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The citizens of National City have found a new solution to dealing with pain and trauma. The answer to solving their problems is to lose themselves in the virtual world. According to Obsidian North virtual reality is perfect for dealing with stress and working out your problems. Maybe even make your wildest dreams come true. What if you were to get lost? What if you couldn’t find the way out? What if what started as virtual reality is reality to you now?
Alex is in pain from the loss of Jeremiah. She was so close to her father they could finish each other’s sentences. He depended on her for many things. She was expected to help her mother and look out for her little sister. Jeremiah often treated Alex like an equal. Often forgetting that she was just a child herself. Alex screams that she has lost him so many times she does not feel compelled to accompany Kara to Midvale to bury their father and comfort their mother. She also pushes Kelly away. She is making it clear that she just wants to be left alone with a bottle of wine.
Since Kara has left for Midvale, William enlists Kelly to help in his investigation. He believes there is some nefarious motive for the Lex Luthor world tour. Kelly is still wondering why her concerns with the faulty virtual reality fail safe button have not been addressed. Andrea says the service request is hung up in the board of directors and she will take care of it. William tracked down a warehouse address linked to an IP address. While William continues to investigate. Kelly goes to check on Alex.
Alex has decided to escape from the real world for a while into the virtual world of her choice. What if she were Supergirl? At first she is excited to expel some of her anger by punching stuff. However when a dragon attacks the City she realizes that some of Kara’s powers are not as easy to use as they look. When she discovers that Kara was taken by Hank Henshaw she springs into action. Helping her sister and the City is second nature to Alex both in this world and in reality.
Kelly finds Alex on the couch. The contact lenses have turned red. Something is wrong. Alex is not responding to the shot of adrenaline. Time for the next step. Kelly must go in and pull her out. Alex is so deeply involved in the event taking place in the virtual world that she refuses to believe that what she is experiencing is not real. She always had to depend on herself so maybe another version of Alex can convince our Alex to return to the real world.
When William makes it to the warehouse it appears empty. Sometimes what you see can be deceiving. When William finds an identification bracelet on the ground he knows he has to keep looking. There is more here than meets the eye. Young Alex is able to tell her older self exactly what she needed to hear. Even if Alex was Supergirl she still couldn’t have saved her father. She is not Kara and she doesn’t have Kryptonian powers but Alex Danvers is a hero. Every day she protects her City, helps her sister and mother and loves her girlfriend. That is the kind of woman she is.
Many questions still remain. Where is Lena? What is Lex doing with these satellites? What about Gemma Cooper? Why is the failsafe not fixed? Is it because they want to lock people in this dream world? Is this warehouse where Margo is watching over people lost to the real world? Is she the only one? Alex talked to some people inside virtual reality that were losing their sense of self. Could there be more? Until next time National City. This is your eye in sky Green Butterfly. Stay safe, take care of each other and have a super week.
Congratulations to our Contest Winners who will receive fabulous prizes from our friends at Odyssey Art! Check them out and we hope you buy some things from them and tell ’em that Maid of Steel sent you their way!
Are there more warehouses filled with people stuck in virtual reality?
- Yes (100%, 3 Votes)
- No (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 3
Cougar’s Comic Corner
Supergirl #38
Written by Jody Houser, Released January 8, 2020
After Batman and Superman couldn’t stop the Infected Supergirl from trying to destroy the entire world, they knew they had to call in the only person they trust can bring Kara back…Wonder Woman! Will Diana’s compassion be enough to cure Kara of the infection that’s taken over? If not, what’s a fight between an uninhibited Kryptonian power house against a god like? You’ll find out here!
$3.99 on Comixology
Next Time On Supergirl!
“Deus Lex Machina” airing TBD on The CW.
MELISSA BENOIST MAKES HER DIRECTORIAL DEBUT – Lex proceeds to lay an intricate plan to bring Lena closer to him, defeat Leviathan’s latest attack, and pit Supergirl and team against Leviathan. It is also revealed how Lex came into power after Crisis. Melissa Benoist directed the episode with story by Lindsay Sturman and teleplay by Katie Rose Rogers & Brooke Pohl
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Some blog post comments…
“What if what started as virtual reality is reality to you now?” – for some people it’s probably better; what do you do when virtual reality is a better place for someone than actual reality? If only they had a shrink who could explore that topic.
“She is making it clear that she just wants to be left alone with a bottle of wine.” – again amazing comedy work from Chyler to go from the glass of wine to the bottle of wine to drink from!
“What is Lex doing with these satellites?” – evil.
“and pit Supergirl and team against Leviathan. It is also revealed how Lex came into power after Crisis.” – because the team wasn’t already? And didn’t we establish this – it was a Sharpie!
On to the podcast…
Thanks for the hard work to make the podcast!
Things are probably vague scheduling wise because they don’t know themselves day to day what’s going to happen; they could go back to work next week or next month so it’s hard to schedule things when you don’t know when things will be finished as some shows are finished more than others for the season. I’m just preparing for another round of crazy scheduling where we take like three weeks off and then do two episodes then take another three weeks off or something. I think this will effect new shows more than old because the hits will have priority airing so you’ll see new stuff will weird schedules too to make room for the shows that were originally in that place.
I support your anger over this week John! What really made me mad was the whole rewrite of the history with Jeremiah; Alex totally confronted him in season two during the “You put everyone that I love in danger!” moment when she had him in the woods, her relationship with Jeremiah was never treated this way until now where she acts like he’s a different Jeremiah, and again they killed him in such a lackluster way so there’s a lot to be annoyed with just for his stuff alone.
Jeremiah may have put some stresses on Alex in regards to Kara but still not enough that she ever felt like he was on the same level as Eliza; it has always been Eliza she blames for the stress and true you could argue him dying makes Alex forgive him some but still if she felt that harshly now why is it always Eliza she blames so much? Again the Jeremiah stuff did not make sense this episode; maybe 5% of it was something believable but the rest we’ve seen no precedent for.
Here’s a question though: is this all from the reboot? Is there something Lex did when he rewrote things that created this alternate history because if so then maybe it makes sense as Jeremiah isn’t Jeremiah Prime as it were but if we’re meant to take this as the Jeremiah we’ve known since season two at least than again this makes zero sense really! If it’s the reboot effect then it should have been shown during some new scenes; because it wasn’t I have to take it as it’s meant to be a continuation of what we’ve always known in that regard – it makes basically no sense and is super frustrating.
Ugh the look on Melissa’s face as Kara when she walked out of the apartment; you could just see the hurt on Kara’s face! 🙁 Kara + Alex = ❤️ of the series!
Ugh, I hope they don’t drag Leviathan into season six; I personally do not buy them as a multiple season arc so here’s hoping their stuff is just this season. Also no to them as the writers seem to love Lex with them and no to more Lex on the series please! Let’s freshen things up; if they want a recurring bad guy why not bring back Maxwell Lord who’s our personal Lex before the show got the go ahead to do actual Lex. Remember when he stole the omegahedron; what ever became of that? Maybe the writers don’t because it was season one and they sometimes pretend it never happened sadly, but he could be a nice return. There’s also this crazy concept of having a new bad guy we haven’t seen yet that’s created from their own minds not necessarily just pulled from comics or movies related to the Supers, although if they’re going to pull from them pull from Supergirl comics please – it everything is about her cousin!
Honestly I don’t expect the plots this season to pay off, this season has just been all over the place.
Nia is the only real reporter we have Darryl.
Alex isn’t closeted, she’s a very open alcoholic. 🙂 I’m still not sold on Alex/Kelly Monty. No Mon; Chris can be recast as someone new but no Mon!
I agree Leslie, Tilly was fun! Alex doesn’t do therapy as great as it would have been to see he have to discuss things in a therapist like environment; also drunk Alex is pretty mean, I feel it’s a way to try and distance people from her because she’s so use to dealing with things alone even when she doesn’t have to, which is pretty consistent with the drunk Alex’s we’ve seen so while hard to watch I thought that part of the episode was actually in continuity. Well said about Eliza, Leslie!
Black is just a preferred color by Alex Phoenix.
Boo no new episodes, but unsurprising as we’ve said.
Kara does love her potstickers. 🙂
Ha, I feel John is going to say Benoist every time until he’s got it down for sure.
Aaron on March 26, 2020 at 12:42 am
“Some blog post comments…”
And replies.
“ “What if what started as virtual reality is reality to you now?” – for some people it’s probably better; what do you do when virtual reality is a better place for someone than actual reality? If only they had a shrink who could explore that topic.” “
Since Kelly is incompetent and I have a twisted sense of humor, may I introduce the newest member of the Supergirl cast?
(Actress to be named later.) as Doctor Sara N. Wrap
“ “She is making it clear that she just wants to be left alone with a bottle of wine.” – again amazing comedy work from Chyler to go from the glass of wine to the bottle of wine to drink from!”
Did you notice the infantile way Chyler clasped that prop? Like she was emulating a two year old baby with a bottle of milk?
“ “What is Lex doing with these satellites?” – evil. “
Evulz Lewx is going to raise everyone’s cable bills. That is his plan for world domination.
“ “and pit Supergirl and team against Leviathan. It is also revealed how Lex came into power after Crisis.” – because the team wasn’t already? And didn’t we establish this – it was a Sharpie!
https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn-origin-etr.akc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/12234619/Chinese-Shar-Pei-On-White-03.jpg
Always said Lex had gone to the dogs.
“On to the podcast…”
“Thanks for the hard work to make the podcast!”
Seconded.
“Things are probably vague scheduling wise because they don’t know themselves day to day what’s going to happen; they could go back to work next week or next month so it’s hard to schedule things when you don’t know when things will be finished as some shows are finished more than others for the season. I’m just preparing for another round of crazy scheduling where we take like three weeks off and then do two episodes then take another three weeks off or something. I think this will effect new shows more than old because the hits will have priority airing so you’ll see new stuff will weird schedules too to make room for the shows that were originally in that place.”
Off topic and as an aside, I believe a show to which I have looked forward: “Stargirl” will be delayed. This show was supposed to be a gateway show for the Justice Society of America.
“I support your anger over this week John! What really made me mad was the whole rewrite of the history with Jeremiah; Alex totally confronted him in season two during the “You put everyone that I love in danger!” moment when she had him in the woods, her relationship with Jeremiah was never treated this way until now where she acts like he’s a different Jeremiah, and again they killed him in such a lackluster way so there’s a lot to be annoyed with just for his stuff alone.”
Upset as folks are, these are TV episode writers, and very few who are true fans of the DC myths. For example, for me, Supergirl’s foster father is FRED Danvers, not Jeremiah, from the fabled Peter Alan David Supergirl run. I am not that invested in Jeremiah. He was an expendable for a plot point always. YMMV and should, but each brings to the story what each invests.
Case in point follows.
“Jeremiah may have put some stresses on Alex in regards to Kara but still not enough that she ever felt like he was on the same level as Eliza; it has always been Eliza she blames for the stress and true you could argue him dying makes Alex forgive him some but still if she felt that harshly now why is it always Eliza she blames so much? Again the Jeremiah stuff did not make sense this episode; maybe 5% of it was something believable but the rest we’ve seen no precedent for.
Here’s a question though: is this all from the reboot? Is there something Lex did when he rewrote things that created this alternate history because if so then maybe it makes sense as Jeremiah isn’t Jeremiah Prime as it were but if we’re meant to take this as the Jeremiah we’ve known since season two at least than again this makes zero sense really! If it’s the reboot effect then it should have been shown during some new scenes; because it wasn’t I have to take it as it’s meant to be a continuation of what we’ve always known in that regard – it makes basically no sense and is super frustrating.”
Valid points, see? There is no reason for some people to invest into Jeremiah that much. Also, the rewriting of events and people’s actions is a favorite; “Way to screw up the timeline, Barry.” plot device. For my PoV, like magic, I hate time travel stories, because it seems like a writer’s trick to get out of a written cul de sac. It is not story earned when someone has written something stupid like Bane kills Alfred, and now Batman readers are just waiting for the next DC crisis to pound the reset button. If someone stays comic book dead like Barry did for A DECADE OR MORE, then one has to write Wally West stories. In the Crisis Crossover, we do have consequences in that 51 Earths snuffed it, but in the reboot, Argo (52 versions) snuffed it, too.
IF the proper story consequences had fallen out, we would not be subjected to a horrible Lois and Jerk 2.0 soon to Tyler Hoechlin pollute a television near you.
“Ugh the look on Melissa’s face as Kara when she walked out of the apartment; you could just see the hurt on Kara’s face! Kara + Alex = of the series!”
Agreed.
“Ugh, I hope they don’t drag Leviathan into season six; I personally do not buy them as a multiple season arc so here’s hoping their stuff is just this season. Also no to them as the writers seem to love Lex with them and no to more Lex on the series please! Let’s freshen things up; if they want a recurring bad guy why not bring back Maxwell Lord who’s our personal Lex before the show got the go ahead to do actual Lex. Remember when he stole the omegahedron; what ever became of that? Maybe the writers don’t because it was season one and they sometimes pretend it never happened sadly, but he could be a nice return. There’s also this crazy concept of having a new bad guy we haven’t seen yet that’s created from their own minds not necessarily just pulled from comics or movies related to the Supers, although if they’re going to pull from them pull from Supergirl comics please – it everything is about her cousin!”
More Reign.
“Honestly I don’t expect the plots this season to pay off, this season has just been all over the place.”
What plots?
“Nia is the only real reporter we have Darryl.”
Wait? She reported? When?
“Alex isn’t closeted, she’s a very open alcoholic. I’m still not sold on Alex/Kelly Monty. No Mon; Chris can be recast as someone new but no Mon!
I agree Leslie, Tilly was fun! Alex doesn’t do therapy as great as it would have been to see her have to discuss things in a therapist like environment; also drunk Alex is pretty mean, I feel it’s a way to try and distance people from her because she’s so use to dealing with things alone even when she doesn’t have to, which is pretty consistent with the drunk Alex’s we’ve seen so while hard to watch I thought that part of the episode was actually in continuity. Well said about Eliza, Leslie!”
1. What bothers me is that no-one has staged an intervention. Drunk Alex or Psycho Alex, wouldn’t someone have figured out she needs professional help?
2. Alex/Kelly is in a better place than Kara/Blockhead.
3. Why not Mon? Don’t blame Chris Wood for the bad writing. He can actually act. Blockhead cannot even breath properly to enunciate without following the instructions written on his shirt cuffs.
4. Tilly was silly, but fun.
5. Paging Doctor Sara N. Wrap!
6. Batgirl Rule # 4. It is a man’s world, so overcompensate a lot.
7. Batgirl Rule # 6. It is a Supergirl’s world, so overcompensate a lot more!
8. Batgirl Rule #11. Moms, like Eliza, are impossible. Overcompensate to the limit of psychosis.
“Black is just a preferred color by Alex Phoenix.”
If one looks at the supersuit, it is Black and Blue, not just Black. In effect, Alex is feeling beat up emotionally from the feet up, and it is clear in keeping with the (not so) subtle hints that Alex, the 30-ish trained soldier and scientist Batgirl standin (See 1=> 8 above.) is still the rebellious teen age Gotham Girl that Hank Henshaw/J’onn J’onnz rescued from the Scrappy Doo heap back in Season 1. Never grows up. That is a character PROBLEM that needs an Alex episode to explore. Alex in Cloud Cuckoo Land opened the door to it, but the writers muffed it.
==============================
“Boo no new episodes, but unsurprising as we’ve said.”
Reality BYTES.
“Kara does love her potstickers. ”
And according to the SG writers, her Blockheads.
