When that exact thing happened in Dr Who and Red Dwarf, it turned out that they were still inside a dreamworld.
Spoilers Supergirl - Season 1
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
Great episode, though nothing compared to JLU's "For the Man Who Has Everything." As I recall, the beginning of Superman's dream/fantasy wasn't quite disorienting for him. He actually felt at ease as though he had been living a different life on Krypton. Kara just woke up sensing something was wrong with her reality.
I wish they hadn't killed off Astra so soon. I was under the impression she was going to be Supergirl's archnemesis, or at least a reformed villain. But it appears Maxwell Lord will be taking on that role.
I wish they hadn't killed off Astra so soon. I was under the impression she was going to be Supergirl's archnemesis, or at least a reformed villain. But it appears Maxwell Lord will be taking on that role.
I want to see a reaction youtube from Alan Moore over this "re-imagining" of his comic book story.... Oh, it's the 30th anniversary Superman Annual 11.
I suppose if it's the anniversary, then someone had to do something.
The real mistake they made with this, is in Buffy, when this happened to her, and in Deep Space Nine when this happened to Sisko, or the 5 times it happened to Crichton in Farscape was that when it got to the end, there was still a twenty to thirty percent chance that the Happy every after/mental asylum reality was the real reality.
The supporting cast on Earth outside of Supergirl's mind ruined the flow of the entire story that there was never any doubt bout what was illusion and what was real... Seriously, don't you just love shitting on Niners by saying that Brother Benny made it all up?
Oh, they love it.
I suppose if it's the anniversary, then someone had to do something.
The real mistake they made with this, is in Buffy, when this happened to her, and in Deep Space Nine when this happened to Sisko, or the 5 times it happened to Crichton in Farscape was that when it got to the end, there was still a twenty to thirty percent chance that the Happy every after/mental asylum reality was the real reality.
The supporting cast on Earth outside of Supergirl's mind ruined the flow of the entire story that there was never any doubt bout what was illusion and what was real... Seriously, don't you just love shitting on Niners by saying that Brother Benny made it all up?
Oh, they love it.
With regard to Astra not seeing Supes as a threat compared to Kara - he's been raised by humans his entire life. From her perspective, he's a backwater hick at best, a primitive at worst. Kara's had the benefits of a Kryptonian education (not that that actually seems to make her smart on this show). Also, Astra may look down on Jor-El's side of the family, considering them weak or effete (Jor-El was a scientist, whereas Astra and Alura were a soldier and a cop/judicator).
Jonathon as almost a hillbilly would have taught his son how to fight, because his dad taught him to fight, and it's what he thinks a good dad does. Which really doesn't change much from what's expected of a land owning farmer beteween 1937 and 2017.
Clark is a super genius (in theory) who has to learn how to fight as well as he can in as many ways as he can so he doesn't hurt weaklings. It's a question of minimizing the effects of his godlike powers when fighting ant-like humans, which is something he does constantly.
No one checked to see if another black mercy wasn't rooting into Clark's chest.
Clark is a super genius (in theory) who has to learn how to fight as well as he can in as many ways as he can so he doesn't hurt weaklings. It's a question of minimizing the effects of his godlike powers when fighting ant-like humans, which is something he does constantly.
No one checked to see if another black mercy wasn't rooting into Clark's chest.
It was a sword, not a knife. And a pretty wicked one. The damage it did to Astra's heart may have been so severe that it killed her before she had a chance to heal. And given that kryptonite is a crystal rather than a metal, the blade was probably brittle; shards of kryptonite may have remained inside Astra's heart.
That's part of why I referred to the Justice League Unlimited episode yesterday; in 22 minutes, the audience was on an emotional journey, rich with character and believable arc from joy to tragedy. In SG, she comes into it, as if she knows what's happening. Its one thing for her real memory of being on earth to conflict with the plant's hallucination, but her doubts should have melted away quickly, if we are to believe how the plant operates.
..and that's a tiresome outcome; he's no Luthor, and comes off as another annoying piss ant that needs to be swatted from the show.
That would be a foolish judgement on her part, since he's not that child on the farm--he has years of a worldwide reputation as Superman, and only someone with a death wish would underestimate an experienced, super powered being...one who does not doubt himself in the way Kara does.
...so that makes her a thick-skulled wannabe brute who confuses a lack of physical action as a state of weakness.
