Supergirl Season 3 – Some Post-season Thoughts

The third season of Supergirl is now in the books and, overall, it’s been…well…a bit of a mess. Obviously I’ve got a few things to say about it, so let’s get to it.

(Sorry for the lack of pics. A little too time-crunched with work to track ’em down.)

At the Keyboard

The fundamental issues with this season can be traced to a single source: the keyboard. The new showrunners, replacing Ali Adler and the in-season-disgraced Andrew Kreisberg, had to deal with the Sanvers mess (I strongly suspect the US November 2016 election scuttled the planned storyline fruition in season 2, with season 3 having to deal with the fallout of Lima’s subsequent desired exit) as well as the aftermath of Mon-El’s escape and a Kryptonian super-villain. Tricky shoals for new showrunners to have to navigate. They could have done better than their 1-1-1 result but they could easily have done worse.

The loss was clearly the morose and frankly unpleasant vibe the season opened with, particularly with our hero. If Mon-El’s leaving Earth was very recent, it would have been understandable, but months had gone by. Sure, Kara doesn’t exactly have a queue of non-breakable suitors available, but her mood (and the lighting) shouldn’t have been so stark for this particular superhero show.

The Sanvers breakup was done about as well as could be expected — despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the very vocal Sanvers shipers. It was a situation of mixed child-desires (for which there really isn’t a compromise) that I’ve been witness to a few times in the real world. Neither party was wrong — it just was what it was.

The win came with the introduction and development of Samantha Arias. In a stunning break from how this show usually handles featured guests, they focused on developing her character. The audience fell in love with her because we were given the time to get to know her before the plot smacked everyone in the face.

Which brings us to:

Plots Ex Machina

The main keyboard issue was with plots. It’s not that the plots didn’t have promise or that good moments didn’t emerge from them. It’s more that 1) the plots tended to drive the characters instead of the other way around; 2) the writers not giving (most of) the characters the respect of personal depth; 3) setups were not protracted but bolded, underlined, and italicized with focused episodes (“Hey! Look here! Plot device! Notice me! Notice me!”).

Here’s an easy example: Imra is rescued from the Legion ship. Mon-El and Kara have a moment on the DEO balcony. Imra appears and drops the relationship bomb. See, the problem here isn’t that Karamel shippers just got cock-blocked, but that the writers didn’t respect Mon-El and Kara enough for there not to be a surprise reveal. As the conversation was leading to it anyway, commit to having Mon-El tell Kara, being all adult and honest and all. It informs how his character has grown in the years away. It allows the very human moment to naturally reach its turning point. Instead, it’s played for easy, if momentary, shock value. Plot could have been served but not at the expense of the characters.

A different example is the cult of Rao. Instead of having it be background noise — something the DEO notes and monitors — it is instead immediately put out in the spotlight. There’s no nuance or multi-leveled drama extending throughout the season.

Compounding this was the stilted compartmentalization of so many of these plots. There was a lot of separation with all the storylines. I don’t mean they never had threads that didn’t cross, but the little emotional arcs that were to be had were usually isolated to a small group of characters without a lot of bridging.

The obvious example is that Kara is the bridge character to everything, but one or the other (or both) of her personas disappears at times when it would be interesting for that not to be the case (I realize Melissa only has so many hours in the day to be in scenes). Take the drama Lena has been having with Supergirl. How interesting would it have been to have more than one or two “shock” scenes with Lena grousing about how unreasonable the Girl of Steel is — to someone she knows is “friends” with said Kryptonian? A meaty scene with Kara and Lena in Lena’s office or apartment with Kara standing up for her “friend” and what she’s done for Lena would have given each character a nice chunk of development.

Surprisingly, James was the winner of the character development sweepstakes in the second half of the season. The initial start of his romance with Lena was as poorly written as any on the show, but once he threw Supergirl under the bus while coming out to Lena, James suddenly became someone interesting — mostly with Lena but also in general. He gained a gravitas the character has been sorely in need of.

Wagon Wheels

Where the wheels started falling off the wagon was after episode 9, “Reign”. Up until this point, the stories (excluding Crisis on Earth-X, which is basically a stand-alone), even if flawed, felt like there was a plan. But now, what cohesiveness that was there started to fracture. It’s something you see a lot in series television. Once they hit the major turning point of the season, the ass-kicking event everything had been pointing to, the threads of the story started to loosen. Basically, the show from this point onward was under-developed.

I really can’t emphasize how important it is that entire seasons (and beyond) be very well outlined in the writers room. Not just what is going to happen — honestly, that’s the least of it. The outlining has to be about how the acts of each of the characters, and their own natures, intertwine and interact and arc. That informs plot. If you don’t do that, then you get…well, the back fourteen of season 3.

After “Reign”, we start getting a lengthening line of plot points and devices. The Legion arrives. Alex takes in Ruby. Lena experiments on Sam. Kara and Mon-El go to Argo. These are blandly generic. Sometimes they can be saved by a good scene or great acting, but mostly they exist to compel the story. Without enough development before scripting, you get exposition and you get scenes that never quite feel finished — or worse, episodes that feel in need of one or two more scenes.

A tiny example from the finale: where is the scene with Kara, Alex, and Alura (and maybe even Eliza)? We got a blink-and-you-missed-it “This is Alex,” moment in the episode before but nothing of substance after. Three seasons and that’s it? What a waste of an opportunity.

Whining

“How can Lena not know?” “She must know.” “This is so stupid.” and so forth and so on.

All season long came this pathetic, pretty much weekly, choral whine about Lena’s lack of awareness that Kara and Supergirl are the same person. So unrealistic, they say, about a show with aliens that fly and shoot heat beams from their eyes. And this is the thing that they can’t swallow? Puleeze.