“Ha, I feel John is going to say Benoist every time until he’s got it down for sure.”
Benoist rhymes with Moist, which is not very hard.
But Leigh rhymes with Sleigh and that is weird, pard’
‘Cause she pronounces it like it was Lee when it is said.
Staz Nair is kind of easy for us. It rhymes… with Blockhead.
I have to break this into parts because of length so part 1 of 3…
“Evulz Lewx is going to raise everyone’s cable bills.” – that is pretty evil!
I thought “Stargirl” was one of the ones finished and set to air? I’ve heard Legends is actually done filming but they’re trying to keep it in pairing with “Flash” which is the least finished currently. Wasn’t “Supergirl” like 3 days from being finished for the season? I’m
Not sure where “Batwoman” is exactly; again expect crazy schedules!
While it arguably helps to know the comic lore you’re basing things off of I don’t mind some changes being made to a series, that’s how we got the awesome Alex Danvers after all; what I do mind is continuity being failed so glaringly especially. As everyone said there is nothing that has ever shown Eliza needed taking care of especially when Jeremiah was alive so to have those words come out of Alex’s mouth was just nonsense and makes me question are the writers even trying to play within their own rules anymore or is this season just plot for the sake of plot forget what it does to established lore and characterization? I can personally work with a lot from stories when they introduce random changes but bad continuity drives me crazy! If Alex wants to be mad in the scene because she had some realization that maybe Jeremiah treating her like an equal which was cool as a kid was actually him putting pressure on her to protect Kara too she feels now that’s one thing, as I said you can do “the other side of a situation” for story, but again to say Eliza needed watching also as if she was some fragile person no – that makes no sense and only serves again to make me ask are you as a writer even watching your own show as it were which again means factoring in continuity. I know season two was 3 years ago (it still happened though) and we’ve had an universe reboot as it were with Crisis but that doesn’t mean we have all new characters and histories and if it does because Crisis is so crazy on the fallout then you have to take time to show that because if you don’t then I’m only left with assuming the previous cannon is in play which makes your stuff now look incorrect.
I’m not a big Batman person, but killing one of Bruce’s supports seems like a good way to get him off his game and kill him later if that’s your goal so why did Bane killing Alfred not work for you Monty?
There’s more than 1 Earth though Monty; they established that with the end montage. The characters think there’s only one Earth but we the viewers know there’s at least 5 of them – our weekly Earth, Swamp Thing’s Earth, Doom Patrol’s Earth, Teen Titan’s Earth, and Stargirl’s Earth…there may be more but it’s about 5 still in play.
“More Reign.” – I’m always up for Sam to return because there’s just so much left to do with her!
1. She is the perfect trainee for Kara! I know Nia was suppose to be her trainee but honestly we’ve seen her work more either alone or with Brainy to master her powers than we’ve seen Kara involved with her. Being biologically Kryptonian she would have powers exactly like Kara so Kara knows what to expect from training and how to help Sam adjust possibly easier.
This is the perfect example of a rewritable plot because of new (or in this case existing) information and not have it feel out of place continuity wise; you can keep it cannon that Lena blocked Reign and she is still deep down inside Sam, but Sam is biologically Kryptonian at the end of the day so after two years at least of soaking up sun again those powers are coming back so you still get someone Kara would need to train. And yes, Sam still has powers because again biology; she’s genetically enhanced she didn’t become a different species. If she’s truly human than we need to know what Ruby’s dad was as clearly his DNA or magic effected her genetically because otherwise her species change makes no sense; if he could do that to her what had he done to others, is there a meta human out there somewhere because of him? But yeah even if you say messing with the genetic enhancements dropped Sam down to Mon level strength compared to Kara she’s still Kryptonian and would have powers that need training to fully control! Also Mon, not trained by Kara so he doesn’t count either – that was more him doing what he wanted, Winn helping him some and him getting training in the future.
2. You could actually explore a different side of powers a lot of series don’t which would be refreshing; you ask the questions “If you have powers are you beholden to use them?” and “What do you do when you’re scared of your powers?” then use the characters to answer them.
When trained up is Sam’s next step mandated a suit or is it ok to say no to being a hero? Of course it’s ok to say no but that opened the door to another question in that why wouldn’t you use your powers to help someone; in Sam’s case it’s because she’s scared of Reign and thus you come to the second above question. Kara has said before her powers scared her when it came to possibly hurting people with her strength so she could teach Sam how to control that fear which again goes back to point one of what her return could present for plots. Are you always required to help someone just because you can is another question – National City has Kara and J’onn on the regular basis (we’re not counting Nia currently as we don’t know her status going into next season; she could end up in the future as Dreamer for all we know or maybe she gets her own city to protect)(I love Nicole don’t get me wrong but is Nia permeant National City resident material I don’t know) so is Sam required to help out at every rescue while she’s being trained? This is something that can be asked for Kara also because that was another crazy comment made this season, her saying she doesn’t have time for a night off; J’onn has said multiple times he loves that skirt so why can’t he do a shift as Supergirl? It would definitely help too to stop people from wondering if Kara and her are the same person! J’onn aside is it okay at times for Kara to just sit down and let the fire department put out the fire? Yes. I know it’s not compelling TV as you want to see Supergirl saving the day but doing it once or twice a season or even every other season isn’t going to hurt her reputation I feel; it also makes your world feel real and challenges you as a writer to up the stakes. Yes Kara can assist if she wants to because I’m sure the department and owners’ of property would thank her but if she needs to be somewhere else or even wants to be somewhere else is it okay to let them do that job they signed up for?
That was one of the good things about Mon originally, he asked the question of what was so wrong with not wanting to be the hero. You can even explore how personality wise and situational wise this effects characters – Kara is single and all boundless puppy energy ready to help and bonus she has a flexible work schedule which is great, but Sam is a single mom who is responsible for running a company so she can’t always run out to save the day even with super speed and is that ok too? Sure. These are people at the end of the day also not just unfeeling machines so why shouldn’t they have time off too? Maybe that’s something Sam could teach Kara – it’s okay to take a break at times and do you Kara the person not just the powers and how does that effect Kara and the series going forward (it opens it up to be even more of an ensemble show I feel is the answer)? Now I know some may ask is that best for the series a more laid back Supergirl if you will and it’s a fair question but I’m just thinking currently of it making Kara more whole and her peak self or at least setting up peak her, she doesn’t have to be peak by the end of the season that this would all happen in, because we’re still building in a way the ultimate Supergirl when you think about it as even this season seeing again she does have a choice to take time off or not can lead to a more rested Kara so when the big things truly do come up she’s not stressing handling them as much power usage wise. Again this not me saying “Supergirl” has to become a more ensemble show where it’s that in name only but I’m just thinking Kara as a real person what’s best for her and what makes her feel the most rounded; hopefully this makes sense.
3. You have yet another opportunity to explore different ways of handling bad guys.
Again I ask was Sam maybe okay with Reign killing the gang members and does that make her a bad person for those feelings? Was Mon really wrong for renting out his powers basically to beat up guys who didn’t pay their bets? Does everyone else have to be a clean cut good guy to hang out with Kara? Clearly this last one isn’t a requirement because Alex (she murdered bad guys too show, you can’t erase a warehouse full of dead Cadmus agents from our memories that action scene was too awesome). Again these are individuals with different experiences so they’re going to respond differently at times and what comes from that. Maybe at the end of the day Sam is more like Alex in that she’s and anti hero more than hero and that’s ok because anti heroes are interesting number one for the gray content they present and two at least she’s not a bad guy because bad guys are not doing good or even trying to (in their minds they are sure but to everyone else there’s a reason they’re deemed the villains).
4. She knows Lena which can help Kara if they’re still on the plot kick of Lena maybe going evil.
Lena is not evil, but this is a plot the writers love to play with so again here is someone helping Kara understand something she might not have otherwise. Not everything Sam says has to suggest ultra good from Lena because maybe even she is asked a question she’s unsure about when it comes to the woman but for the most part she can talk about how Lena does her best and helps others because she has personal experience with that. Maybe she can even reference back to season three and how even when Lena locked her up and ignored some of her wishes she can kind of understand where she was coming from in wanting to protect both sides and that being the only way she knew how; it was a jerk move for sure yes but not necessarily evil. Again anti hero characters are a good thing to embrace; heck even anti villains like Leslie is now are something to not fear because they are arguably the most interesting characters as they encompass a bit of both worlds.
5. You could do a love triangle with her.
Let me start by saying I HATE love triangles as they are most often written poorly, one side often is written like a jerk to make the other seem better instead of the side at the time just being the better person, but I’m just saying this is a plot option as I know the series loves drama and romance. You could do a Sam/Alex/Kelly thing and use it to discuss if someone can really love two people at the same time. This show is not going to do polyamory so you’ll have to keep that to fanfiction and ALEX DANVERS IS NOT A CHEATER (she can screw up a relationship in a variety of different ways but that’s not one of them) but Sam could still bond with Alex which gives you an opportunity to show if Kelly is the jealous type or not. Again I’m operating under current season knowledge and we really know jack still on Kelly Olsen and why we should love Kelly/Alex more than other ships we have Alex in in our minds; also this assumes Kelly is even in the season Sam comes back in because for all we know she and Alex could break up over something. To the person saying “Sam’s straight” simply because of Ruby I say to you bisexuality is a thing so the plot is still in play. Also there’s the option of Sam and Alex just being really good friends if Kelly/Alex is endgame for the writers; Kara is not the only one after all who can have a friend outside of the sisterhood…I know Alex has J’onn but still you can have more than one friend. I know we aren’t crazy seeing the sisters apart put Sam isn’t replacing Kara and again she is kind of busy so one or three times out with Alex alone outside the group dynamic isn’t a huge amount of time when you look at it on a season level at the whole. If the season was all of the sisters doing their own thing again then yeah that would be too much or even 15 out of the 22/24 episodes is too much but all together them maybe having 6 (that’s three episodes each) episodes where they’re not together or part of a group hang out scene is doable.
6. There’s the possibility of Reign returning and creating problems for the gang!
Again just because she’s more violent than Kara it doesn’t make Reign a bad guy writers please remember that; yes you could turn her into a clear cut villain fairly easily with the whole enslaving everyone path villains like to go but that’s lazy don’t do that. Yes this would be a repeat of season 3 to a point but let’s be honest the plot didn’t really get the attention it deserved originally. And NO using a locked up Sam/Reign as a way to give Alex a kid via being Ruby’s guardian!
And that’s just 6 off the top of my head ideas for a possible Sam return; if you package the first four alone that’s season material especially with #5 added in. Again option six is kind of lazy so we won’t really factor it into a possible season; if I trusted the writers more to not go full villain I would factor it in but this season has hurt me in regards to their skill level so I can’t be sure that wouldn’t be the result. Sorry writers but this season has been a lot of highlight writing for plots if you will not fleshed out plotting like you’ve done in even the most crammed feeling season of season three. So yeah four solid ideas with the option for 5 from just a viewer, imagine the number of possibilities the writers could come up with on top of these.
Part 2…
“Wait? She reported? When?” – ha, that’s fair Monty as Nia has kind of been absent from the reporting side lately. Still Nia could state at a blank Word document and I would still say she’s more of a reporter than reporter Kara is suppose to be; to their credit they’re trying this season to make that plot really believable but I’m still not ready to call Kara Pulitzer Prize winner worthy or even a full on reporter yet.
“What bothers me is that no-one has staged an intervention.” – I would love a scene of Kara using laser vision to break the alcohol bottles in a drunk Alex scene! I do wonder why Kara hasn’t said more to Alex about her benders because you can tell Kara does not like excessive drinking Alex because she worries for her physically and mentally. I don’t think Alex would ever stop completely and honestly at this point it would be strange not seeing a drink in her hand at least twice a season but she could certainly slim it down. To Maggie’s credit she actually did get Alex to stop drinking as much as she originally did so she is down but her quantity could drop some more and it was Maggie who got Alex to see she didn’t have drink her problems away every time because she went to her when she was lonely after Jeremiah’s last betrayal and physically turned Alex away from a drink to hold her and talk to her so Maggie did a lot but it’s Alex so there’s a ways to go because for most of her time people haven’t been able to get through to her over that be it because they don’t know how or she doesn’t respect them enough to listen but yeah she’s actually not as bad as she first started off so it’s possible if Kara pushed enough they could get her down to social drinker status and maybe not go to alcohol as her first choice when she’s mad. The question would be what does she replace alcohol with because talking is going to only be every so often at the start and is that replacement better or worse than drinking because that’s a thing – sometimes the “medicine” for the vice is worse than the vice depending on what’s used.
“Alex/Kelly is in a better place than Kara/Blockhead.” – maybe visually but are they really? Seriously when you think about it we arguably know roughly the same amount of information on Kelly as we do William which is really nothing. Both relationships are being written for the high points instead of feeling fleshed out or earned; true Kelly is more appealing to watch because of her personality and background concept but still relationship to relationship they’re both pale comparisons to what has been shown before.
This kind of goes back to my previous thing with Sam as it’s no secret I ship Sam/Alex (yes I like other ships involving Alex but if I have to pick a current OTP it’s Agent Arias), why should I ship Kelly/Alex instead of/also in league with Sam/Alex? Why should Sanvers fans also sing this pairing’s praises? Why should viewers just coming in this season even ship them?
Yes Kelly/Alex is cannon which is GREAT! So we’re Sanvers (aka Maggie/Alex). Yes Kelly/Alex is cute together, but so is Alex with every woman you can associate her with. Yes Kelly and Alex make good friends and even clearly friends with benefits but it doesn’t make them a relationship worth putting time emotional time in.
Kelly has been there a year, she started in season four as a guest which counts given she rolled into season five not returned, and what do we really know about her – she’s James’s sister, we know her allergies, we know she’s a therapist formerly with the military and her fiancé was killed…that’s it; and half of those are things that have been told not really shown. Again at the least please let Kelly use her shrink skills on all these characters they could use it! We see her being cute with Alex and that’s really it because sadly she’s not being a therapist currently and she’s more lip service for the VR plot than feeling weightily involved, that’s something literally any recurring guest star/ extra of the week could do; we’re invested in Alex being happy but not really the relationship in that case.
I know there are fans who are loving Kelly/Alex which I’m glad for you, but I’m left asking for myself why should I be invested currently? I was more invested in Sanvers and I definitely only emotionally committed to that relationship by 20% because the shadow of Kate/Maggie looms large. Sanvers was another I more watched for the individuals than the dynamic together.
I know some love Kelly/Alex because it’s a main relationship featuring a queer person of color, but my counter is Maggie is Latin so that’s not a new thing debatably. It’s great visual representation wise don’t get me wrong but it’s not a reason to ship Kelly/Alex if I was already into Sanvers. Just comparing them with Sanvers, we saw Alex slowly flirting Maggie and then doing couple things even if the scene was five seconds long; with Kelly/Alex (I refuse to call them Danolsen because we had that in season one with James/Kara) we see them kissing and smiling at each other but it’s all hollow in comparison because that’s all they do, yes they had the cute breakfast scene where we learn about the allergies but that was one scene and there’s no real flirting – the most flirting we’ve seen with them that I can remember is when Alex pushed her against the wall for protection and said “Hi”. We saw Sanvers meet Maggie’s exs; when is the last time Kelly mentioned a friend much less we met them? I will give her a pass on talking about her fiancé as that’s probably painful still but you can talk friends. We saw Maggie her self deal with her father…where’s that for Kelly? Yes she’s spent time with her brother but again just speaking for myself they had tainted James’s character so much by the time Kelly came in I wasn’t invested in those scenes so again she doesn’t have the emotional credit built up with me Maggie did. Kelly probably had a better experience than Maggie with her parents, thankfully if so, but still you can show me her helping former military people; we kind of got that with Sean Austin’s appearance but it wasn’t really her friend so it kind of only half counts, Kelly’s emotions and response count but the story doesn’t if that makes sense. We’ve seen Maggie be a cop, again it feels like forever since we saw Kelly be a shrink! Maggie and Alex talked about futures together, we have yet to see Kelly and Alex do that yet; I get not moving fast but it’s been a year, someone can ask the other what do they want in regards to their future in five years and keep it general if they don’t want to ask where do you want this relationship to go.
