Will We Finally Have a Successful Female Superhero on TV?

This fall CBS will be rolling out the new TV series Supergirl from TV powerhouse executive producer Greg Berlanti, the man behind current successful DC Comics based series Arrow and The Flash, both of which air on The CW.

Like so many other superhero-themed TV shows, Arrow and The Flash focus on legendary characters Oliver Queen (aka The Green Arrow) and Barry Allen (aka The Flash). Whereas this fall on Supergirl, Kara Jor-El, cousin to the Man of Steel himself, will be front and center.

Supergirl, of course, will not be the first superhero-themed TV series centered around a female to air on the small screen. But it will be the first one in a long time and there is a lot of hope placed on that show to break the mold: a successful female-led series about a well-known comic book character.

But will Supergirl be that show?

Truth be told, I’m not sure. I saw the pilot at Comic Con 2015 last month and while I was really holding out hope that Supergirl would kick off the same way that Arrow and The Flash did in their debuts, the pilot of this much-anticipated series – quite frankly – fell a bit short of the mark.

At least for me it did.

Now maybe it’s because I’m not a comic book reader (that’s not to say that I dislike comic books, I just never got into reading them). Maybe it’s because I placed such high hopes on the show that it let me down. I don’t know. But I will share this: Melissa Benoist (Glee and The Longest Ride), the actress cast in the title role, is delightful as Kara. It is quite comical watching her come into her own over the course of the pilot episode; but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so comical. Was that the original intention or just my misinterpretation?

Again, I don’t know.

The cast of Supergirl includes Mehcad Brooks (True Blood and Necessary Roughness) as the one and only Jimmy Olsen, Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal and Brothers and Sisters) as Kara’s overbearing and narcissistic boss Cat Grant, Chyler Leigh (Grey’s Anatomy) as Kara’s adopted older sister Alex Danvers, David Harewood (Homeland) as mystery man Hank Henshaw, Jeremy Jordan (Smash and Joyful Noise) as Kara’s co-worker Winn Schott (who is clearly hung-up on Kara) and Laura Benanti (Royal Pains and Nashville) as Kara’s mother Alura Zoe-El (seen in flashbacks). It should also be noted that Dean Cain (who played Clark Kent/Superman in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) and Helen Slater (who played Supergirl on the big screen back in 1984) make cameos as Kara’s adopted parents.

This casting alone should make the show more watchable, and to a degree it does; but is that enough? The storyline of the pilot episode moves along at a good pace, giving Kara’s backstory plenty of time to be explained and understood; and her current life as a harried personal assistant to Cat Grant, the self-made media magnate and founder of CatCo, is perhaps given more time than necessary, showing that Kara may be living her life, but not the life she was really meant to live.

I won’t spoil the specific details on the pilot episode (that’s been done elsewhere, I’m sure), but, suffice it to say, Supergirl has a lot riding on it but in my humble opinion it’s got a way to go before it can be the hit female-led superhero series that many women geeks/nerds/pop culture enthusiasts have been pinning for for many years.

NOTE: These are my opinions and only my opinions not those of the staff of NiceGirlsTV.