This extended "first look" at the character in the new series is … not encouraging. The whole ditzy yuppie vibe of her civilian identity is just awful, not helped by the over-the-top boss lady and just a generally way overdone rom-com feel of things.
That said, there remain glimmers of hope. Not every hero has to be grim and gritty and tormented. The heroic coming-of-age tale is a fine theme to work with. If the threats look pedestrian (and the SFX not all that impressive), it's still early days yet. And the lead actress comes across as an appropriately likable person.
Still, the stuff outside of being a hero is going to make or break the show. And that part isn't promising at all. I'll probably give it a couple of episodes, but right now I'm not feeling like giving it anymore than that.
If this show is about as good as "Buffy" I am in. There need to be female heroes as well as male heroes. Glad you are going to give it a chance.
The showrunners have earned an incredible amount of goodwill from me over the past few years, and Supergirl is one of my favorite characters. I feel pretty good about this.
+Randy Patton If it's as good as Buffy, I'm way more than "in." I'm just not seeing it from this "First Look."
+Theron Bretz You are correct that there is a solid team here. I hope what they produce is up to par.
+Dave Hill You, sir, are an optimist.
+Dave Hill I think you missed the entire point of her acting like that. I see it more akin to how Clark acted like a yutz so no one realized he was this strong, confident, nearly invincible superhero. If he acted too much like Superman, everyone would figure it out. Same goes for her; while she may not be "Supergirl" yet, I like that huge difference between personas, and it will lend itself very well to when she does don the cape.
+Dave Hill This, uh…. looks awful.
To offer a slightly different point of view to some of the comments, this first look had everyone in my household (from 44 to 4) giving each other high fives and making sure we could get it on Hulu as soon as it came out.
+Scott N You could well be right. The problem is, it's such a cliche that it's hard to see past it.
+Theron Bretz can you catch me up on what other shows this creative team has worked on?
This review of the preview nailed it for me: http://io9.com/first-supergirl-trailer-really-does-feel-like-an-snl-pa-1704310980
'Oh no, someone took the Black Widow SNL sketch and turned it into a real series. CBS just released its first trailer for the Supergirl show and it is so depressingly paint-by-numbers we had to list the cliches off. But halfway in, it gets better.'
Arrow and The Flash.
+Dave Hill Maybe, but you could also look at it like… She's just figuring herself out. She's young,and maybe a bit of a nerd/awkward type, and as she comes into her own with her powers and abilities she'll become more confident. I'm going to hold out until I see the entire episode, but I think it will work well for what they need it to be. Kara has almost always either been really reckless and petulant, or like this.When she is the other way I find her even more childish and annoying, acting more like a spoiled brat than anything. This version is more like Clark in my view, which could be fun. As long as while she is in her Supergirl persona she isn't pathetic, I'll be happy with it. She should stand on her own and not rely on someone else saving her too much, and I think that'll be solid.
The vibe I get is, "What if Superman from 'Man of Steel' WASN'T raised by sociopaths?"
+Theron Bretz oh, it's the same team? Well then I'm absolutely in.
+Scott N I really don't mind the lighter tone or the coming-of-age aspects to it (as I originally said). I mind the romcom clichefest that is Kara's life in the first half of the preview.
(Hmmm. She's referred to as Kara throughout, isn't she? Are we not going to get a "Linda Danvers" secret identity? I'm okay with that, but it's an interesting choice.)
+Dave Hill Did you watch the original movie? This is already loads better than that dung heap, and it's a TV series, you can't expect a movie budget if you want to last more than 3 seasons.
+TheGamingTurret Yes, but if we're going to judge TV shows against that awful film, we're going to have a lot of pretty bad TV shows out there.
+Dave Hill I will disagree with you. This is extremely well done. the problem is you believe ditzy yuppie vibe is bad. It isn't. Its a valid expression of a person. I have no interest in the gotham/davedevil level of uber violent darkness. And we don't know if calista's character is over-the-top. She might just have expectations. She didn't fire the person just said they needed to bathe and be written up for violating corporate policy. (Her company/Her building, her policy).
My opinion is it will get a full season pickup. Gotham on the other hand will die this season.
Oh, Rom-coms make money thats why he have a crap-ton of them.
+Dave Hill I don't think we'll get the Linda Danvers thing. She doesn't always use that alter ego in various settings, and they may want to promote the connection to Clark. I guess we'll see.
+thunderclap morgridge If you can find where I suggested this show should be more like Daredevil, please point it out.
The fact that we have a "crap-ton" of romcoms out there is one reason why I hate seeing those tropes trotted out yet again. To be fair, if you're going to use them with a female super-hero, Supergirl is a good choice for it. It's just so … cliche and offputting (for me, at least).
I think there is a theme in the extended trailer of "this is who I am, and I'm going to own that now" that would be undermined by having a secret identity. It will be interesting to see how they manage that, but I think it would be really interesting to see a superhero story where they aren't using that very very tired rope of the genre.
Matt Fractionvs Hawkeye series is the only modern one I can think of where they do this, and everyone basically knows who Clint is, at least off the top of my head, and I find it very refreshing.
+Doyce Testerman That would indeed be a cool thing. There are plenty of reasons (practical and literary) for the secret identity trope, but it's also been done to death.
How that would then tie in with her job at Cat Grant's media company is unclear, though.
+Dave Hill It has been done to death, but it is an integral part of most comicbook/superhero storylines. It's hard to get around unless you have someone who either doesn't hide their identity (Captain America or Iron Man, as examples), doesn't have an alternate identity at all, or you simply ignore the alternate identities altogether and only focus on one or the other (Smallville? He never really did much of the whole Superman aspect until towards the end, I think.) I think we need to accept that it is a feature of superhero stories, not specifically a trope. It's part of what makes these stories work.
+Scott N Sure it's a trope (it's even on TV Tropes – http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SecretIdentity). That it's a very common one for classic superhero tales doesn't make it any less so.
That said, there are usually good reasons for it, so that's not a cardinal sin. And while +Doyce Testerman has a good point about how that will conflict with the "being who am meant to be" theme, conflict is usually good for character stuff.
(On reflection, it seems to me that secret identities are, these days, much more of a thing in the DC Universe than in Marvel.)
+Dave Hill I think I may have just said that poorly. I wasn't trying to say it wasn't a trope, just that it was more a byproduct of comic-book storylines. Well, that is Superhero ones, since not all comics are superhero related. It's just something that I think people have to learn to deal with if they want to see certain heroes hit the screen, either big or small.
And yes, often Marvel likes to focus more on other aspects and less on the secret identity. The exception for a really long time was Spider-Man, but after a massive length of time where only a few people knew who he was, they decided to change that, at least for awhile. But that's kind of trailing off-topic. In the end, I'm okay with it as long as they handle it well. Maybe if they take a page out of the way The Flash does it, it won't be so bad. The Flash kind of accepts that he has a secret identity, but they don't spend a lot of time focusing that hard on it.