Here's What I Think About The Supergirl Pilot

Full disclosure: I was totally not interested in watching this because that first trailer was just terrible and totally didn't captivate me; seriously this is first trailer and I don't know why they thought it was a good idea (well maybe they didn't because they released a much better recut of it soon after). Now that is out of the way let me say that this is a very ok pilot and if it tweaks a few things then I could see it being a show that I would watch on a consistent basis.

The pilot starts off with the standard Superman exposition ( exploding planet, sent to Earth, blah blah) but from the perspective of Kara so you'll get a glimpse as to why she was sent to Earth and you get to meet her new family, the Danvers (Which is her actual alias in the comics..or was..idk continuity is a funny thing in comics). Fast forward some years and she's living the normal life until an unexpected event puts her on the path towards becoming Supergirl. It's nothing groundbreaking in terms of plot but it manages to not make it feel too similar to Superman's origin and I gotta commend it for that. For starters, Kara already has the powers of Superman and is an adult so we get to see her use those gifts pretty immediately as she uses her super hearing to hear her boss approaching or flies towards a falling plane (after a less than stellar date). I should mention that there is a ton of parallels between her and Superman in this pilot but it's expected because she's his cousin; what I didn't expect was the fact that they didn't actually say his name at all. Seriously, there is no mention of Clark, Kent or Superman anywhere in the pilot and I don't know if that is because of legal reasons or if they really

Her beams are blue because..different?
Also blue burns hotter so yay science!

wanna hammer in the fact that it's not about him but it was very awkward to constantly refer to Supes as "him" "he" "your/my cousin"...like wtf just say Superman, you're Supergirl and he's Superman, it's easy.

As far as the action goes it's effects heavy with her flying all over the place and punching people like 30ft back through walls and stuff, it's more Flash than Arrow in terms of fights so you can decide if that is good or bad. The acting wasn't anything mega spectacular but pretty much none of the superhero shows have super awesome acting in their pilots or series (except Daredevil) and the costume design is on bar with that of Flash and Arrow and I liked those so that's a plus. The inclusion of the DEO is something  that I thought was a natural progression of things since her cousin (dammit not I'm doing it) already exists here and governments always have secret anti alien groups, although I am bummed that it wasn't Director Bones because how cool would that have been? Really cool...it would have been really cool. The other characters in the show are obvious archetypes but again pilots normally do that and expand upon each character during the season; Jimmy Olsen is the obvious love interest, Cat is the cold hearted businesswoman who will most likely get a heart sometime this season, that one IT guy who makes her suit is the friend who is in love with her but it's totally unrequited, angry black military/government official will be cold but respect you in his own way; the gang is all here.

See? That would have been so cool but no they got a normal human

Ok let's go over what I didn't like. Right off the bat I was amazed at how fast the show moved and I'm not talking about her aging to adulthood either. The whole episode just felt rushed, she uses her powers, reveals her identity to her IT work friend, he makes her suit, she stops like...1 and a half crimes and boom the DEO is already capturing her and then she's fighting this dude and then has a total character arc in like 4 mins. It was just too quickly paced and I wished they would have allowed for more development to happen before her big battle at the end. Speaking of the battle, my god I get it she's a woman superhero, I understand that Supergirl is not Superman and is in fact a woman with superpowers, you do not need to beat that point over my head so much. I mean yes for a large portion of comic book history the audience it reached out to was men and being the first female superhero show since Wonder Woman is a huge thing but less is more here. I know you might think I am overreacting but there are scenes in this pilot that I felt were absolutely unnecessary like Kara losing it over the name Supergirl and damn near losing her job over it, the evil dude being like really sexist, the "because she's a girl" part which completely missed why the general said she wasn't strong enough (hint:she was getting her ass kicked), random lady talking about how Supergirl being the first woman hero would give her daughter a role model (I'm assuming aside from her). That last one really bothered me, not because I have something against female heroes, because we have no knowledge of this universe. A little background, the producer for this show is the same producer of the Flash and I remember reading talk about how they would be in the same universe since they would be doing a crossover, now if that were the case then I could see the big deal about Supergirl since the other heroes of notoriety are males; however, if this is it's own separate thing then the only other hero is Superman so saying she's the first female hero seems weird because it's not like there are a million other heroes running around..it's just her and her cousin..idk that just bothered me, GIVE ME CONTEXT SUPERGIRL

Basically this is one of the pilots that if it gets a full order will have some stuff to tweak if it wants to work in the long run but it does have potential. I obviously found a few things that I personally think drag it down but they don't drag it so low that I wouldn't recommend a watch. It does try a bit too hard a times but once they get a rhythm going I feel as if it could be as good as the Flash or Arrow truthfully. So yeah, you can either wait until November and catch it on CBS or use totally legal means to watch an "advanced" copy of it and see for yourself what's coming out in the fall.