I tend to agree that it was a mistake to have her aware of and questioning the illusion from the get-go. It meant the characters in the dream world wasted precious screen time trying to convince her it was real. Which it pointless from a storytelling POV since the audience already knows it's not.
JLU's approach was better because we got to see the main character living in their ideal world, only to see it crack and fall apart. Indeed the JLU episode left one with the distinct impression that the Black Mercy gave him a lifetime's worth of memories in the few hours that he was out. He "remembers" Van'El's birth, remembers growing up with Jor'El on a version of Krypton that looks suspiciously Kansas like and he remembers falling in love and marrying that freakish genetic hybrid of Lois and Lana.
Something like that for Kara (a melding of her Kryptonian childhood with her life on Earth) would have been a lot more interesting than a pantomime about how much she loved her Aunt.
What's more, the drama isn't in figuring out it isn't real. That's not the point because I've always assume that in the JLU episode Kal knows it isn't right from the start and can leave any time he really wants to. The point is that it's a fiction so intoxicating he didn't care that it wasn't real which is why at the end, wilfully deciding to leave is like reaching in and pulling one's own spine out through an eye socket.
Note that when Kal decides to give up the illusion it's not a "this is all a lie!" moment of revelation, it's a deeply sad moment of sacrifice that he's resigned himself to.
I don't agree that showing what's going on in the real world interrupted the flow. besides the fact that there really wasn't any to speak of, if done effectively it can resonate and re-enforce the subtext of what's going on in the dream world. Indeed I'd say that in the JLU episode, on some level Clark can hear everything that's going on outside with Bruce and Diana and the only thing stopping him is himself.
To me that shows far more complex characterization and emotional depth than what we got here.
JLU's approach was better because we got to see the main character living in their ideal world, only to see it crack and fall apart. Indeed the JLU episode left one with the distinct impression that the Black Mercy gave him a lifetime's worth of memories in the few hours that he was out. He "remembers" Van'El's birth, remembers growing up with Jor'El on a version of Krypton that looks suspiciously Kansas like and he remembers falling in love and marrying that freakish genetic hybrid of Lois and Lana.
Something like that for Kara (a melding of her Kryptonian childhood with her life on Earth) would have been a lot more interesting than a pantomime about how much she loved her Aunt.
What's more, the drama isn't in figuring out it isn't real. That's not the point because I've always assume that in the JLU episode Kal knows it isn't right from the start and can leave any time he really wants to. The point is that it's a fiction so intoxicating he didn't care that it wasn't real which is why at the end, wilfully deciding to leave is like reaching in and pulling one's own spine out through an eye socket.
Note that when Kal decides to give up the illusion it's not a "this is all a lie!" moment of revelation, it's a deeply sad moment of sacrifice that he's resigned himself to.
I don't agree that showing what's going on in the real world interrupted the flow. besides the fact that there really wasn't any to speak of, if done effectively it can resonate and re-enforce the subtext of what's going on in the dream world. Indeed I'd say that in the JLU episode, on some level Clark can hear everything that's going on outside with Bruce and Diana and the only thing stopping him is himself.
To me that shows far more complex characterization and emotional depth than what we got here.
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Nice episode last night. Not the best, but I liked what this episode did for Alex more than what it did for Kara, and it moved the arc around nicely. It's interesting, after the first episode, I was looking forward to a season long arc with Astra as the big bad. I was surprised they killed her off so soon, but I thought that entire scene was effective. I think this could have been a two parter though (And no, I don't consider this episode a double part with last week), because I felt we could have spent more time on Krypton showing Kara adapt to her fantasy life instead of cutting back and forth. I'm glad they did cut back and forth because the episodes message about family and being there for one other was a good one, I just wish it was given more time to develop.
It was pointed out by a commenter over on Tor.com that this was episode 13, the end of the initial series order. If the show hadn't gotten a full-season pickup, this would've been the finale. Which explains why everything came to a head at once, but unfortunately it meant the Black Mercy plot couldn't get the focus it deserved.
I agree, a 2-parter would've served it better. For one thing, with two episodes' worth of money to spend, they could've done more with the Krypton scenes. Ooh, I really wanted to learn more about what Krypton was like. The only new thing we learned that we didn't already know is that Krypton had talking medical robots. I wish they'd had Kara fall into the dream a lot more quickly and shown what her idea of a normal, everyday Kryptonian life was like. It would've strengthened the sense of loss when she was pulled out of the dream if we could've seen more of what it was she was giving up.