Kelly’s treatment feels again like the highlights version of something where as Maggie felt like a full presentation so it’s hard to invest in the character and thus her dynamic with Alex especially when their relationship compared to just Sanvers is highlights versus full project.
Going back to just their ship name for a moment, Danolsen, I think that’s part of what’s stacked against Kelly/Alex – it feels like a make up for how badly James/Kara was handled at the end. It may not be fair but that’s what if feels like kind of and thus keeps me from being 100% with them even if I could get excited about shipping them.
Comparing Kelly/Alex to Agent Arias (aka Alex/Sam), while Kelly has been on the show longer their screen time is probably roughly the same but still they did more with Sam in half a season basically than they have Kelly all season and I know that’s because Sam is Reign but they could do more with Kelly this season but they haven’t, again where’s therapist Kelly. It makes me care for both members of the possible pairing not just one. I spent all of season three and the hiatus and even part of season four shipping Agent Arias because I’m invested in the potential of them together so again there’s emotional connection where as with Kelly/Alex I haven’t gotten that yet because Kelly is just a love interest basically now. Yes Kelly/Alex is cannon so there is that over Agent Arias but I can’t ship them because emotions. I’d like to ship Kelly/Alex as it would give me something to be excited for with this season but the emotions just aren’t there sadly because Kelly is sadly very one dimensional now. 🙁
Part 3…
“Why not Mon?” – because the writers ruined that character for me in season two basically Monty and then season three was just the nail in the coffin for sure. Mon will always be to me someone who just wanted in Kara’s pants because despite how many times he said he wanted to be a hero he never tried really, actually he did once of course but in the larger scheme he didn’t try until he absolutely had to for plot – he just wanted in her pants. He never listened to her when she did ask something of him, see her saying to wait telling everyone in which he proceeds to tell everyone and her saying to let her handle Leslie but he and James run off thinking they know better as example, and then he comes back and will not let her mourn the relationship like she needs to because he only seems to care about how he feels. That marriage plot rewrite BS aside again Kara asked him for space and what did he do – slide up to her each chance he got; he might have made a decent friend for her but relationship he’s toxic for Kara. Add that to the massive amount of screen time he got for no earned reason and Mon is just a no go for me. They would have to do a total reboot on him and even then I think it’s too soon for me because I remember how poor Mon was handled it was that bad; let Chris come back as Adam Foster, I’ll take that – everyone wins there as Chris can return and plays a better character (assuming they don’t screw up Adam then writing wise) to which Kara actually had a possibly healthy relationship with and who wasn’t boring as all get out unlike William who may be the perfect example of ultra good characters sometimes being boring compared to others.
To be fair I actually did like Mon I’ll admit for 3 episodes when he first came on the series because I loved how he challenged Kara’s ideas on things such as power usage and maybe the Kryptonians weren’t as awesome as she thinks but they quickly had him just lusting for the inside of her pants so that basically destroyed him to me.
The suit being a stand in for bruises is a neat point Monty; I still feel it’s blue in part because that’s a Supergirl color and black because Alex likes it and so you get the mix here but emotionally showing bruises as a wardrobe nod is deep and well done sir. 🙂 Alex not growing up is arguably a fair point, but I get it from her as she’s locked herself away so much until recently she kind of missed those growing up years. She shut down emotionally to a degree losing Jeremiah and not really dealing with that that when he returns of course she reverts back to her teen self. She repressed her sexuality for a decade at least so of course she’s got the first love, kid gloves relationship with Maggie – it is her first really invested emotionally relationship! You could spend a whole season on Alex if you opened that can emotionally as it where…to bad there’s not a shrink around for character introspection. *cough* GIVE US THERAPIST KELLY! *cough*
Leigh equaling “Lee” is a pretty common thing here Monty so I forget others can see it as “lay” like Sleigh as you suggested.
End of current comments. 🙂
Aaron on March 27, 2020 at 7:32 pm
“I have to break this into parts because of length so part 1 of 3…”
This will be an 8 parter? Elements 1-3 begin
“ “Evulz Lewx is going to raise everyone’s cable bills.” – that is pretty evil!”
Yeah… That was basically the Myriad plotline if you think about it. Non Nocere is mind control to force “right thinking”. That seems to be a consistent theme among totalitarians, in that “We know better than you do, so we will force you to think the way we do.”
“I thought “Stargirl” was one of the ones finished and set to air? I’ve heard Legends is actually done filming but they’re trying to keep it in pairing with “Flash” which is the least finished currently. Wasn’t “Supergirl” like 3 days from being finished for the season? I’m
not sure where “Batwoman” is exactly; again expect crazy schedules!”
Problem is that we do not know at what stage the episodes are. While the shooting for union, safety (Batwoman had a set incident where a cherry picker was dropped on a crewmember’s head.) and costs is done in Canada or other locations to get around laws, the post production (editing, special effects and such.), is handled in California, New York or Georgia depending on the series.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/batwoman-production-assistant-paralyzed-accident.
“While it arguably helps to know the comic lore you’re basing things off of I don’t mind some changes being made to a series, that’s how we got the awesome Alex Danvers after all; what I do mind is continuity being failed so glaringly especially. As everyone said there is nothing that has ever shown Eliza needed taking care of especially when Jeremiah was alive so to have those words come out of Alex’s mouth was just nonsense and makes me question are the writers even trying to play within their own rules anymore or is this season just plot for the sake of plot forget what it does to established lore and characterization? I can personally work with a lot from stories when they introduce random changes but bad continuity drives me crazy! If Alex wants to be mad in the scene because she had some realization that maybe Jeremiah treating her like an equal which was cool as a kid was actually him putting pressure on her to protect Kara too she feels now that’s one thing, as I said you can do “the other side of a situation” for story, but again to say Eliza needed watching also as if she was some fragile person no – that makes no sense and only serves again to make me ask are you as a writer even watching your own show as it were which again means factoring in continuity. I know season two was 3 years ago (it still happened though) and we’ve had an universe reboot as it were with Crisis but that doesn’t mean we have all new characters and histories and if it does because Crisis is so crazy on the fallout then you have to take time to show that because if you don’t then I’m only left with assuming the previous cannon is in play which makes your stuff now look incorrect.”
Writers here appear to follow the “needs of the story rule, as opposed to the continuity bible. Plus, if you bring in outside talent, (Mariko Tamaki.), you may get glitchiness in the writing as the story she tells (Alex, running away from home.) is not the mainline Leviathan garbage.
“I’m not a big Batman person, but killing one of Bruce’s supports seems like a good way to get him off his game and kill him later if that’s your goal so why did Bane killing Alfred not work for you Monty?”
First, Alfred is the sanity check in the Batman myth.
Second, Alfred is the movie mentor hook. Who the HELLO is Lucius Fox to Joe and Jane movie-goer? They see Batgerbil, then they expect Alfred to dust the Batcave and be there to give Batgerbil good advice. Fox means nothing to them: except, he may be the Batmobile mechanic and be some guy who runs Wayne Enterprises so Batgerbil can beat up badguys, if they are even deep enough into the lore. But ALFRED they know.
THAT is why Dan Didio was ATT fired out of DC comics. He screwed up the movie side of the intellectual property when he had Tom King and crew comic book kill Alfred.
“There’s more than 1 Earth though Monty; they established that with the end montage. The characters think there’s only one Earth but we the viewers know there’s at least 5 of them – our weekly Earth, Swamp Thing’s Earth, Doom Patrol’s Earth, Teen Titan’s Earth, and Stargirl’s Earth…there may be more but it’s about 5 still in play.”
1. I dislike Swampy Thing. He does not exist.
2. Stargirl is an issue in doubt.
3. Dumb Patrol is like Swampy Thing.
4. Ditto Teen Gerbils.
Part 2 will deal with Reign.
“ “More Reign.” – I’m always up for Sam to return because there’s just so much left to do with her!”
Sam is the frenemy this series needs.
“1. She is the perfect trainee for Kara! I know Nia was suppose to be her trainee but honestly we’ve seen her work more either alone or with Brainy to master her powers than we’ve seen Kara involved with her. Being biologically Kryptonian she would have powers exactly like Kara so Kara knows what to expect from training and how to help Sam adjust possibly easier.
This is the perfect example of a rewritable plot because of new (or in this case existing) information and not have it feel out of place continuity wise; you can keep it cannon that Lena blocked Reign and she is still deep down inside Sam, but Sam is biologically Kryptonian at the end of the day so after two years at least of soaking up sun again those powers are coming back so you still get someone Kara would need to train. And yes, Sam still has powers because again biology; she’s genetically enhanced she didn’t become a different species. If she’s truly human than we need to know what Ruby’s dad was as clearly his DNA or magic effected her genetically because otherwise her species change makes no sense; if he could do that to her what had he done to others, is there a meta human out there somewhere because of him? But yeah even if you say messing with the genetic enhancements dropped Sam down to Mon level strength compared to Kara she’s still Kryptonian and would have powers that need training to fully control! Also Mon, not trained by Kara so he doesn’t count either – that was more him doing what he wanted, Winn helping him some and him getting training in the future.”
1a. Start with the basic 2 Mikes World-killer foundation. Since the three witches of MacStupid can be gerrymandered into having stolen Reign from Zor-el’s lab, we can retro con the story into a season 6 or 7 where Kara finds out that the Children of Juru are still loose and up to no-good at all.
https://arrow.fandom.com/wiki/Worldkillers
1b. Kara finds out through dormant Daddy programming that SHE is a worldkiller.
1c. Whoops?
“2. You could actually explore a different side of powers usage which a lot of series don’t which would be refreshing; you ask the questions “If you have powers are you beholden to use them?” and “What do you do when you’re scared of your powers?” then use the characters to answer them.”
2a. You go nuts. Season 3 Sam
2b. You go nuts. Season 6 Kara
2c. You go nuts. Current season Lena.
2d. Your friends beat you up and you wind inside a glass cubicle at the DEO without a lawyer or due process legal rights and a Martian lectures you.
“When trained up; is Sam’s next step mandated a suit or is it ok to say no to being a hero? Of course it’s ok to say no but that opened the door to another question in that why wouldn’t you use your powers to help someone; in Sam’s case it’s because she’s scared of Reign and thus you come to the second above question. Kara has said before her powers scared her when it came to possibly hurting people with her strength so she could teach Sam how to control that fear which again goes back to point one of what her return could present for plots. Are you always required to help someone just because you can is another question – National City has Kara and J’onn on the regular basis (we’re not counting Nia currently as we don’t know her status going into next season; she could end up in the future as Dreamer for all we know or maybe she gets her own city to protect)(I love Nicole don’t get me wrong but is Nia a permanent National City resident material I don’t know) so is Sam required to help out at every rescue while she’s being trained? This is something that can be asked for Kara also because that was another crazy comment made this season, her saying she doesn’t have time for a night off; J’onn has said multiple times he loves that skirt so why can’t he do a shift as Supergirl? It would definitely help too to stop people from wondering if Kara and her are the same person! J’onn aside is it okay at times for Kara to just sit down and let the fire department put out the fire? Yes. I know it’s not compelling TV as you want to see Supergirl saving the day but doing it once or twice a season or even every other season isn’t going to hurt her reputation I feel; it also makes your world feel real and challenges you as a writer to up the stakes. Yes Kara can assist if she wants to because I’m sure the department and owners’ of property would thank her but if she needs to be somewhere else or even wants to be somewhere else is it okay to let them do that job they signed up for?
That was one of the good things about Mon originally, he asked the question of what was so wrong with not wanting to be the hero. You can even explore how personality wise and situational wise this effects characters – Kara is single and all boundless puppy energy ready to help and bonus she has a flexible work schedule which is great, but Sam is a single mom who is responsible for running a company so she can’t always run out to save the day even with super speed and is that ok too? Sure. These are people at the end of the day also not just unfeeling machines so why shouldn’t they have time off too? Maybe that’s something Sam could teach Kara – it’s okay to take a break at times and do you Kara the person not just the powers and how does that effect Kara and the series going forward (it opens it up to be even more of an ensemble show I feel is the answer)? Now I know some may ask is that best for the series a more laid back Supergirl if you will and it’s a fair question but I’m just thinking currently of it making Kara more whole and her peak self or at least setting up peak her, she doesn’t have to be peak by the end of the season that this would all happen in, because we’re still building in a way the ultimate Supergirl when you think about it as even this season seeing again she does have a choice to take time off or not can lead to a more rested Kara so when the big things truly do come up she’s not stressing handling them as much power usage wise. Again this not me saying “Supergirl” has to become a more ensemble show where it’s that in name only but I’m just thinking Kara as a real person what’s best for her and what makes her feel the most rounded; hopefully this makes sense.”
2e. World of Cardboard is a trope.
2f. Sam needs a therapist, not training. Every fight she has had with our heroes has been a team effort to take Sam down. If anything, she should train them.
2g. Kara working with the fire department is kind of funny. As it has been pointed out repeatedly in this series, the Kryptonians are the arrogant morons who let their own planet explode under them. When they come to Earth, they tend to repeat that mistakes.
2h. As it has been made clear, when J’onn puts on the suit, SG cannot be in two places at the same time. It is background that the national guard is taking care of Black Adam while Kara deals with Spike. And of course Claymore is busy with the Dominators, too.
2i. Mon as a replacement for Blockhead, now in the Alfred role, never occurred to me. I thought that was why BUM was there?
2j. What about Ruby? Hint: Captain Comet.
https://superheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_Comet
Ruby could be a real PITA as she “evolves.” Think Denise the Menace. That would be my Sam Arias storyline, played for laughs. Aunt Alex would be heavily involved since Samvers is a lot better than Kellax from my writer PoV. In this situation, Kara would be perpetually “non-plused” Think of Nora on steroids (Flash) with boundless enthusiasm and no adult “super” vision at all.
.
“3. You have yet another opportunity to explore different ways of handling bad guys.
Again I ask was Sam maybe okay with Reign killing the gang members and does that make her a bad person for those feelings? Was Mon really wrong for renting out his powers basically to beat up guys who didn’t pay their bets? Does everyone else have to be a clean cut good guy to hang out with Kara? Clearly this last one isn’t a requirement because Alex (she murdered bad guys too show, you can’t erase a warehouse full of dead Cadmus agents from our memories that action scene was too awesome). Again these are individuals with different experiences so they’re going to respond differently at times and what comes from that. Maybe at the end of the day Sam is more like Alex in that she’s and anti hero more than hero and that’s ok because anti heroes are interesting number one for the gray content they present and two at least she’s not a bad guy because bad guys are not doing good or even trying to (in their minds they are sure but to everyone else there’s a reason they’re deemed the villains).”
3a. Sam is a take no prisoners kind of mom.
3b. Mon-el Railroad is so laid back in this series that he tends to “Whatever”.Jail or dirt-nap, he tends to follow the leader, so it will matter who “leads” him episode to episode.
Part 3 is More Reign and sundries.
More Reign on the parade.
“4. She knows Lena which can help Kara if they’re still on the plot kick of Lena maybe going evil.”
NSA.
