Supergirl brings much needed sunshine, idealism and positivity to the telly’s current lopsided love affair with male superheroes.
Could it be that women – including Krypton survivor Kara Zor-El – are intrinsically wired to just get the job done with minimal whining? And let’s be blunt – she looks way hotter in red compared to The Flash, in this action-adventure series inspired by the DC Comics character that debuts tomorrow on OSN.
Even her world sparkles. Unlike the dank, dirt and darkness that is typically Gotham City, for example, her National City gleams with glassy skyscrapers and spotless modernity.
It's here that Kara – beautifully played by Colorado native Melissa Benoist (Glee), with an idealism that borders on a Pollyannaism – toils as Kara Danvers, the assistant (read "coffee-fetcher") to media mogul and snippy taskmaster Cat Grant, played by Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal, Brothers and Sisters) who channels her best Devil Wears Prada attitude.
As Cat’s drudge, Kara is functioning, at best, in the bottom percentile of her potential – and she’s less than thrilled and feels vastly unfulfilled with her current lot in life:
"I went to work for Cat Grant because I thought working in a media company run by a powerful woman who actually shapes the way people think would be the way that I could make a difference," says Kara, "but I just fetch layouts and coffee ... I'm not normal. I've got the same powers that [Superman] does. I can lift a bus. Stop a bullet. I can fly ..."
Her protective Earth-born big sister Alex (Chyler Leigh; Grey's Anatomy), who is a doctor and scientist with the Department of Extra-Normal Operations, which fears Kara's otherworldly powers may pose a threat to humankind, reassures her with some sister-talk: "Kara, you've got a good job. You're cute. And thanks to your alien DNA, you can't get pimples. Life is not so bad."
Kara’s life on Krypton, according to this series, ended when she escaped the doomed planet at the age of 12, at the same time as her infant cousin Kal-El. But her spaceship spent years marooned in the Phantom Zone, where time stands still. So by the time she arrived on Earth, she was still a child compared to the now-grown Superman.
At the age of 24, when an unexpected disaster compels her to reveal her true nature to the world, it’s a feel-good, liberating moment – she unabashedly embraces her powers and potential, after being forced to hide them for 12 years. While her Earthly family, and even cousin Kal-El, meant well in treating her as if she were a delicate teacup that needed to be protected, hidden away in a curio cabinet, she realises this is no longer in her best interest. Nor is it her destiny.
At its heart, Supergirl is an uplifting account of a woman being liberated of others' expectations as she realises her potential and her true strength.
Viewers in the United States apparently agree, where this CBS series opened on October 26 with 14 million viewers, the biggest launch this autumn for a new show, and Supergirl is soaring in the ratings.
Benoist loves thrashing baddies on the tube.
“In my everyday life, I’ve always been such a pacifist,” says Benoist, 27. “I grew up in a household full of women, and if you hit someone, it was a huge deal, even just a slap. The butt-kicking is new. That’s a new muscle I’m flexing, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I liked it.”
She admits that she has had to train quite a bit. “I’ve been training since the pilot and before. It’s challenging. It’s tiring,” she says. “It’s a good thing, though. She’s got to be really, really tough and strong to show girls and anyone that you can overcome the things that you’re afraid of.”
Of course, controversy abounds whenever a superhero – or superheroine, as is the case here – is revived and rejigged for the millennial telly. With Supergirl, it's easy to beef about the fact that her cousin is called Superman, but she's merely Supergirl. What's with that? Why not Superwoman? After all, she is in her 20s. And this is 2015.
Just accept, urges the executive producer Ali Adler: “She’s Supergirl because she’s Supergirl.”
Taking a more serious tack, the executive producer Andrew Kreisberg points out that while she shares Superman’s powers, she’s inexperienced. She’s hardly impervious to harm or Kryptonite, as she is yet to attain mastery of her abilities, which she has suppressed during her 12 years on Earth.
To create dramatic tension, the series needs “to put her in situations where she isn’t all-powerful so you can root for her,” says Kreisberg.
“There’s a tendency with Superman to make him so powerful that there isn’t really any danger. There are plenty of things besides Kryptonite that can take her down. It’s not to diminish her, it’s to make it feel like there’s actual jeopardy to the show.”
And while Superman does appear in the pilot episode, his visuals are very minimal and strategic, so to speak. In flashback, we never see Supe’s face – just parts of his uniform, hands and boots in extreme close-up – as he lovingly welcomes and retrieves his cousin from her spaceship after her journey of 2,000 light-years.
The caped crusader places her in a safe home, which allows for some historical winks and nods as well as sweet cameos for her new foster parents, played by Dean Cain, who starred as the Man of Steel in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997) and Helen Slater, who flew in the British big-screen version of Supergirl (1984).
Rounding out the cast is the charming, charismatic Mehcad Brooks (Desperate Housewives; Necessary Roughness) as the famous photographer James Olsen – he's only "Jimmy" to his friends and his best pal Superman, he tells Kara – who has just been hired away from The Daily Planet to serve as Cat's new art director. And, from what we can divine from the pilot, Kara's future love interest.
• Supergirl debuts on at 9pm on Wednesday, November 11, on OSN First HD
artslife@thenational.ae