I like the way the Black Mercy hallucination was dealt with in Justice League Unlimited "For the Man Who Has Everything" better than in this week's "For the Girl Who Has Everything." I agree with those saying that it would have been better to have the hallucination seem completely real at first and have Kara have to somehow break out of it, rather than the reverse of getting sucked into it.
Would it have worked to have simply started the episode out on Krypton, presenting it as an apparently alternate reality in which Krypton didn't explode and Kara didn't have to be sent to Earth after all? Maybe.
One problem I had with the hallucination as it happened was that the hallucinated family members didn't seem to acknowledge that Kara going to Earth made sense on any level. I thought it would have made more sense if, for example, her mother said something like knowing that Kara often daydreams of what it might have been like to have gone to Earth, once she started to remember. It could have been as if they'd told her about their contingency plan to send her and Kal-El to Earth. In fact, maybe being casual about breaking Kryptonian law could have been part of a clue about the unreality of it. They also could have played up the Alex-as-a-spy angle more subtly.
It's probably hard to do a getting-trapped-in-a-make-believe-reality episode and not have it come off as a cliché. Stargate Atlantis had at least one such episode, the one with the sentient mist, "Home".
The Kryptonite sword was pretty awesome, but it was telegraphed at least twice that it was going to get used, first when Alex took it from the armory and second when we saw it strapped to her back while Astra was holding her over the ledge.
Would it have worked to have simply started the episode out on Krypton, presenting it as an apparently alternate reality in which Krypton didn't explode and Kara didn't have to be sent to Earth after all? Maybe.
One problem I had with the hallucination as it happened was that the hallucinated family members didn't seem to acknowledge that Kara going to Earth made sense on any level. I thought it would have made more sense if, for example, her mother said something like knowing that Kara often daydreams of what it might have been like to have gone to Earth, once she started to remember. It could have been as if they'd told her about their contingency plan to send her and Kal-El to Earth. In fact, maybe being casual about breaking Kryptonian law could have been part of a clue about the unreality of it. They also could have played up the Alex-as-a-spy angle more subtly.
It's probably hard to do a getting-trapped-in-a-make-believe-reality episode and not have it come off as a cliché. Stargate Atlantis had at least one such episode, the one with the sentient mist, "Home".
The Kryptonite sword was pretty awesome, but it was telegraphed at least twice that it was going to get used, first when Alex took it from the armory and second when we saw it strapped to her back while Astra was holding her over the ledge.
To me, Maxwell Lord has felt like Supergirl's main antagonist for a while now, not Astra.
There's a big difference between Kara and Clark in that she remembers Krypton, whereas he doesn't.
Because of that, having her just buy into the fantasy immediately wouldn't have rung true to who she is as a character.
Regarding the episode being the Season finale, it really wasn't structured or written to function as a finale, having far more in common structurally with something like "Surprise"/"Innocence" from Buffy Season 2, "Goodbye Iowa" from Buffy Season 4, and "Revelations" from BSG Season 4 than the actual finales for any of those shows or for any other TV series that's come out in recent memory.
Because of that, having her just buy into the fantasy immediately wouldn't have rung true to who she is as a character.
Regarding the episode being the Season finale, it really wasn't structured or written to function as a finale, having far more in common structurally with something like "Surprise"/"Innocence" from Buffy Season 2, "Goodbye Iowa" from Buffy Season 4, and "Revelations" from BSG Season 4 than the actual finales for any of those shows or for any other TV series that's come out in recent memory.
I agree it would have been nice to see more of Kara's life on Krypton (did people ever go outdoors in that world?), but I still thought the episode worked really well regardless. And we've seen so many "trapped in a false reality" stories by now that I appreciate that they didn't try to convince us this was actually a real thing and her Earth life was just a dream (like they did in so many TNG and DS9 episodes, for instance).
And the inter-cutting with the real world did allow for the fun of seeing Hank impersonate Kara in front of Cat, which I got a big kick out of. And the sight of Alex on Krypton at the end (even an imaginary one) was pretty inspired as well, I thought.
And personally I thought Benoist did a great job in this episode. The dark and haunted look on her face after she wakes up, along with the ominous music underneath, was probably the most powerful moment in the episode for me.
And the inter-cutting with the real world did allow for the fun of seeing Hank impersonate Kara in front of Cat, which I got a big kick out of. And the sight of Alex on Krypton at the end (even an imaginary one) was pretty inspired as well, I thought.