“Lena is not evil, but this is a plot the writers love to play with so again here is someone helping Kara understand something she might not have otherwise. Not everything Sam says has to suggest ultra good from Lena because maybe even she is asked a question she’s unsure about when it comes to the woman but for the most part she can talk about how Lena does her best and helps others because she has personal experience with that. Maybe she can even reference back to season three and how even when Lena locked her up and ignored some of her wishes she can kind of understand where she was coming from in wanting to protect both sides and that being the only way she knew how; it was a jerk move for sure yes but not necessarily evil. Again anti hero characters are a good thing to embrace; heck even anti villains like Leslie is now are something to not fear because they are arguably the most interesting characters as they encompass a bit of both worlds.”
4a. How about Lena is nuts?
4b. How about Sam goes nuts?
4c. How about Kara goes nuts?
4d. How about 4a 4c. ?
4e. How about all three hoisted by the Worldkiller petard and need rescue by Team Supergirl?
“5. You could do a love triangle with her.
Let me start by saying I HATE love triangles as they are most often written poorly, one side often is written like a jerk to make the other seem better instead of the side at the time just being the better person, but I’m just saying this is a plot option as I know the series loves drama and romance. You could do a Sam/Alex/Kelly thing and use it to discuss if someone can really love two people at the same time. This show is not going to do polyamory so you’ll have to keep that to fanfiction and ALEX DANVERS IS NOT A CHEATER (she can screw up a relationship in a variety of different ways but that’s not one of them) but Sam could still bond with Alex which gives you an opportunity to show if Kelly is the jealous type or not. Again I’m operating under current season knowledge and we really know jack still on Kelly Olsen and why we should love Kelly/Alex more than other ships we have Alex in in our minds; also this assumes Kelly is even in the season Sam comes back in because for all we know she and Alex could break up over something. To the person saying “Sam’s straight” simply because of Ruby I say to you bisexuality is a thing so the plot is still in play. Also there’s the option of Sam and Alex just being really good friends if Kelly/Alex is endgame for the writers; Kara is not the only one after all who can have a friend outside of the sisterhood…I know Alex has J’onn but still you can have more than one friend. I know we aren’t crazy seeing the sisters apart put Sam isn’t replacing Kara and again she is kind of busy so one or three times out with Alex alone outside the group dynamic isn’t a huge amount of time when you look at it on a season level at the whole. If the season was all of the sisters doing their own thing again then yeah that would be too much or even 15 out of the 22/24 episodes is too much but all together them maybe having 6 (that’s three episodes each) episodes where they’re not together or part of a group hang out scene is doable.”
5a. Denise the menace storyline, so that means a Samvers at some point.
5b. Alex is a functional psychotic right now, so why should cheating be off the table?
5c. Kelly is still a “meh” to me. That is Azie Tasfei is not where Florianna Lima and Blockhead are in the Q department as blarrrghs, but seriously, compared to Odette Annabel, the one actress cannot even carry the other’s shadow for charisma, technique and camera rapture.
5d. If we go with the 3 crazies (Sam, Lena, Kara or WKs 3.0) storyline as I suggest, then you can still have a Alkelsam tripod in there somewhere with Ruby being Captain Comet sat by Alex for the Season 6 Zany.
BTW, Ruby as Captain Comet implies “imp powers” ala Mixy.
6. There’s the possibility of Reign returning and creating problems for the gang!
Again just because she’s more violent than Kara it doesn’t make Reign a bad guy writers please remember that; yes you could turn her into a clear cut villain fairly easily with the whole enslaving everyone path villains like to go but that’s lazy don’t do that. Yes this would be a repeat of season 3 to a point but let’s be honest the plot didn’t really get the attention it deserved originally. And NO using a locked up Sam/Reign as a way to give Alex a kid via being Ruby’s guardian!”
6a. Locked up Reign could actually be a WK 2.0 plot point.
6b. Ruby the rambunctious Captain Cometing all over, could be an Alex plot point.
6c. Lena with 2 WKs on her hands, (Kara goes WK nuts.) both needing “programming” could be a plot point.
6d. Lena going crazy under the strain, would be a Batgerbil type plotpoint. Also could lead to SuperCorp or as I prefer; exit Blockhead, hello Karlen.
6e. Kelly 6a. through 6d. , suddenly has a good plot reason to stick around.
“And that’s just 6 off the top of my head ideas for a possible Sam return; if you package the first four alone that’s season material especially with #5 added in. Again option six is kind of lazy so we won’t really factor it into a possible season; if I trusted the writers more to not go full villain I would factor it in but this season has hurt me in regards to their skill level so I can’t be sure that wouldn’t be the result. Sorry writers but this season has been a lot of highlight writing for plots if you will not fleshed out plotting like you’ve done in even the most crammed feeling season of season three. So yeah four solid ideas with the option for 5 from just a viewer, imagine the number of possibilities the writers could come up with on top of these.”
Referring to those ideas, I think we have a season 6 with pizzazz and adult themes. Kelly the character works best when she is tech support, and the BUM will have a lot of Alfred type stuff to do, too.
Part 4 deals with addons.
My part 4 Monty:
Aaron on March 27, 2020 at 7:38 pm
Part 2…
“ “Wait? She reported? When?” – ha, that’s fair Monty as Nia has kind of been absent from the reporting side lately. Still Nia could stare at a blank Word document and I would still say she’s more of a reporter than reporter Kara is suppose to be; to their credit they’re trying this season to make that plot really believable but I’m still not ready to call Kara Pulitzer Prize winner worthy or even a full on reporter yet.”
I’m not sure where or what Kara puts on her resume’ at this time. Supergerbil would be under “hobbies and other interests”. Dating Losers, ditto.
“ “What bothers me is that no-one has staged an intervention.” – I would love a scene of Kara using laser vision to break the alcohol bottles in a drunk Alex scene! I do wonder why Kara hasn’t said more to Alex about her benders because you can tell Kara does not like excessive drinking Alex because she worries for her physically and mentally. I don’t think Alex would ever stop completely and honestly at this point it would be strange not seeing a drink in her hand at least twice a season but she could certainly slim it down. To Maggie’s credit she actually did get Alex to stop drinking as much as she originally did so she is down but her quantity could drop some more and it was Maggie who got Alex to see she didn’t have drink her problems away every time because she went to her when she was lonely after Jeremiah’s last betrayal and physically turned Alex away from a drink to hold her and talk to her so Maggie did a lot but it’s Alex so there’s a ways to go because for most of her time people haven’t been able to get through to her over that be it because they don’t know how or she doesn’t respect them enough to listen but yeah she’s actually not as bad as she first started off so it’s possible if Kara pushed enough they could get her down to social drinker status and maybe not go to alcohol as her first choice when she’s mad. The question would be what does she replace alcohol with because talking is going to only be every so often at the start and is that replacement better or worse than drinking because that’s a thing – sometimes the “medicine” for the vice is worse than the vice depending on what’s used.”
I cannot see Florianna Lima in the role of MAGGIE as someone who discourages alcoholic Alex. I actually see that dynamic going the other way.
Kara as a character is too weak to make the impact. It has to be the BUM and Kelly.
Ruby replaces the bottle. Nothing says adult action like a kid without “super” vision. With Sam locked up and Kara, Alex has plenty of Ruby time to babysit.
“Alex/Kelly is in a better place than Kara/Blockhead.” – maybe visually but are they really? Seriously when you think about it we arguably know roughly the same amount of information on Kelly as we do William which is really nothing. Both relationships are being written for the high points instead of feeling fleshed out or earned; true Kelly is more appealing to watch because of her personality and background concept but still relationship to relationship they’re both pale comparisons to what has been shown before.”
I argue Q. Azie Tasfei and Chris Wood are a magnitude better than Florianna Lima and Staz Nair. When instant revulsion is the “through the camera”, then it matters not how many setups and “shows” are given. You cannot generate sympathy or even “belief” if the portrayer is a “yetch” or a blockhead.
“This kind of goes back to my previous thing with Sam as it’s no secret I ship Sam/Alex (yes I like other ships involving Alex but if I have to pick a current OTP it’s Agent Arias), why should I ship Kelly/Alex instead of/also in league with Sam/Alex? Why should Sanvers fans also sing this pairing’s praises? Why should viewers just coming in this season even ship them?
Yes Kelly/Alex is cannon which is GREAT! So we’re Sanvers (aka Maggie/Alex). Yes Kelly/Alex is cute together, but so is Alex with every woman you can associate her with. Yes Kelly and Alex make good friends and even clearly friends with benefits but it doesn’t make them a relationship worth putting time emotional time in.”
So cut and shoot the scenes as we discussed with Reality Bytes. Kelly/Alex can work if that is all we have. BUT given this SG writer crew, they will have to hire a Margaret Stohl (Captain Lost Her Marbles writer; Volume 8 and “The Life of Captain Marvel) or Mariko Tomaki (Supergirl; Being Super) to do the spadework, because those are the only two writers current, who have proved to me, they can write super girl type treatments which involve domestic or family situations. Of the two, I prefer MARGARET STOHL. Captain Lost Her Marbles aka Carol Danvers was written as an adult with intense family issues that very much cover alcoholics, hidden family secrets and betrayals and ORIGINS.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40919944-the-life-of-captain-marvel
“Kelly has been there a year, she started in season four as a guest which counts given she rolled into season five not returned, and what do we really know about her – she’s James’s sister, we know her allergies, we know she’s a therapist formerly with the military and her fiancé was killed…that’s it; and half of those are things that have been told not really shown. Again at the least please let Kelly use her shrink skills on all these characters they could use it! We see her being cute with Alex and that’s really it because sadly she’s not being a therapist currently and she’s more lip service for the VR plot than feeling weightily involved, that’s something literally any recurring guest star/ extra of the week could do; we’re invested in Alex being happy but not really the relationship in that case.”
Well, if we followed the real world consequences of what should happen with Kara, Alex, Sam, BUM (as of this episode), Lena, Nia, Braindead, Andrea etc. . We should have a mileage meter on Kelly’s couch. She doesn’t have to hustle patients, they should be in a long line at her door.
“I know there are fans who are loving Kelly/Alex which I’m glad for you, but I’m left asking for myself why should I be invested currently? I was more invested in Sanvers and I definitely only emotionally committed to that relationship by 20% because the shadow of Kate/Maggie looms large. Sanvers was another I more watched for the individuals than the dynamic together.
I know some love Kelly/Alex because it’s a main relationship featuring a queer person of color, but my counter is Maggie is Latin so that’s not a new thing debatably. It’s great visual representation wise don’t get me wrong but it’s not a reason to ship Kelly/Alex if I was already into Sanvers. Just comparing them with Sanvers, we saw Alex slowly flirting Maggie and then doing couple things even if the scene was five seconds long; with Kelly/Alex (I refuse to call them Danolsen because we had that in season one with James/Kara) we see them kissing and smiling at each other but it’s all hollow in comparison because that’s all they do, yes they had the cute breakfast scene where we learn about the allergies but that was one scene and there’s no real flirting – the most flirting we’ve seen with them that I can remember is when Alex pushed her against the wall for protection and said “Hi”. We saw Sanvers meet Maggie’s exs; when is the last time Kelly mentioned a friend much less we met them? I will give her a pass on talking about her fiancé as that’s probably painful still but you can talk friends. We saw Maggie her self deal with her father…where’s that for Kelly? Yes she’s spent time with her brother but again just speaking for myself they had tainted James’s character so much by the time Kelly came in I wasn’t invested in those scenes so again she doesn’t have the emotional credit built up with me Maggie did. Kelly probably had a better experience than Maggie with her parents, thankfully if so, but still you can show me her helping former military people; we kind of got that with Sean Austin’s appearance but it wasn’t really her friend so it kind of only half counts, Kelly’s emotions and response count but the story doesn’t if that makes sense. We’ve seen Maggie be a cop, again it feels like forever since we saw Kelly be a shrink! Maggie and Alex talked about futures together, we have yet to see Kelly and Alex do that yet; I get not moving fast but it’s been a year, someone can ask the other what do they want in regards to their future in five years and keep it general if they don’t want to ask where do you want this relationship to go.
Kelly’s treatment feels again like the highlights version of something where as Maggie felt like a full presentation so it’s hard to invest in the character and thus her dynamic with Alex especially when their relationship compared to just Sanvers is highlights versus full project.
Going back to just their ship name for a moment, Danolsen, I think that’s part of what’s stacked against Kelly/Alex – it feels like a make up for how badly James/Kara was handled at the end. It may not be fair but that’s what if feels like kind of and thus keeps me from being 100% with them even if I could get excited about shipping them.”
Well… You are not going to sell Florianna Lima to me, either professionally as an observer of the medium, or as a mere audience viewer. I detest her acting that much.
“Comparing Kelly/Alex to Agent Arias (aka Alex/Sam), while Kelly has been on the show longer their screen time is probably roughly the same but still they did more with Sam in half a season basically than they have Kelly all season and I know that’s because Sam is Reign but they could do more with Kelly this season but they haven’t, again where’s therapist Kelly. It makes me care for both members of the possible pairing not just one. I spent all of season three and the hiatus and even part of season four shipping Agent Arias because I’m invested in the potential of them together so again there’s emotional connection where as with Kelly/Alex I haven’t gotten that yet because Kelly is just a love interest basically now. Yes Kelly/Alex is cannon so there is that over Agent Arias but I can’t ship them because emotions. I’d like to ship Kelly/Alex as it would give me something to be excited for with this season but the emotions just aren’t there sadly because Kelly is sadly very one dimensional now. ”
Okay with that. I mean if the connection is not there, it is not there. I think that Azie Tasfei has a chance to sell it, based on her work with Chyler in this episode, but it was just this episode, so we will have to see if you can be convinced to commit to it and if I can be convinced 100% that this is not a fluke event.
End of Part 4.
Saying that Alex/Kelly being together is a way to make up for James and Kara being ended like it was is actually a pretty fair assessment in my opinion. I still and will always maintain that introducing Kelly as James’s sister was not necessary
A reply to you is found at the end of this conversation Daryl! I just wanted to leave this here to let you know. 🙂 I’m just trying to keep the newest comments easy to find. 🙂
Aaron on March 27, 2020 at 7:41 pm
Part 3…
“Why not Mon?” – because the writers ruined that character for me in season two basically Monty and then season three was just the nail in the coffin for sure. Mon will always be to me someone who just wanted in Kara’s pants because despite how many times he said he wanted to be a hero he never tried really, actually he did once of course but in the larger scheme he didn’t try until he absolutely had to for plot – he just wanted in her pants. He never listened to her when she did ask something of him, see her saying to wait telling everyone in which he proceeds to tell everyone and her saying to let her handle Leslie but he and James run off thinking they know better as example, and then he comes back and will not let her mourn the relationship like she needs to because he only seems to care about how he feels. That marriage plot rewrite BS aside again Kara asked him for space and what did he do – slide up to her each chance he got; he might have made a decent friend for her but relationship he’s toxic for Kara. Add that to the massive amount of screen time he got for no earned reason and Mon is just a no go for me. They would have to do a total reboot on him and even then I think it’s too soon for me because I remember how poor Mon was handled it was that bad; let Chris come back as Adam Foster, I’ll take that – everyone wins there as Chris can return and plays a better character (assuming they don’t screw up Adam then writing wise) to which Kara actually had a possibly healthy relationship with and who wasn’t boring as all get out unlike William who may be the perfect example of ultra good characters sometimes being boring compared to others.”
