• Charged particles produced by explosions above the Earth's atmosphere can be captured by the Earth's magnetic field, temporarily creating artificial radiation belts that can damage spacecraft and injure astronauts/cosmonauts in orbit.

So the explosion would've permanently burned out all non-military-grade electrical systems in Southern California, destroyed most low-Earth-orbit satellites within a few months, and just generally been very, very far from harmless. She couldn't be sure she'd have time to get it safely into deep space before it detonated. You suggest pushing it "beyond the orbit of the Moon," but that's 240,000 miles, and as davejames pointed out, an ICBM's typical speed is about 13,400 mph, a speed that Kara was barely able to catch up with. So it would've taken her about 18 hours to get it as far as the Moon. (Remember, the Moon is not that close to the Earth. It took the Apollo astronauts several days to get there.) Even to get it safely beyond the range of geosynchronous satellites (22,300 miles altitude) would've taken a couple of hours at that speed. Given how little time Kara had before detonation, there's no way she could've pushed or thrown the missile far enough into space to be harmless.

 

[shapeshifter]

Since when do 'facts' matter in comic book based television. Factually speaking it's all impossible. Peace, y'all.

 

[Admiral2]

Since when do 'facts' matter in comic book based television. Factually speaking it's all impossible. Peace, y'all.

Cop out.

 

[Arrrrgggh]

Actually, a high-altitude nuclear explosion above a city can be quite devastating due to the electromagnetic pulse effect.

<laughs> You make it sound like the EMP has an unlimited range and only grows stronger with distance. It's funny, then, how the Hardtack and Fishtank weapon tests (the ones where nukes were detonated at high altitude) didn't wipe out all of the planet's electronics.

With the speeds Supergirl is capable of flying at, she could have taken the warhead well beyond the range that any appreciable EMP effect it could produce that would threaten, well, anyone. At worst, some non-hardened satelites (which are becoming increasingly uncommon) would be affected, but that's about it.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Do missiles really have a keypad like that capable of shutting them down in mid-flight? Because who else could use it for that purpose other than a flying superhero?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I can imagine that keypad is there for test sequence purposes, maintenance or whatever, just because it is not intended to be used in flight would not mean it can't be under these circumstances.

 

[Admiral2]

Do missiles really have a keypad like that capable of shutting them down in mid-flight? Because who else could use it for that purpose other than a flying superhero?

If the keypad exists it would be in an inspection hatch, which would be there to do maintenance and on the spot programming on the missile while it was still in the silo. You'd have to be superpowered to access it while the thing was flying.

Guys, this is all the writers' fault. Supergirl can do what the writers say she can do. The missile will do what the writers say it will do. We can argue real life characteristics of ICBMs till the cows come home...it won't change the ultimate problem, which is the writers took a flawed scene from an old movie and made it into a flawed scene in this episode. There are dozen ways they could have changed the scenario to eliminate most of the flaws, but they didn't.

Shitty writing.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Heat vision would have blown the missile up, but what about arctic breath? The engines would have ceased up and the computers would have broke?

By the way, there would have been an impact, and maybe a radiological spill, but a nuclear explosion requires a lot of precise shit to happen in a precise order, they are totally OCD, so if Supergirl had phasered that missile, the explosion that happened (the rocket fuel exploding) would have been too Robin Willams to unlock the necessary physics to make the bomb go boom atomically.

 

[davejames]

Movies and TV shows (and not just those featuring superheroes) have been taking liberties with how things like missiles and bombs and other weapons work for decades (as shown by numerous episodes of Mythbusters), so it's strange to me that people are suddenly making a huge issue out of this one instance.

The writers chose to have Supergirl chasing after a missile much the way people saw Superman do it 30 years ago, whether for dramatic effect or as an homage to the Donner film or maybe because they just didn't know any better. But it's a freakin comic book show! Where all kinds of crazy and outlandish and not very believable things happen all the freakin time. And I assumed most of us would have been accustomed to that by now.

 

[Christopher]

Movies and TV shows (and not just those featuring superheroes) have been taking liberties with how things like missiles and bombs and other weapons work for decades (as shown by numerous episodes of Mythbusters), so it's strange to me that people are suddenly making a huge issue out of this one instance.

Huh? "Huge issue?" I'm just saying that the solution they went with made more sense than the proposed alternative. That's not a "huge issue." It's not an "issue" at all. It's merely an assessment of the suggestion that was made.

Sure, they could've gone with a more fanciful solution, but it would've been sillier, so I'm fine with the solution they used. Yes, they've done plenty of silly things before, but I don't see that as a reason to condemn the choice to do something relatively sensible for once.

 

[davejames]

^ I was referring to the general discussion about ICBMs and how it was "shitty writing", etc, not what you were saying about the explosion over the city.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Movies and TV shows (and not just those featuring superheroes) have been taking liberties with how things like missiles and bombs and other weapons work for decades (as shown by numerous episodes of Mythbusters), so it's strange to me that people are suddenly making a huge issue out of this one instance.

The writers chose to have Supergirl chasing after a missile much the way people saw Superman do it 30 years ago, whether for dramatic effect or as an homage to the Donner film or maybe because they just didn't know any better. But it's a freakin comic book show! Where all kinds of crazy and outlandish and not very believable things happen all the freakin time. And I assumed most of us would have been accustomed to that by now.

Missing the point. It's not shitty writing because it's physically impossible. It's shitty writing because it made Supergirl look stupid and weak while being completely devoid of tension or excitement, and it did so while totally mangling it's own internal logic. (ie, Indigo wants an apocalypse, yet only launches one missile; Supergirl wants to protect people, yet tries to save National City by just sending the missile in a different direction so it can kill other people, etc.)

Also, I never understand this complaint that people shouldn't worry about believability in a superhero story, just because other superhero stories have gone off the deep end. Yes, these stories are built on a certain amount of conceit and suspension of disbelief. No, that doesn't mean that every single silly thing that happens should automatically get a pass because it's a comic book movie/show.

A good superhero story should carefully balance the outlandish stuff with all the other things they've got going on (especially in regards to the tone of the story) so that, in the end, the audience sees one, coherent picture that feels believable for that world, even if it would be complete nonsense in the real world. And when a story fails to do that, you can't seriously defend it by saying 'Well, this 30 year old movie with a completely different tone did something almost as bad' or 'This completely different medium that tells stories in an entirely different way (and has very often just told plain bad stories simply for the sake of meeting deadlines) has done far worse'.

The story needs to stand on its own merits, not on some bs grading curve invented out of the idea that comic book movies and shows automatically have to do dumb and blatantly unbelievable things.