Never has there ever been a prime example of the necessity for Joss Whedon’s, “Don’t give them what they want, give them what they need.” Referring to how non-storytellers shouldn’t be the ones who dictate how a story is told.

The core trope of Superman and this familial menagerie is that a pair of glasses is a foolproof disguise — even among the closest of friends. While it’s also common with many other heroes, nowhere else does it find greater resonance than with the Kryptonians among us. Abandoning this is to basically disrespect the entire franchise.

More than that, it cheats the audience. Other than a scene of revelation (and a moment of self-congratulatory back-slapping from some), you gain nothing from Lena knowing Kara’s duality. And it’s a bell that can’t be unrung. The only imagined benefit is for the writers who don’t have to concoct absurd excuses for the two Karas not to be in the same place at the same time (and for this viewer who would no longer have to endure the childish whining about it). But it’s only imagined. One of the spurs for creativity is to have to work around restrictions. Having just one significant character who isn’t in on the secret requires the writers to not take any scene with the two for granted.

Of course, this wasn’t the only complaining point. You get the various shippers who are or aren’t getting what they want (not need). They crow or wail to absurd degrees — to the point where the ship is all they care about, not the show. I get it. For whatever reason a character or pairing draws you in. But there does come a point when it gets a little psychotic, and not in the good way. (On the plus side, I’m now only watching a fraction of the reactions as I was early in the season. Saves me a ton of time.)

And you also get the people who are not happy about how the story is being told. Clearly, I’m in a similar mindset, but not to the same degree as some. Theirs is more like the disposition I had after my second season of reviewing and recapping Enterprise. Had the website I was doing this for not been gobbled up, I’d have left simply because I didn’t feel I was getting enough out of the show to be the non-downer I felt I should be (the ol’ “if you hate the show so much why are you watching it and why are you bitching about it to us” syndrome). Sometimes it’s just show/reviewer fatigue. Sometimes it’s show quality. Sometimes it’s both.

(Also a favorite whine this season was the cry of “filler episode”. Just because it didn’t wow you, doesn’t make it “filler”. Usually they are establishing things for later — not filler but also not necessarily exciting. This also plays into the quality of writing issue.)

Spackle and Paint

How to fix it? Pre-production development in the writer’s room. Focus on character before plot. Don’t forget that the show is about Supergirl — don’t make her Richie to any other character’s Fonzie*. Try to explore the deeper aspects of situations — even if it only gets a line or two.

I would have Supergirl be part of the community at least once every other episode or so, if only for a short scene. Yes, ordinary criminals might be beneath her at this point, but that doesn’t mean she can’t still take a few moments to befriend a girl being bullied by some mean girls (one of my favorite scenes from season 1) — or to stop at a street vendor to enjoy an ice cream cone (to quote Kara, “Yaaaaas!”). This, again, speaks to her character. She chooses to be of the people, not above them.

Make sure that all the main (and significant recurring) characters interact outside of a singular storyline. You can either have an ensemble or a collection of characters. Ensembles tend to engage with the audience and each other better (very important as relative budgets drop year to year).

Mostly, it’s try to be the best writers you can be to give the best product you can. Look at Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — slated to be cancelled by the network until Mouse House Corporate said to keep it on. They did a season of mostly bottle episodes** because of their reduced budget and still managed to put forth a strong season of a show that’s perennially among the best-of-genre. Why? Writing. It’s the standard I’d love for the Supergirl showrunners to shoot for.

* This is a reference to the 1970s TV show, Happy Days. The star of the show was supposed to be Ron Howard as Richie Cunningham. Fans flocked more to a character that was only supposed to be in one episode, Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli. Ron was gracious enough to not swim against the tide and stepped aside so the show would instead become the vehicle of “The Fonz”.

** A bottle episode is one that takes place primarily in standing (existing) sets on stage with main cast and a minimum of guest stars and FX.

Entertainment-ness

In the end, my metric for any show is whether or not I was entertained. A not inconsequential related metric is rewatchability. So… how does that apply to season 3?

Overall, I was entertained. I have modest- to high-modest expectations for this show, and it pretty much meets those week-to-week (odious 9-week hiatuses notwithstanding). The most rewatchable episode was undoubtedly “Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1”, but as that was a special event, I’d have to say that “Midvale” and “Reign” were probably the most rewatched episodes (partly to fill that 9-week hiatus, let’s be real). There really were only a few episodes that I tend to shy away from — usually those of Morgan Edge and the rest are in the back 14 mostly because of nitpicky writing issues I have.

My biggest prolonged annoyance was Kara at the start of the season. I need an optimistic Supergirl, especially given current real world events. Sometimes we all need to know that heroes, of all stripes, are around us. Fantasy or not, it stokes the fire of being better people — especially in the face of those determined not to be — not because someone tells us to be better but simply because we can.

On a similar note, I think we also need a return to a more season 1 Supergirl — one who believes in the good of people (with the apparent “Red Daughter” cliffhanger, that might be the case). Perhaps her revelation that Earth is now her true home will allow her to do that without any lingering doubts.

I think giving Supergirl a Legion ring will make some stories a little easier. It removes the Supergirl-can’t-breathe-in-space issue (space is faster/cheaper to CG than cities). If the Red Daughter storyline does in fact end up being a focus, that’s a difference between the two versions of Kara that would potentially turn the tide.

I do still very much miss Cat Grant. Hers was the unexpected heart of Supergirl. I don’t think we’ve yet been able to match what Calista brought to the show.

I don’t really have any expectations for season 4. For me, right now, it’s still just quires and reams of unwritten pages.