Not everyone can agree on everything. I have a more detached view of the Mon-el Railroad character because I saw the background of Fop, Political Marriage, Hedonist, and jerk established and evolved. It was true that he was after Kara and not in a good way when the Saturn Girl plot elements showed up. the term “scuzz bucket” crossed my mind when I wrote some of those episode feedbacks. But in subsequent events when he did appear to counsel Kara, he offered some “sage advice” and that was enough to show me the jerkitude story required had worn off with the character. We will never see this character transformation with Staz Nair, who is written as a “gentleman” but who comes through the camera as a future candidate for a police line up in a domestic violence dispute. His “Q” is that awful and I mean not just for me, but for a good % of this show’s audience.
“To be fair I actually did like Mon I’ll admit for 3 episodes when he first came on the series because I loved how he challenged Kara’s ideas on things such as power usage and maybe the Kryptonians weren’t as awesome as she thinks but they quickly had him just lusting for the inside of her pants so that basically destroyed him to me.”
That was writer mandated and not the actor’s fault,. If one went “Ugh” when Chris Wood played the part, it proves he could play that role as intended.
“The suit being a stand in for bruises is a neat point Monty; I still feel it’s blue in part because that’s a Supergirl color and black because Alex likes it and so you get the mix here but emotionally showing bruises as a wardrobe nod is deep and well done sir. Alex not growing up is arguably a fair point, but I get it from her as she’s locked herself away so much until recently she kind of missed those growing up years. She shut down emotionally to a degree losing Jeremiah and not really dealing with that that when he returns of course she reverts back to her teen self. She repressed her sexuality for a decade at least so of course she’s got the first love, kid gloves relationship with Maggie – it is her first really invested emotionally relationship! You could spend a whole season on Alex if you opened that can emotionally as it where…to bad there’s not a shrink around for character introspection. *cough* GIVE US THERAPIST KELLY! *cough*”
That is an interpretation. I might agree, except that the whole cast’s parts was written like they collectively were adolescents. Note the way Dave Harewood played the BUM this episode? Subtle was out, and teenager impression (Alex PoV.of Hank/J’onn as she sees him inside her psychotic event.) was in. So that is a reinterpretation of what I think McKiernan and Harewood were after in those scenes and failed to convey.
This actually spills with Harewood over into the Leviathan B story with how the Insane Clown Posse (including Kelly and William) went Clue Hunting. Adults are not that stupid. (Well; Braindead apparently is.)
“Leigh equaling “Lee” is a pretty common thing here Monty so I forget others can see it as “lay” like Sleigh as you suggested.”
Ben-oh-ist. It depends. Asp-rid-stra. You make your correct choices based on your phonetics training.
Ben-oist… Asp-rah-dis-tra.
It is like rode-day-oh and road-ee-oh.
Mine is American Midwest, French and Latin. Others have a different schooling.
Just depends.
Monty
That’s definitely a bummer about the production assistant!
To be fair “Batwoman” does have a Pennyworth in the series, she’s just too busy kicking butt herself to dust anyone’s anything. Ha.
No to Sam going nuts!
“so why should cheating be off the table?” – because it goes against her being a loyalty based person; Alex is dedicated to those she loves so cheating would not make sense to her character. Secondly, cheating is lazy writing to create drama in a relationship; just tell the person you’ve moved on emotionally – you don’t have to sleep with someone else or even be emotionally with someone else for them to get the picture.
If Kelly was the mandated shrink for this crew she would be there for the rest of the series with their amount of issues! Oh how nice it would be to see…Kelly using her abilities to help characters grow, it just makes me feel warm inside! Sadly we’re just told she’s good at her job instead of seeing it. 🙁 I invested intrigue into Kelly for the shrink plots writers not coding tech Kelly; coding Kelly is again an extra of the week level plot moment and if she’s someone who’s going to be intertwined with main characters for a long period of time I’m going to need more with her. Yes visually Kelly/Alex is cute together but I want more than just a five second cute moment with them – where’s their discussion over which holidays they like and or don’t? Where’s their talk of a future together? How do they deal with disagreements; do they disagree or are they one of those couples who just never fight? I want some meat on this plot bone not just a delicious picture of what it might be.
“I think that Azie Tasfei has a chance to sell it, based on her work with Chyler in this episode” – I agree; Azie can be charming and make you care for Kelly as much as we care for Alex’s feelings over the relationship if they’d just give her something to do as Kelly but the problem is they haven’t for some reason. Kelly came in billed as this former military therapist who wasn’t going to be put off easily by this group shutting her out if she tried to help them and she crushed on Alex, and to the writers’ credit we kind of saw pieces of that in season four/early season five, but most of Kelly’s stuff has been highlights level only romance moments and her as a program technician which was not the profession of hers they sold me originally thus Kelly has gone from “Hmm” (interesting possibilities) to “Meh” (I feel any character could do your job both as a love interest and in solo character plots). 🙁 This is one of those times where it’s definitely not on the actor, Azie is doing her part to make Kelly enjoyable, but she’s being given nothing to really do – she just feels there; again even if Kelly is just a love interest now let me see that and her working that plot don’t just show me her snuggled up to Alex for 10 seconds or even 5 minutes saying everything picture perfect…again meat not just a picture of the meal.
Chris’s acting was fine as Mon, I particularly loved some of his early comedy stuff as the character because I thought Chris did a good job in that area, but this is another case of the writers just mishandling a character so much I can’t ever see myself being excited for Mon to be on a series. Well I take that back, I would cheer his return because it means feeling something more than just meh watching a season but I would quickly go back to hating him because the character annoys me so much with his attitude as written and the way he behaved and the fact he never apologized to Kara for some of his behavior. Just as you’re not team Floriana I just can not do team Mon; I don’t know if I can even be outside of the ballpark of team Mon, they annoyed me highly with the character decisions in season two and three.
Aaron on March 28, 2020 at 9:51 pm
“That’s definitely a bummer about the production assistant!”
I included the incident to show that sometimes show runners should be called out for safety and work practices. Their evident set safety protocol carelessness in what is still A HAZARDOUS INDUSTRIAL PROCESS, cannot be excoriated enough.
“To be fair “Batwoman” does have a Pennyworth in the series, she’s just too busy kicking butt herself to dust anyone’s anything. Ha.”
Julia Pennyworth is an ongoing Batwoman character who was invented in 1981 by Gerry Conway, and Don Newton.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pennyworth
She is actually older in continuity than Kate Kane.
“No to Sam going nuts!”
Sam has gone nuts, once before. She is technically in remission.
“ “so why should cheating be off the table?” – because it goes against her being a loyalty based person; Alex is dedicated to those she loves so cheating would not make sense to her character. Secondly, cheating is lazy writing to create drama in a relationship; just tell the person you’ve moved on emotionally – you don’t have to sleep with someone else or even be emotionally with someone else for them to get the picture.”
We have seen Alex do other things, supposedly out of character, (misunderstanding her friends, being mind controlled, hitting the sauce, still a current problem, etc.) and frankly anyone stuck with Florianna Lima’s character, as written, SHOULD cheat just to get away from that nut-job character she portrayed.
“If Kelly was the mandated shrink for this crew she would be there for the rest of the series with their amount of issues! Oh how nice it would be to see…Kelly using her abilities to help characters grow, it just makes me feel warm inside! Sadly we’re just told she’s good at her job instead of seeing it. I invested intrigue into Kelly for the shrink plots writers not coding tech Kelly; coding Kelly is again an extra of the week level plot moment and if she’s someone who’s going to be intertwined with main characters for a long period of time I’m going to need more with her. Yes visually Kelly/Alex is cute together but I want more than just a five second cute moment with them – where’s their discussion over which holidays they like and or don’t? Where’s their talk of a future together? How do they deal with disagreements; do they disagree or are they one of those couples who just never fight? I want some meat on this plot bone not just a delicious picture of what it might be.”
Liberal arts majors should not write science. Then again with more emphasis, liberal arts majors who are illiterate in the mechanics of fiction, should not write fiction; period. The problem is that the SG writers show me that they cannot do either, at all well. If one is going to write Kelly, she is either a psychologist or she is a medic, but software coder, she is not ever and she should not be represented as such. But there is an even bigger more universal problem and it is one I usually avoid mentioning, but here I will dive into it, briefly, because it is a matter of perspective.
Explanation:
This TV medium is visual about 90% and for the level of least common denominator audience targeted, subtle or accurate depiction is not an achievement sought. Instead a feel for the moment, scene by scene, goal is at what most TV writers aim. That they miss so often to meet even that minimum standard of TV entertainment on Supergirl, in this specific case, says a lot about the incompetence in the writer’s bullpen and among the story editors as compared to say The Flash, Batwoman, or Black Lightning, but that is just me being grumpy about this show and asking WHY this show cannot meet the Berlanti mean averages. YMMV on this aspect of the show. (Derek Simon is THE EXAMPLE of what is wrong in this specific case, but look at a certain producer who seems to still story and message meddle despite a “hands off” alleged situation.) . With the Kelly/Alex storyline as a specific case, “cute” is about the level desired and is regarded as the mean achievable by these writers. “Giggly-girl” is that level of audience LCD and that is a big problem for anyone with a little more investment in the characters or the “art” of the show.
Remember William Shatner’s famous line to the Star Trek nerds? “Grow up, it is just a TV show.” I have to approach it objectively that way, despite my love of the Supergirl character.
I am not going to sugarcoat the evidence in the TV show produced that “I” see. The showrunners do the least they need to do, to sell their sponsors’ products to their targeted demographic audience, though what insurance and Supergirl have in common, or what a mediocre series of overpriced badly designed and built automobiles or some frankly extremely dangerous feminine hygiene products either escapes me or has me shaking my head at that other scale of marketing incompetence demonstrated on the revenue side, too.
Badly delineated characters and poorly plotted storylines and average production values invested is the norm for Supergirl. No avoidance possible. Since it starts with the writers and ends there, one puts the blame for the Kelly character we get… there. The production crew can only do what the money and the writers give them. We have seen the production crew do miracles with scanty money and resources (Alex in Wonderland is a technical example.), but again the actors given nothing (Leviathan B story.) or the Kelly character development, just have nothing to make craft with. Or we get stiffs like Blockhead, who should not even be in the show at all, because they do not even have the tools and techniques to act and make it impossible for actors like Azie Tasfei to even try to portray what is asked of them.
“ “I think that Azie Tasfei has a chance to sell it, based on her work with Chyler in this episode” – I agree; Azie can be charming and make you care for Kelly as much as we care for Alex’s feelings over the relationship if they’d just give her something to do as Kelly but the problem is they haven’t for some reason. Kelly came in billed as this former military therapist who wasn’t going to be put off easily by this group shutting her out if she tried to help them and she crushed on Alex, and to the writers’ credit we kind of saw pieces of that in season four/early season five, but most of Kelly’s stuff has been highlights level only romance moments and her as a program technician which was not the profession of hers they sold me originally thus Kelly has gone from “Hmm” (interesting possibilities) to “Meh” (I feel any character could do your job both as a love interest and in solo character plots). This is one of those times where it’s definitely not on the actor, Azie is doing her part to make Kelly enjoyable, but she’s being given nothing to really do – she just feels there; again even if Kelly is just a love interest now let me see that and her working that plot don’t just show me her snuggled up to Alex for 10 seconds or even 5 minutes saying everything picture perfect…again meat not just a picture of the meal.
Chris’s acting was fine as Mon, I particularly loved some of his early comedy stuff as the character because I thought Chris did a good job in that area, but this is another case of the writers just mishandling a character so much I can’t ever see myself being excited for Mon to be on a series. Well I take that back, I would cheer his return because it means feeling something more than just meh watching a season but I would quickly go back to hating him because the character annoys me so much with his attitude as written and the way he behaved and the fact he never apologized to Kara for some of his behavior. Just as you’re not team Floriana I just can not do team Mon; I don’t know if I can even be outside of the ballpark of team Mon, they annoyed me highly with the character decisions in season two and three.”
Uhm… yeah, but who gets the blame? We have an episode where Azie Tasfei actually is given something for the Alex A story, (Mariko Tamaki is the main writer.) and then we get the B Leviathan story. (Blockhead is forcibly featured and that one is mainly the SG writer bullpen; including the story editors who gave us that piece of trash through the word processor.)
See what I mean?
Monty
“being mind controlled” – this is against someone’s will so I don’t think it should be counted Monty as the whole point of it is to make someone act differently than they normally would.
“hitting the sauce” – she does this willingly, again not out of character as it’s been a consistent for her since the pilot. Loyalty has also been something we’ve always seen from her so again – not a cheater.
I liked Maggie myself; she’s realistic in her skill set – as a detective she figured out Kara is Supergirl without being told so that’s more realism than Lena has sadly gotten, she always knew better than to intrude on sister time, she was there but didn’t feel like she was hogging any screen time unlike Mon in season 2 especially, she got Alex to put down the bottle at times which was major character wise, and she stood up for herself at the proper times.
To be fair, I can buy Kelly working with the coding team on how to make the machine interact with brain waves and telling them what responses could occur if things were received a certain way but Kelly is NOT a computer programmer so all these scenes of her talking tech I’m just like “Why?”, that’s not why Obsidian hired her.
I’ve really only watched DS9 as far as “Star Trek” goes Monty and I’m not a big Shatner fan so that portion is just a miss for me, but taking the comment as a standalone no matter who makes it I find it disheartening I have to say. It may be just a paycheck to him but for others it’s providing feelings for something they might not otherwise have that week; it’s creating a fandom for people to connect and it’s providing a story that can make you think. If it was “just a show” then why should anyone even bother with TV? There are other mediums one could explore for escapism such as video games or books (including comics). I don’t know the context in which Sharner said that but I do not like the quote; you don’t have to do fan ideas as a person involved in the production of something (you should consider them at least because you never know what ideas they could breed) but you should appreciate their passion and care for you product as at the very least it keeps you employed.
The thing is though “Supergirl” was not like this always, previous seasons showed they could write plots and at the least set up plot potential but season five has felt like as you said the bare minimum and I’m just left asking why. Is it because they had to work in Crisis so this is kind of a throwaway season or is it because they changed writers in the staff and they just aren’t as good as previous one ups? Why is this a season of highlight moments to plots when even the worse season for most, season four, had potential for Red Daughter and more meat to it? Sure there’s not as much meat arguably to things as their were in seasons 1 and 2 but still it felt things were more fleshed out than we’ve seen certainly post Crisis reboot.
To Daryl: I’m not saying Kelly and Alex together is an unspoken apology for James/Kara and how poorly the writers handled that, seriously team it wouldn’t have killed you to have them date 2 episodes even before realizing they’re better as friends – you can still do Mon/Kara then if that’s what you wanted, but again I’m not going to argue with anyone who feels that way because I can definitely understand their feelings.
I’m not saying two sets of siblings who are friends can’t date, but the fact we had a Danvers/Olsen pairing before that was cut off so fast for no explained reason that had at least 80% of the fandom asking “What the crap?! Didn’t they just agree to date?” and then years later we get another matchup because one sibling is single currently – it’s going to bring up memories.
I can give the writers points for trying to fix a mistake they made, but that’s not going to make me ship Kelly/Alex just because I may or may not have shipped their siblings. For the record, I did not ship James/Kara because to me James always felt like he was more into being with Supergirl than Kara but if I had again it’s not going to make me ship Kelly/Alex instantly because it’s a repeat of that pairing. Kelly/Alex is not a replacement for Kara/James; the writers need to show me why I should ship Kelly/Alex because they feel kind of bland compared to others who haven been shown before them.
