Review: Supergirl Season 5

Supergirl first premiered in 2015 on the CBS network. I tuned in for that premiere episode because... well, I am a geeky nerd. I also caught the next few episodes after that, and I had formed my opinion of the show. Supergirl was *meh*. It wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was the kind of show I would watch when I had nothing else to watch. So I became a semi-regular casual viewer from that point on.

Evidently, I was not alone in my evaluation of the show. Ratings-wise, it wasn't strong enough to get a second season. But at the same time, it wasn't a lost cause. So the show was moved to CBS's sister network, the CW. Personally, I thought that was a great idea. For a while now, the CW has been the home for numerous sci-fi/superhero shows. So I thought Supergirl would fit right in. Also, I had hoped that the show would give the CW network the push it deperately needs. (I have always rooted for the underdog.)

Being on the CW, the show's ratings were relatively high compared to other CW shows. So it was no longer in danger of getting cancelled, but that doesn't mean the quality of the show improved. If anything, with each passing season, the show seemed to feel more melancholy, no longer making it fun. There is nothing wrong with a show taking a serious approach in its story telling, but I feel a superhero show should at least have a somewhat fun side too. Therefore, my interest did wane, but I continued to be a casual viewer.

Unfortunately, this all changed in season 4. Perhaps due to the political climite in the country, Supergirl was no longer a superhero show. Instead, it seemed to have become a docu-drama of sorts. Sure, there were still plenty of characters with superpowers, but that all became secondary. The theme of the whole season became based on social issues like racism and sexism. Sure, the rascism aspect in the show was between the human race and outerspace alien races. But with episodes that included things like equal rights marches for aliens, it was very obvious the show was inferring to traditional racism. There were even scenes depicting how the U.S. president was treating aliens unfairly.

Kudos for the social conscienceness, but a superhero series is NOT the place to make a political statement. By this point, not only was Supergirl no longer fun, it wasn't even a superhero show any more. So after being a casual viewer for the first three seasons, I became so frustrated that I simply stopped watching it all together. In other words, it became so bad that even if there was nothing else to watch, I would rather stare at a blank screen that watch Supergirl.

Fast forward to the 2019-2020 television season, and I decided to check out Supergirl again to see if it was still the insufferable show it had become. Well, I am glad to report that the show seems to have realized that it was going in the wrong direction. Ironically, there was a line from the show itself that aptly summed up the problem. During a scene in the season premiere, Andrea Rojas, the new owner of Catco, perfectly described why a change was needed by saying, "It gives a certain kind of impression that the paper is padantic. It's heavy. It's dull, like homework." Well said, Andrea. Of course, she was talking about Catco's newspaper, but I found it perfectly fitting for the show overall. And who knows. Maybe the show writers included that line to poke fun at themselves, because they have definitely made changes to the show.

In the seven episodes so far this season, gone is the heavy-handed commentary on social and political issues. What we got in its place are new characters which set up clear good versus evil narratives again, a cornerstone of superhero programs. And with good versus evil plotlines, we also get more fight scene between the heroes and the villains, which is a large part of why geeks like me would want to tune in.

Another major improvement this season is the evolution of the Lena Luthor character. She was first introduced in Season 2, and we all knew that she would eventually be an adversary for Supergirl. But for the next two years, that never happened. Instead, Lena was included in strange storylines such as a romance with James Olsen. But finally, we are getting to see Lena Luthor gradually change into the entertaining villain that we all know she can be.

Don't get me wrong. Supergirl is not all of a sudden must see TV. There are still plenty of improvements that can be made. However, in my eyes, it did redeem itself from its 4th season. I would even say that it is better now than it was in season 3. So for now, it is back on my casual-watch list.