And personally I thought Benoist did a great job in this episode. The dark and haunted look on her face after she wakes up, along with the ominous music underneath, was probably the most powerful moment in the episode for me.
The producers have said they originally intended Astra to be the big bad for the season, but the actress's Broadway commitments got in the way so they had to change things up.
Thing is, we don't know that Supes IS all that experienced, as this show is presenting things. The DEO seems to handle alien threats, so what supervillains is he fighting? Does Luthor even exist in this version? He apparently never managed to beat Reactron when the answer was "dip your hands in molten lead and use the resulting shielding to rip out his power core safely". If he's only been fighting the odd lab-experiment-gone-wrong sort then his "experience" is everyday superheroics (putting out fires, catching jumpers, preventing oil slicks....). Fighting someone on an equal power level might be completely foreign to him.
And I think he doubts himself just as much as Kara. What experience he does have just lets him know that showing it in front of scared civilians is a bad idea.
I don't see that. It's not like this was an unconvincing simulacrum; the details would've been drawn from her own memories and fantasies. So a fantasy of Krypton should logically make far more sense for her, and be far more enticing to her, than it was for Superman in the original story. (I just cannot buy Alan Moore's implicit premise that Superman had no emotional ties of any kind to Earth, that his perfect life would be on Krypton, period. The writers here recognized that even Kara needed justification for that, and the writers of the JLU adaptation wisely blended parts of Clark's Earthly life into the fantasy.)
Well, naturally they were hoping to get a full-season pickup. But if they hadn't, this episode would have needed to function as a makeshift finale. That wasn't their primary goal for it, but it was still a possibility they had to take into account. Look at all the failed shows that do end with episode 13 -- often it's quite clear that there are a lot of dangling threads, but they still put in just enough closure that it marginally works as a finale.
Sure, but that doesn't mean they had to waste half the Krypton scenes on Kara arguing with her family about what was real. We've seen scenes like that in plenty of episodes like this. What we haven't yet seen is a real exploration of this version of Krypton outside of Kara's living room and bedroom and the trial chamber (which, oddly, seemed to be right next door to Kara's home here). It was a foregone conclusion that she'd be convinced by the illusion anyway, so that Alex would need to talk her out of it, so they should've had her accept the dream more quickly and then given us some actual Krypton worldbuilding, let us see more of her life than just sitting around in the living room.
Benoist is good at adjusting her gait. I've spotted three distinct ones: as mild-mannered Kara, as Supergirl, and as Martian Manhunter disguised as mild-mannered Kara.
That may work out for the best. Astra was not a particularly compelling villain, and the whole kryptonian vague evil plan is the weakest part of the show. With Astra gone it's in danger of becoming even less interesting because Non is just a generic mustache twirling evil dude. I do hope they found a way to spice that thread up.
This was definitely underwhelming. It was still enjoyable, but it didn't give me what I was hoping for. My biggest disappointment was how little time we actually spent in Kara's fantasy Krypton. We basically just saw her wake up, react a bit to being on Krypton, and then we jump to her having accepted it. I really wish we could have seen her between first accepting the fantasy, and being convince it was fake. It would have been interesting to see what her life would have been like if she'd lived on Krytpon, and this was the perfect opportunity to show us that.
The stuff out in the real world was good though. J'onn pretending to be Kara was a lot of fun.
Pretty much the whole cast got some really good material here.
I was disappointed they killed Astra, it seemed like they were on the verge of her turning good, and I think it could have been really interesting to see her turn on Non and their people in favor of Kara.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Kara finds out that Alex killed Astra, because there is no way they are going to just sit on that secret.
I was kind of wishing that the Alura hologram actually had her personality in the scene with Alex trying to learn about the Black Mercy. Hasn't the Jor-El hologram actually had a realistic recreation of his personality in some versions?
The stuff out in the real world was good though. J'onn pretending to be Kara was a lot of fun.
Pretty much the whole cast got some really good material here.
I was disappointed they killed Astra, it seemed like they were on the verge of her turning good, and I think it could have been really interesting to see her turn on Non and their people in favor of Kara.
It will be interesting to see what happens when Kara finds out that Alex killed Astra, because there is no way they are going to just sit on that secret.
I was kind of wishing that the Alura hologram actually had her personality in the scene with Alex trying to learn about the Black Mercy. Hasn't the Jor-El hologram actually had a realistic recreation of his personality in some versions?