To your point about Kelly being James’s sister feeling unnecessary, fair; I mean let’s not forget James never even mentioned Kelly until season four when she was going to come in as a character anyways. When sisters are the heart of your series why wouldn’t you mention a sibling if you have one as a character, they give you plenty of opportunities, unless they’re a random addition or did something really bad like J’onn’s brother? They could have used James’s not talking about Kelly as a parallel to the sisters’s dynamic to show not everyone is close, sure by this point you already had the Luthor siblings in that area but they don’t own the market on siblings who don’t talk for some reason; maybe they could have said James never mentioned her because she stopped talking to him after he didn’t show up to their dad’s funeral, it would show sometimes you don’t have the full story to things which was kind of a theme in season four with some plots and show even shrinks can have issues.
Just thinking about it now, how many times has Kelly talked about James post him leaving? Don’t get me wrong I’m all for them treating her as the individual she is on the main (90% at minimum should be about her), but she’s also his sister so every now and then she can throw out a memory. This was literally an episode where you had Alex refusing to go to a funeral, they could have had Kelly mention him here; yes it wasn’t his fault he missed it like she was choosing to do but Kelly could mention how much that haunted James or even talk about how she wish she had the extra support so if Alex wasn’t going for her she could at least go for Kara. If she never mentions James again while she’s on the series then yes what is the point of her being an Olsen because she could be called Kelly Johnson and literally nothing changes majorly with her character – she can still help James in season 4 and 5 and be Alex’s love interest in season 5.
Oh man, now I have a weird feeling they’re going to use Kelly as James’s sister (and Alex’s love interest) to explain why Kelly gets to know Kara’s secret but Lena couldn’t…like “Kelly is an Olsen not some random person or a Luthor so it’s totally safe to tell her” when again individuals – just because brother is cool with it doesn’t mean sister is the cool with it. Kelly is also a nice person it seems so yeah I can see them saying she needs to know and can be trusted because of who she’s with more than Kelly earning it individually like Maggie did, “I’m a detective Danvers, I detect.”. And logically Kelly should still not know Kara’s secret or have a reason to be told because it’s not like she’s jealous of Alex’s dynamic with Supergirl or asking why Kara is always running out and how she gets back so fast so yeah Kelly should still be on the Doesn’t Know list. If they let Kelly off because she’s an Olsen or Alex’s girlfriend I hope fans rain down fury on the writers because that is such a cop out when in season two you had Kara signing Lena’s praises and saying each week she’s not her family!
And they better not have Kelly’s reveal be off screened like “Oh it’s ok Alex and Kara told me last week at game night” because that deserves fury too if so, that is the mega reveal for characters on the series you have to show that each time!
Sigh, and now I’m back to feeling frustrated when it comes to Kelly because they could do some interesting character stuff with people via her and her shrink abilities but she’s just there doing plots that aren’t her billed job (she’s a shrink not a coder) and she’s just kissing on Alex which yes cute but does not a relationship make. Give me Kelly talking to Lena because Lena needs the friend right now and heck maybe even Kelly agrees with some of what Lena says and how does that effect dynamics with others! Give me Kelly shrinking people at Obsidian or even helping at the DEO (Alex not being there doesn’t stop her from being there) with someone because that is the job you sold me for her and that’s the one I find interesting not the coding job that any extra of the week could do. Let me hear Kelly talk more about her past because it relates to the villain of the week or the person who’s in trouble or something because again Kelly feels very one note especially in season five. If it wasn’t for Azie’s charm then Kelly would sadly be as boring I feel as William is this year. 🙁
“Oh man, now I have a weird feeling they’re going to use Kelly as James’s sister (and Alex’s love interest) to explain why Kelly gets to know Kara’s secret but Lena couldn’t” this would absolutely not be surprising if they went this way
If they use this Daryl then I’m returning to my edited rating scale because that’s just insulting to Lena! The highest they will get is an 8 because treating Lena like she’s stupid deserves two points off at minimum – one for each glass lense in those glasses they said blinded Lena. I get Lena being blinded by work and such at times but she’s not that blind all the time, Kara is pretty crap on her lies to cover up things and even if you believed those after three wars of seeing Kara up close and Supergirl wouldn’t Lena go “Hey wait a minute?” at least because they look similar?!
Also if girlfriends got to be in the know again why wasn’t Lena told – she dated James. She’s as good a person as Maggie or Kelly as far as we know because again all of season two Kara raved about her so it can’t be that’s a limiting factor. There’s just no reason for Kelly to know and Lena not in my opinion; maybe if Kelly was getting jealous of Alex’s relationship with Supergirl because she saw them being close I could get maybe telling Kelly but at the same time it’s also fair to argue shouldn’t Kelly trust Alex because you can’t have a relationship if you don’t trust so that’s not a good enough reason to tell her because you could replace Supergirl with any girl Alex was buddy buddy with in that situation and the result be the same, you need a specific reason to tell Kelly or anyone if they don’t figure it out themselves and that reason has not come up yet.
Nor has there been anything that should tip off Kelly to Kara being Supergirl if Lena couldn’t figure it out so don’t try that move writers; if Lena couldn’t figure it out on her own Kelly shouldn’t, someone should tell her and again there’s not a good reason for that right now!
i think no reasonable person ever thought lena and james would last. plus remember how distrustful james was of lena in season two. an absolute travesty to suddenly make them a romantic pairing the very next season. as i have often said before, kara’s problem is that she lets too many people get inside her head about revealing her secret to lena. alex and james for example. if you just have kara go ahead and tell kelly that raises the same issue as if kelly had figured it out on her own. why couldn’t lena figure it out on her own? why couldn’t lena have been told the truth? they’ve been jerking us around with is lena evil or not since season two and it’s stupid
“I think no reasonable person ever thought Lena and James would last.” – agreed; he trash talked Lena way too much in season two for me to ever buy them as a romance! I’m just saying if Kelly gets to know simply because she’s dating Alex then Lena should have been told because she dated James and was considered Kara’s BFF after Alex. We all know Lena not being told was just to manufacture drama sadly because there’s no reason she shouldn’t know with Kara championing her like she did in season two and even if you keep it quite because you think it’s keeping her safe then Lena should still know because she figured it out like Cat did because Kara is crap at cover stories. Ok the writers want to say Lena missed things at times because she was busy, that’s fine but she didn’t miss 3 years of things – again she’s been up close and personal with Kara and Supergirl multiple times and Kara may can change her looks to a degree but she doesn’t change her voice, her attitude, or even looks that much (she’s not in a full body suit) so Lena should AT LEAST go “Wait a minute”. Even if they used J’onn for the doubles trick again they couldn’t keep that up for years so Lena would catch them at a point.
They can say whatever they want at this point, I don’t accept Lena as evil because it’s manufactured and a clear rip off of Lex’s plot which is lazy if they do make it cannon. Is Lena gray? Yes, but so is Alex and they’re better for being treated as such because they add depth to things when the writers aren’t afraid to embrace that!
If Lena is evil then so is my beloved Alex Danvers because she too has broken laws to achieve an end goal she thought was for the betterment of the world at large – see her assault on Cadmus in “Exodus” or her locking up Max because she felt it was better for Kara which helps the world. If Lena is evil then so is Winn because he too had an evil family member and that’s how it works right – if you’re family is evil you’re evil? *eye roll* If Lena is evil then Mon is evil because his family were dictators basically and he didn’t stop them until the 11th hour as it were; there’s no reason to have a “battle for Lena’s soul” when they didn’t have to battle for their souls. Winn has been in how many stressful situations…Mon was lied to how many times by his mom about things and they’re still good so Lena should be good!
Again this goes back to the rating Kara like Clark I feel, they’re trying to do Lena like Lex but it’s not working for fans because Lena isn’t Lex just as Kara isn’t Clark; yes it’s less dramatic having a Super and Luthor be friends but it’s more refreshing to watch which is something and they can still disagree on topics at times for drama just as any character can disagree with another but it doesn’t make Lena evil for that. Can I buy Lena would lash out at Kara if pushed too far, sure but I don’t buy they got to this point organically and that’s frustrating! Lex is evil because he wants to kill people who get in his way and control things for his own gains – Lena doesn’t want to kill anyone and is trying to help everyone thus they aren’t the same.
There is never a moment in the entire show where Winn doesn’t have the complete love and support of his friends after it’s revealed who his father is but God forbid Lena gets the same courtesy.
i wanted to bring up your excellent point about kara being bad at cover stories. it’s ridiculous. for kara to be this bad at lying when she spent so many years doing it even before the series premiere is very insulting. remember how she stumbled over the simple question of where she was from in the pilot when she was on that date? there is no reason she wouldn’t have an answer just waiting for a question like that. it’s insulting to her intelligence that they still have her being so bad at coming up with excuses
Aaron on March 30, 2020 at 12:41 am
This reply has a fantasy versus reality theme, Aaron. Bear with me, for I shall wax philosophical as I discuss actors and writing choices. You will also get a lot of Shatner and a little Avery Brooks and Patrick Stewart and Kate Mulgrew.
“ “being mind controlled” – this is against someone’s will so I don’t think it should be counted Monty as the whole point of it is to make someone act differently than they normally would.”
That is the whole crux of Myriad and Obsidian North. That mind control or the surrender of free will, (I mean the theme is even inside the Agent of Liberty Liberty insurance agent storyline, If you think about it.) is being out of character for supposedly strong independent characters as Alex is supposed to be,
“ “hitting the sauce” – she does this willingly, again not out of character as it’s been a consistent for her since the pilot. Loyalty has also been something we’ve always seen from her so again – not a cheater.”
Hitting the Sauce is surrendering to a drug and abandoning mental clarity and objectivity. Surrendering to a VR fantasy, ditto. It is part of that theme of addiction… which equals enslavement to a anodyne when pain is part of the price one pays for freedom. It is a cheat to escape the pain which is the feedback loop part of living in the objective case.
“I liked Maggie myself; she’s realistic in her skill set – as a detective she figured out Kara is Supergirl without being told so that’s more realism than Lena has sadly gotten, she always knew better than to intrude on sister time, she was there but didn’t feel like she was hogging any screen time unlike Mon in season 2 especially, she got Alex to put down the bottle at times which was major character wise, and she stood up for herself at the proper times.”
So you might have forgiven manipulative Maggie, overbearing Maggie, clinging Maggie, dominating Maggie, user Maggie, selfish Maggie, Maggie who sought to deny Alex the one thing Alex wanted as the character was written? Plus Florianna Lima as an actress just oozed WRONG through the camera to me. I disliked that character and the actress intensely. Almost as much as I dislike Blockhead and for the same reasons, now that I think about the comparisons.
“To be fair, I can buy Kelly working with the coding team on how to make the machine interact with brain waves and telling them what responses could occur if things were received a certain way but Kelly is NOT a computer programmer so all these scenes of her talking tech I’m just like “Why?”, that’s not why Obsidian hired her.”
That is fair, and reasonable; except that even as a psychologist Kelly, is written as an incompetent character.
“I’ve really only watched DS9 as far as “Star Trek” goes Monty and I’m not a big Shatner fan so that portion is just a miss for me, but taking the comment as a standalone no matter who makes it I find it disheartening I have to say. It may be just a paycheck to him but for others it’s providing feelings for something they might not otherwise have that week; it’s creating a fandom for people to connect and it’s providing a story that can make you think. If it was “just a show” then why should anyone even bother with TV? There are other mediums one could explore for escapism such as video games or books (including comics). I don’t know the context in which Sharner said that but I do not like the quote; you don’t have to do fan ideas as a person involved in the production of something (you should consider them at least because you never know what ideas they could breed) but you should appreciate their passion and care for you product as at the very least it keeps you employed.”
First, Shatner is an objectivist.
Second, there is a range where being a fan, a fanatic and a fantasist is. A fan can be someone who is a casual viewer or a committed supporter who will take the time to enjoy stories and characters, for the sheer enjoyment of what if. The stories can teach (see my comments about the continuing theme on Supergirl about surrendering your free will to an addiction, a stimulus, a group, a cult, etc..), and the characters can entertain. But the fan knows the difference between reality and the play. It is that pain remember? The fanatic crosses the line and seems to think he owns a version of what is presented and complains when for example RicK Berman screws up the Roddenberry vision of a better future with his own interpretation of the material.
I am a fan, so I can separate the two visions presented and argue with objectivity that the character of Jean Luc Pick A Card Any Card is Patrick Stewart portrayed as an indecisive moral coward and an utter incompetent, who makes Captain Lameway, portrayed by Kate Mulgrew, who is considered a terrible captain character to be positively outstanding by comparison. I happen to like Kate Mulgrew as an actor in her craft and I just shake my head at Patrick Stewart, whose acting is frankly overrated in my opinion.
The fanatic Star Trekker gets it into his head that he owns the show and will hound the creatives and the actors about minutiae which writers and actors will forget maybe a week after an episode is produced. How the HELLO is William Shatner supposed to know how the fake as all get out Tholian Web operates? His job was to act a leading man role and be the star of a show that will sell cars or soap-flakes. He worked on a set that was made out of wood and cardboard with a troupe of extremely talented actors, a production crew who knew what they did, and portrayed stories written by a stable of some of the finest mid 20th century writers in American literature. And the show still flopped in its first run through.
So after a couple of decades, if he has a bunch of fanboys dressed up in costumes inspired by the show, and he gets stupid questions at a publicity appearance he might bring a little of that pain called REALITY to bear.
The fantasist goes beyond that level of neurosis into bat-guano crazyville. He or she thinks “it is real” or should be real. Again, I will say a part of the Supergirl TV show writing theme is this warning message about people who meander into that state of confusion where what is real and unreal becomes indistinguishable. Reality Bytes and Alex in Wonderland are bookend episodes that try to laser in on that theme with “mixed” success.
“The thing is though “Supergirl” was not like this always, previous seasons showed they could write plots and at the least set up plot potential but season five has felt like as you said the bare minimum and I’m just left asking why. Is it because they had to work in Crisis so this is kind of a throwaway season or is it because they changed writers in the staff and they just aren’t as good as previous one ups? Why is this a season of highlight moments to plots when even the worse season for most, season four, had potential for Red Daughter and more meat to it? Sure there’s not as much meat arguably to things as their were in seasons 1 and 2 but still it felt things were more fleshed out than we’ve seen certainly post Crisis reboot.”
Well… The problem is that the writers are just not good enough and the subject characters are difficult.
Sterling Gates or Geoff Johns “could” help with it; but to be honest, Supergirl and the Krypton myth is just not something as accessible as The Flash or Stargirl, who are more modern Midwest America and which is something which Sterling Gates learned by living it and Geoff Johns whose Stargirl character is based on his own sister tragically killed in her prime actually KNOW in their real life experience.
To write the Supergirl character as a subset of Superman, one needs to know about the Greek gods, about the Moses story, the European immigrant coming to America, about New York City, about what the Kansas myth is to a 1930s New Yorker, one has to have those experiences or that education and one has to have a deep in the gut understanding of 20th century “scientific fascism” which IS the Krypton myth. The kind of living breathing understanding that Otto Binder and Al Plastino had. They knew the basic fundamentals because they lived it.
To cite Star Trek again. Judy Burns and Chet Richards with help from D.C. Fontana were able to imagine a story and teleplay about unreal rock creatures who fly spaceships. They are the Tholians who resemble in fictional behavior space spiders of the real world trapdoor variety. They were a plot McGuffin, the threat to be handled while the real problem of a missing Kirk was resolved. ALL of it is formulaic writing around the missing person in the coal mine problem hidden inside this science fiction setting. I suppose you could compare it to a 1950s film “Them” which was about giant ants. Similar plot with the ants being the McGuffin and the missing kids in the LA sewers the missing person in the coal mine.
That was the episode about which Shatner was asked that stupid question about the Tholian Web. Who cares about how the web supposedly worked? A fan might have asked Shatner, if he had any problems being stuck in that dopey spacesuit costume he had to wear. That thing must have been like a sauna suit under all those lights. A fantasist asked about the web.
Anyway, you watched Deep Space Nine with Avery Brooks portraying Captain Psycho.. er Sisko? Best actor and best captain character in the best Star Trek series in that whole mythos. You have good tastes, Aaron.
Monty
“Maggie who sought to deny Alex the one thing Alex wanted as the character was written?” – I’m assuming you mean the child, correct me if I’m wrong; by that standard you could say Alex was forcing Maggie into something she didn’t want in turn. The possibility of a child is something that should have been talked about long before any rings came out – this was a practical reason to break up but a poorly timed one by the writers and we didn’t really get the full scope of each character’s side because they were trying to meet a deadline (Maggie had to be gone by episode 5). I don’t fault Maggie not wanting kids just as I don’t fault Alex for sticking to her guns of wanting them so no I don’t see this as an issue with the character.
“for example Rick Berman screws up the Roddenberry vision of a better future with his own interpretation of the material.” – how? Again I only really know DS9, that Riker’s beard is the sexiest beard ever and who so of the TNG cast are, and that Kate and Jeri were on Voyager.
“So after a couple of decades, if he has a bunch of fanboys dressed up in costumes inspired by the show, and he gets stupid questions at a publicity appearance he might bring a little of that pain called REALITY to bear.” – maybe it’s the attitude which I assumed the statement had Monty that makes me be against him saying it in part; ‘It’s just a TV show’ has this air of not caring which if he doesn’t care fine, but the fact is others do because it effected them beyond a paycheck. He could have said ‘That’s more of a question for the writers; I just acted in the scene’ or ‘That was a really long time ago, I don’t remember’ and ask the fan to remind him of details so he can maybe give an answer that has a bit more care to it. Again I don’t know Shatner but the comment just sounds to me kind of dismissive and I don’t like that; no matter what level of fan they are they still helped keep him employees and continue to support him in ways even decades later so maybe you give them something more than ‘It’s just a show’ especially if you’re at a convention where you’re being paid to do the panel. I may still be missing things on this but I still don’t like the comment.
“To write the Supergirl character as a subset of Superman” – this is part of the problem in regards to staleness I think, they’re writing Kara like Clark basically and Kara is not her cousin. Yes they have similar DNA because they’re family, yes they have the same powers because they were effected the same way coming to Earth, yes both have a desire to be heroes because of their powers and yes both have adoptive parents but that’s basically the end of their similarities; Kara has a sibling in Alex – Clark is an old child, Clark grew up in a rural community – Kara while leaving in Midvale suburbs is more urban than him, Kara remembers Krypton personally – Clark doesn’t, the Kents are all Clark has ever really known as far as family – Kara remembers people, Clark left Kara with the Danvers because he didn’t want to raise her – Kara tries to hold on to everyone she can because she clearly has abandonment issues, Clark punches first and questions later – season one Kara learned to use her head also which made her arguably a better hero, Clark now if you want to factor in Tyler’s version story is going to be a parent – Kara is single and childless, Clark works pretty much alone – Kara embraces teammates and these are just off the top of my head simple quick comparisons. THEY’RE DIFFERENT PEOPLE! So the fact they write Kara as a female Clark at times with the same rip off job, a job she never mentioned once caring about until they tried to force that plot into being, and the same teased Luthor experience (Lena is not Lex writers just stop it) is just a bummer. I miss season one Kara who yes hated people using Kryptonite because it sucks for her when she gets close to it but she wasn’t naive about the protection it provides when she’s not around…you want to limit who has access to it for safety sure go ahead but to say it shouldn’t exist feels naive and it’s something she wasn’t until Clark came in during season two and started turning her into his puppet/shadow. Kara gives you the opportunity to explore things in ways that are new, see “For The Woman Who Has Everything” and how her remembering Krypton and those she sees adds organic drama to the moments even though we know she’s coming back because there’s more episodes to go, but sadly she’s acting more and more like her cousin and it’s boring. I don’t want to watch Lex-Clark part 900 via Lena and Kara, I want to see them making it work and how they handle the times when they do disagree with one another; if Lena becomes “boring” to the writers because they can’t manufacture that repeat plot then send Lena away but you still for a moment did something new with a Luthor and Super and that’s a good thing. Reporter Kara is not organic to the character, it might be the most lame excuses ever by season five but I’ll hear those rather than her saying she won’t a Pulitzer on her first go; there are other jobs at CatCo she could do to have time away and even if there were she always has friends running the place so it’s not like she’s going to be held to a time clock like Cat originally had her…promotions jumps to my mind as Kara can be out of the office when she needs but there when they do meetings to help an actual reporter in Nia with cases. I’m not saying they can’t nod to the Superman histories with moments and villains but I do ask why are you starting to copy it so much?
Bringing in Eve or filming a scene that copies a scene from one of the Donner Superman movies is one thing, but bringing in Lex who is Clark’s bad guy is another. Yes he’s related to Lena so there is that but he’s been around for almost a year now, how about you focus on our Luthor and what she’s doing instead of him? If you want a Lex but not do Lex because it’s again Clark’s big bad there’s Maxwell Lord who was left off on a cliffhanger with the Omegahedron – being that back for some callback wrap up plotting! Kara is NOT Clark, she responds in different ways because she has different memories and experiences from him…even if their responses were similar to something or even the exact same opinion it doesn’t mean on the whole they are the same and I wish they would remember that. Again instead of rip off reporter plots give me CatCo promoter Kara who has to deal with the possibility of hurting CatCo because she missed an important meeting or because she did something others viewed as risking; Kara loves CatCo let her protect it like she protects the city. Have her admit without Kryptonite they may not have saved Sam because she couldn’t beat Reign in a straight up fight. There’s so many fresh takes on the super stuff you could do with Kara that it’s sad to see Clark repeats. Kara has her own movie, video game versions, cartoon versions, a “Smallville” version, and comic books to pull from too you know writers so how about working with those and nodding to them more also? Kara Danvers is NOT Clark Kent!
“Who cares about how the web supposedly worked?” – future/current writers who want to world build, future engineers/current engineers who turn something fantastical into something practical be it a trap in reality or something inspired by it used in another application (see the communicators inspiring wireless communications or replicators 3D printers), or future props crew wondering how it worked on a mechanical level in order to build the practicality for screen. I’m going to assume the fan meant it in a “this is real, how does it work” way to which again maybe he’s working on something story wise and wanted to know for research purposes; bottom line I think Shatner could have just passed the question off as saying it was something he needed to ask the writers or he doesn’t remember because it was so long ago, something more than just dismissing the fan’s passion.
I was recommended DS9 by a friend Monty so I can’t say I chose it originally, I was watching other things when it was originally on, but I do love how Sisko is affectionate with his son and wish they’d show that with more male characters and their kids and I highly appreciated his realism for the position of Captain as he would come back to rescue you if you were trapped but first he had to take the 100 aboard home because he couldn’t risk 100 to save 1 at times and that felt very real. Again I don’t know about all the captains through franchise history but he may be my favorite just for his realistic choices to the position he is in; again though not everyone responses the same so I may enjoy a cavalier captain at times too but it turn maybe that’s why I like Sisko because no everyone is cavalier and after years of seeing cavalier choices him being realistic felt new and exciting in its own regard. Sisko is not my favorite character from the series though I have to say, that would Kira! I just find her stuff to be so engaging to watch because it always made me think on the story they told and there wasn’t always a right or wrong answer to some situations with her; she rarely apologized for choices she made which was refreshing again and her stuff just seemed to be the best written when they did character centric plots. She feels like she grew the most arguably while not becoming a totally new character in order to do it like what happens at times with characters come series end; DS9 on the whole was really well handled I thought. I personally could have done without Worf coming on as that’s when the series dropped in quality for me, he sadly basically invalided Dax’s character because Klingon knowledge was her speciality, but on the whole I enjoyed watching the series even now (I just finished a series watch this year so it held up for me).
Aaron on April 5, 2020 at 9:57 am
More replies.. Supergirl and Shatner.
“Maggie who sought to deny Alex the one thing Alex wanted as the character was written?” – I’m assuming you mean the child, correct me if I’m wrong; by that standard you could say Alex was forcing Maggie into something she didn’t want in turn. The possibility of a child is something that should have been talked about long before any rings came out – this was a practical reason to break up but a poorly timed one by the writers and we didn’t really get the full scope of each character’s side because they were trying to meet a deadline (Maggie had to be gone by episode 5). I don’t fault Maggie not wanting kids just as I don’t fault Alex for sticking to her guns of wanting them so no I don’t see this as an issue with the character.[/quote]
It was obvious to the Showrunners that Florianna Lima was a stinker and she needed to be soap operaed out. I think that it was editorial mandate to find an excuse to jettison the Maggie character. The child storyline appeared out of nowhere and it turns out this forms a good story excuse to exit Maggie and make use of Florianna Lima’s unlikeability for drama. This at least makes mechanical writing sense to me.
“for example Rick Berman screws up the Roddenberry vision of a better future with his own interpretation of the material.” – how? Again I only really know DS9, that Riker’s beard is the sexiest beard ever and who so of the TNG cast are, and that Kate and Jeri were on Voyager.”
Ehhh. That gets into the deep weeds. Basically Roddenberry created a Wagon Train to the Stars with the Feds as liberal progressive pioneers exploring a new frontier in a Kennedyesque vision of optimism. Berman’s Trek is the Feds as actual totalitarian no brains at all dogmatics who practice an aggressive imperialist fascist type of society with imposed groupthink. Our way or the highway, Klingons.
“So after a couple of decades, if he has a bunch of fanboys dressed up in costumes inspired by the show, and he gets stupid questions at a publicity appearance he might bring a little of that pain called REALITY to bear.” – maybe it’s the attitude which I assumed the statement had Monty that makes me be against him saying it in part; ‘It’s just a TV show’ has this air of not caring which if he doesn’t care fine, but the fact is others do because it effected them beyond a paycheck. He could have said ‘That’s more of a question for the writers; I just acted in the scene’ or ‘That was a really long time ago, I don’t remember’ and ask the fan to remind him of details so he can maybe give an answer that has a bit more care to it. Again I don’t know Shatner but the comment just sounds to me kind of dismissive and I don’t like that; no matter what level of fan they are they still helped keep him employees and continue to support him in ways even decades later so maybe you give them something more than ‘It’s just a show’ especially if you’re at a convention where you’re being paid to do the panel. I may still be missing things on this but I still don’t like the comment.”
Steven Ditko (famous comics writer.) is the father of Objectivism in DC and Marvel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ditko
Shatner is rather like him. “I do not suffer fools gladly.” As I wrote, Shatner had played the game for 20 years and he just snapped.
“ “To write the Supergirl character as a subset of Superman” – this is part of the problem in regards to staleness I think, they’re writing Kara like Clark basically and Kara is not her cousin. Yes they have similar DNA because they’re family, yes they have the same powers because they were effected the same way coming to Earth, yes both have a desire to be heroes because of their powers and yes both have adoptive parents but that’s basically the end of their similarities; Kara has a sibling in Alex – Clark is an old (only) child, Clark grew up in a rural community – Kara while leaving in Midvale suburbs is more urban than him, Kara remembers Krypton personally – Clark doesn’t, the Kents are all Clark has ever really known as far as family – Kara remembers people, Clark left Kara with the Danvers because he didn’t want to raise her – Kara tries to hold on to everyone she can because she clearly has abandonment issues, Clark punches first and questions later – season one Kara learned to use her head also which made her arguably a better hero, Clark now if you want to factor in Tyler’s version story is going to be a parent – Kara is single and childless, Clark works pretty much alone – Kara embraces teammates and these are just off the top of my head simple quick comparisons. THEY’RE DIFFERENT PEOPLE! So the fact they write Kara as a female Clark at times with the same rip off job, a job she never mentioned once caring about until they tried to force that plot into being, and the same teased Luthor experience (Lena is not Lex writers just stop it) is just a bummer. I miss season one Kara who yes hated people using Kryptonite because it sucks for her when she gets close to it but she wasn’t naive about the protection it provides when she’s not around…you want to limit who has access to it for safety sure go ahead but to say it shouldn’t exist feels naive and it’s something she wasn’t until Clark came in during season two and started turning her into his puppet/shadow. Kara gives you the opportunity to explore things in ways that are new, see “For The Woman Who Has Everything” and how her remembering Krypton and those she sees adds organic drama to the moments even though we know she’s coming back because there’s more episodes to go, but sadly she’s acting more and more like her cousin and it’s boring. I don’t want to watch Lex-Clark part 900 via Lena and Kara, I want to see them making it work and how they handle the times when they do disagree with one another; if Lena becomes “boring” to the writers because they can’t manufacture that repeat plot then send Lena away but you still for a moment did something new with a Luthor and Super and that’s a good thing. Reporter Kara is not organic to the character, it might be the most lame excuses ever by season five but I’ll hear those rather than her saying she won’t a Pulitzer on her first go; there are other jobs at CatCo she could do to have time away and even if there were she always has friends running the place so it’s not like she’s going to be held to a time clock like Cat originally had her…promotions jumps to my mind as Kara can be out of the office when she needs but there when they do meetings to help an actual reporter in Nia with cases. I’m not saying they can’t nod to the Superman histories with moments and villains but I do ask why are you starting to copy it so much?”
Supergirl storylines.
https://www.cbr.com/best-supergirl-storylines-ranked/
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Supergirl_Storylines
Basic Kara characteristics;
-Religiousness.
-Loneliness.
-Pining for love.
-Patriotism.
-Fear.
-Father love.
-Rage.
-Compassion.
“Bringing in Eve or filming a scene that copies a scene from one of the Donner Superman movies is one thing, but bringing in Lex who is Clark’s bad guy is another. Yes he’s related to Lena so there is that but he’s been around for almost a year now, how about you focus on our Luthor and what she’s doing instead of him? If you want a Lex but not do Lex because it’s again Clark’s big bad there’s Maxwell Lord who was left off on a cliffhanger with the Omegahedron – being that back for some callback wrap up plotting! Kara is NOT Clark, she responds in different ways because she has different memories and experiences from him…even if their responses were similar to something or even the exact same opinion it doesn’t mean on the whole they are the same and I wish they would remember that. Again instead of rip off reporter plots give me CatCo promoter Kara who has to deal with the possibility of hurting CatCo because she missed an important meeting or because she did something others viewed as risking; Kara loves CatCo let her protect it like she protects the city. Have her admit without Kryptonite they may not have saved Sam because she couldn’t beat Reign in a straight up fight. There’s so many fresh takes on the super stuff you could do with Kara that it’s sad to see Clark repeats. Kara has her own movie, video game versions, cartoon versions, a “Smallville” version, and comic books to pull from too you know writers so how about working with those and nodding to them more also? Kara Danvers is NOT Clark Kent!”
Supergirl villains…
https://www.ranker.com/list/best-supergirl-villains-of-all-time/ranker-comics
Probably the most powerful and dangerous of Kara’s enemies is the Anti-Monitor who kills her in Crisis of Infinite Earths. Next most dangerous is Nekron (the devil) who she kills in Hell no less. The most worthy enemy is Blackstarr. Most formidable of the modern villains is Reign and her pirates.
“Who cares about how the web supposedly worked?” – future/current writers who want to world build, future engineers/current engineers who turn something fantastical into something practical be it a trap in reality or something inspired by it used in another application (see the communicators inspiring wireless communications or replicators 3D printers), or future props crew wondering how it worked on a mechanical level in order to build the practicality for screen. I’m going to assume the fan meant it in a “this is real, how does it work” way to which again maybe he’s working on something story wise and wanted to know for research purposes; bottom line I think Shatner could have just passed the question off as saying it was something he needed to ask the writers or he doesn’t remember because it was so long ago, something more than just dismissing the fan’s passion.”
The first rule of science fiction is to show the magic works and leave it to the audience to figure it out. The second rule of science fiction is that you work out the magic for yourself and trust that your explanation will serve the needs of the story for you. For example I can speculate that the Tholian Web is a fractalized rearrangement of emergent space-time.
If you see a communicator, you imagine how it works and then you invent the cell phone which is a walkie talkie/computer hooked up to a web of radio nodes which is a part of a distributed networks.
“I was recommended DS9 by a friend Monty so I can’t say I chose it originally, I was watching other things when it was originally on, but I do love how Sisko is affectionate with his son and wish they’d show that with more male characters and their kids and I highly appreciated his realism for the position of Captain as he would come back to rescue you if you were trapped but first he had to take the 100 aboard home because he couldn’t risk 100 to save 1 at times and that felt very real. Again I don’t know about all the captains through franchise history but he may be my favorite just for his realistic choices to the position he is in; again though not everyone responses the same so I may enjoy a cavalier captain at times too but it turn maybe that’s why I like Sisko because no everyone is cavalier and after years of seeing cavalier choices him being realistic felt new and exciting in its own regard. Sisko is not my favorite character from the series though I have to say, that would Kira! I just find her stuff to be so engaging to watch because it always made me think on the story they told and there wasn’t always a right or wrong answer to some situations with her; she rarely apologized for choices she made which was refreshing again and her stuff just seemed to be the best written when they did character centric plots. She feels like she grew the most arguably while not becoming a totally new character in order to do it like what happens at times with characters come series end; DS9 on the whole was really well handled I thought. I personally could have done without Worf coming on as that’s when the series dropped in quality for me, he sadly basically invalided Dax’s character because Klingon knowledge was her speciality, but on the whole I enjoyed watching the series even now (I just finished a series watch this year so it held up for me).”
That, too, is why I liked Captain Psycho. I kind of liked Kira Nerisse, too.
More SOUR news department.
Supergirl will have a shortened season. Next broadcast is May 3, 2020. Season final is May 17, 2020.
It looks like the next 3 episodes are being recut and edited to fit a shortened end of Leviathan story plan. That might be a good thing because I think that season 5 has been a consensus YEEEEECCCCCHHHH, for some of the viewership.
Speaking only for me, and it is only my biased opinion; I hope to see the return and further development of Azie Tasfei and her character, and the instant elimination of Staz Nair, as William Day, as a cast member of this troupe.
I think we may see Jon Cryer as a return recurring for season 6.
Summing up Season 5, so far?
https://i.ibb.co/R44MXPQ/Alex-Rocket-1.png
Have a great one.
Monty
i wonder if they’ll put the deleted scenes in future episodes. they’ve done it before
“There is never a moment in the entire show where Winn doesn’t have the complete love and support of his friends after it’s revealed who his father is but God forbid Lena gets the same courtesy.” – ????? Well said Daryl (sorry for spelling your name wrong all those times before)!
I’m all for Lena and Kara disagreeing over things because that’s realistic just as it’s realistic sometimes Alex and Kara fight over things and I can even take Lena doing some shady stuff in the name of what she thinks is good because again see Alex but a “battle for Lena’s soul” – why; she’s not Lex or Lillian…that’s what makes her unique.
I guess this is just story screen filler because this season is a throw away season for actual “Supergirl” content so they’re kind of just doing whatever they want the freebie season because Crisis was actually the focus for everyone and since we weren’t really involved in it like “Flash” or “Arrow” the fallout feels extremely random to our series so this back half of the season is just really having to address Crisis but not really caring about it if that makes sense? Again the battle for Lena’s soul is a joke plot wise for a majority of the fandom because we don’t buy her as anything but the good yet sometimes misguided human that she is (just like Winn or Mon can be), Lex is Clark’s main villain not Kara’s, Andrea and Leviathan feel just tossed in at times to remind people they’re still there – same goes for Kelly, William is not a serious relationship in any fans’ mind, and the main characters are just kind of going through the motions it feels because you have some repeating plots they’ve already outgrown (see Alex as J’onn’s assistant) and others doing plots because they’re the plot of the week not because they feel like earned choices. Had we seen Megan’s Brainy tell Brainy what happens in her time right even show him via some tech then we could get him helping Lex but just hearing he has to doesn’t feel like an earned choice and now it’s hard to have sympathy for him having doubts about his decision. Things like this for me is why season five has been the worst season of the show in my opinion – there’s just nothing to be excited by really beyond a few moments and the acting quality.
You can do plots again where Kara and Lena are fighting over choices that one made, that’s fine, but treating her like she’s Lex is BORING and cliche as everything. If they wanted to do female Lex for this series they should have just introduced Lillian alone and left it at that.
In regards to Kara’s skills of lying, I think they’re just rolling with what was established at this point and how at first it was seen as cute some of the lies she got away with because they were so bad and thus there was this built in drama of will she screw up and be outted because of it but now it’s just frustrating to see because it insults others intelligence. Granted there are plenty of characters who don’t know Kara or who don’t see her every day who would buy the cute poor quality lies but someone like Lena who gets “I flew here on a bus” should suspect something else is up. At the least have her say she borrowed Alex’s bike because they are fast so driving quickly on one aka flying to a location is possible but a bus no; also fair point she should of had Midvale ready to go as a response to the question of where she’s from and it’s not even a total lie because she did live there before coming to National City so she’s from Midvale. Again I get the charm at times of the bad lie working so they can play with it still but sometimes it’s so bad and a character who shouldn’t buy it is being told it that it’s frustrating when they do and legitly buy it instead of doing like Cat and storing it as evidence for later; bottom line, do better writers. We’re not saying you can’t play with this or that toy ever again just know your characters’ position – every day CatCo employee is not going to question Kara’s lies because they’ll just chalk her up to being weird because they only know her at the office and she’s always been flighty to them but some genius level character like Lena would AT LEAST say that’s not a correct statement she made and give her a look.
So yeah you can still do the humor of bad lie quality but that tension of her being outed because of it needs to come back with characters who are suppose to be observant or genius IQ.
“Supergirl will have a shortened season. Next broadcast is May 3, 2020. Season final is May 17, 2020.” – I thought 5×17 was airing April 26th? That’s the date they have listed in the released promo trailer. I can’t say I’m surprised by this, I assume all the CW superhero shows will be edited down this season – “Flash” especially as they were behind the others even in being finished before the virus put a pause on things, because they don’t know at this point when they can resume filming; they could go back next month or they could go back closer to the end of the year – no one knows yet what will happen!
They can just save the extra episodes as some for season six’s opening if they don’t involve Leviathan or use filmed scenes in another episode as flashback moments so it’s not a total waste on time spent.
Sadly I agree this has not been the show’s best so viewing wise I’m ready to get to some new content and hopefully season six will be more “Supergirl” and less Lex and crossover fallout focused! I know they’ll probably do some crossover content with “Batwoman” since the universe heads have said they are the new Oliver and Barry friendship for the DCTV universe but I hope we don’t do another Crisis level event where it basically wastes another season on trying to factor in things only to still have gaping holes involving moments. Bright side: maybe this extra time will give the writers time to really bring their A game back or heck even their B game…do bette than season five concepts and writing; they can rewatch season one to remember it’s cannon in the world just like season 2-5 are, they can read Supergirl comics for ideas or watch her in animated and live action versions for some story stuff instead of just reskinning Clark’s concepts. If they can work better for Kara (see “For The Girl Who Has Everything”) then ok try it but having Lena be Lex because Luthors and Supers fight no that’s cliche. Look at Powergirl stuff too for inspiration because that’s a version of Kara also!
You could do something with Huntress as a guest star of the week, maybe via a crossover team up two parter since she’s based in Gotham with Kate but is friends with Kara in the comics as Powergirl – you like nodding to things writers there’s a nod that’s Kara centric and links to “Arrow” if you bring back Jessica to play her; I know Alex is pretty much Helena minus the suit as is (I know fans and even Chyler see her as a stand in Batgirl but she’s more Helena Bertinelli than Barbara Gordon) but you could still bring in actual Huntress for some fun and nods. I’m telling you Melissa’s facial expressions as Kara would be priceless in a scene where Alex warns Kara to stay away from Helena and Kara informs her Helena is a school teacher and anyways Alex did *insert something crazy here* last week so she’ll be fine. 🙂 You can cash in on how Huntress was arguably the best part of the Harley Quinn movie and how people want to see her origin film now at the least.
Or you could work on some dark sides to Kara because while she’s 90% light yes there’s some darkness in her too and she has down moments like everyone, don’t be afraid to embrace character depth! So yeah maybe there’s some good to come writing and story ideas wise from this extra time.
Again it’s a bummer but not surprising and at least we know the show is renewed so we don’t have to worry about this effecting that side of things!
“Speaking only for me, and it is only my biased opinion; I hope to see the return and further development of Azie Tasfei and her character, and the instant elimination of Staz Nair, as William Day, as a cast member of this troupe.” – YES to no more William, he can’t be can’t be gone fast enough for me as I too found him extremely boring to watch and the relationship forced!
Yes also to Kelly continuing so we can see if she and her romance with Alex are going to really work long term or not.
Give me Alex and Kelly talking about the future in their scenes together and again don’t be afraid to have them disagree on things! In fact give me at least three times in the season where they do disagree and show that sometimes they’re just going to disagree and how do they handle that with at least one of the three times they work on a middle ground resolution to the topic because that’s organic content and organic content is good. Have cute kissy moments but mainly give us meaty relationship bits.
Give me shrink Kelly! Every character in the season should have mandated Kelly as their therapist scenes! You can start with Kara at the start of the season as it lets Melissa sit down and rest (she is pregnant after all depending on when you film and recovering from having a baby if you film post birth) and then do J’onn or Alex mid way through and Lena at the end – it doesn’t have to be all at once but I want Kelly doing the job she was brought here for and that involves giving us character backstories and growth or not and how does that effect them and diving in deep on concepts, I know it can be done writers I’ve seen season 1, 2, and watched Sam’s content in S3 so you have no excuse to not include it. It doesn’t even have to be stereotypical person on a couch therapy scenes or can just be them talking and her offering advice but again bring on shrink Kelly; also no Kelly in the field, not everyone has to fight to be a hero.
If Kelly is going to be a repeat of her season five self however then I have to vote she goes too because Kelly has been pointless this season sadly.
“I think we may see Jon Cryer as a return recurring for season 6.” – God I hope not; I am beyond over Lex on this series! Jon plays him well so as is often the case acting is not the issue; for me Lex is too much Clark’s villain to ever feel like he should be on the series longer than he has, he’s been on for a year now that’s good enough (again we have Lillian and Maxwell Lord we don’t need him). This just adds to the vibe of “Supergirl” feeling like a gender swapped Superman show and Kara is not her cousin that’s the beauty of doing her as a show – she will and can do things he won’t do, you have more freedom with her and yet sadly she has felt like a copy of him recently and it’s been a bummer to see. Again please rewatch season one writers where yes Kara is similar but she’s not a copy of Clark’s; she has her own dynamics with people and her own opinions and ways to handle things like Kryptonite. Nods to content are cool and all but she just feels like a copy almost now and that’s not cool.
I thought Lillian and lex were supposed to team up. Unless I read that scene completely incorrectly. They forgot about that just like they forgot about Maxwell Lord. Lena is only as smart as the writers say she is. I think too many people forget that
“Lena is only as smart as the writers say she is. I think too many people forget that.” – including the writers? I say that because Lillian said Lena is the only one smart enough to get into Lex’s vaults because he coded them for her and even Lex has said Lena’s mind rivals his so why is it they know who Kara is with very little work put into thought on it but Lena can’t figure it out even though she spends every day with Kaea almost and they don’t. CONTINUITY MATTERS!!!
It’s because they’re too in love with drama and stringing Lena and by extension us along on their second rate Smallville copied story line
Hello Maid of Steel Podcasters: Still hiccupping from laughter Monty here.
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/supergirl-season-5-episode-17-review-deus-lex-machina/
Well… if you read the parallel review you will get a tangential treatment of how I saw this episode. It was another attempt to tie together, the disjointed confused meandering Leviathan, Obsidian, and Lena-Kara storylines into a Lex did it all machination to kill Kara super-plot.
BLAARGH.
Lamebrain Lex woos and seduces Eve Teschmacher to make her his tool to spy on Leviathan to use them as a misdirect and eventual kill-ex mechanism for Kara. Part of Lex’s scheme is to off Jerimiah Danvers in a three for one.
a. Kill Kara’s dad.
b. Give Supergirl a revenge motive against Leviathan, cause Lex is a blabbermouth with his twisted version of truth, justice and the American way.
c. Give Eve a strong dose of negative reinforcement when he dumps her romantically. Nothing says you gotta toe the line, like the snitch telling you that you killed Supergirl’s dad and he’s going to tell her if you step out of line.
You get rather much the same deal for the Sun-eater subplot. Misdirect, toe the line and maybe sabotage the Supercorps and as a bonus maybe produce a super corpse. Like most of Lamebrain Lex’s plots, this one will blowback hard if the sun-eater… eats the Sun. Lillian Luthor is the chess-playing comedy relief this episode, pointing out Lex’s continuous planning gaffes like this one.
Callbacking to the childish behavior of many of the principles from Reality Bytes and Alex in Wonderland, I begin to wonder when the adults will show up and time out these kids? I mean the petulant Lena this episode is upset that her BFFF (Best Fouled-Up Female Flummox) Kara is using Myriad on Braindead’s sayso after Lex lies him into making the suggestion to find the warehouse full of weirdos.
“I can’t play with non nocere as long as you use Myriad to jam it! WAH!” Cue the childish tantrum…. “So I’m going to turn the sun-eater loose. Double Wah!”
Here’s a hint. Supergirl, when, Big Useless Martian, Blockhead, Alex Love Squeeze 2.0, and Braindead tell her Myriad is the only way to find the Leviathan/Obsidian warehouse victims, says; “I don’t think that is a good idea.” If you have a flash of adult insight, Kryptonian, that tells you as if a little birdie landed on your shoulder; “the four biggest idiots you know and your insane sister, who just came back from a trip to crazyville are telling you to do something, DON’T DO IT!”
It is bad writing like this example and the wastage of yet another episode to try to backfill plotholes with exposition and explanation instead of tying the overall disjointed episodes together with an overarching tale that makes Season 5 a big pile of steaming brown goo.
By the way, how did Melissa Benoist do with this Katie Rose Rodgers and Brooke Pohl (assistant to Robert Royvner and protégé) toilet paper script based on Lindsay Sturman’s cockamamie story? Fair to poor result it is. The episode was jerky with sudden scene shifts and character PoV transistions that were off time and probably the result of taking two episodes and trying to smash it into one forty minute mélange a botch alibi for season 5 so far. Camera work was “fair”.
If you get the feeling, that the show-writers gave up after they screwed up episode 10 and said among themselves, “We’ll fix it all by using Jon Cryer and blaming it all on his Lex Luthor character.”
Whatever the HELLO they thought they could do, it turns out they Zack Snydered themselves into the Supergirl Season 5 equivalent of Fatman vs Super Numb; Dawn of Just Awful.
LENA!
Rate it for stupid… er Acting, Directing, Writing… 2/2/0 out of 5/5/5.
Signed Monty