First Thoughts on 'Supergirl' Season 3 (Episode 1)

Supergirl returned to UK screens last night in the opening episode to its third season, and I can't help but feel a bit disappointed and underwhelmed with the result. While I'm used to giving seasons of television time to breathe - given that these DC shows have 16-23 episodes of time to tell their respective stories - here, in one episode of Supergirl: season 3, I felt a pang of disappointment that I just couldn't shake throughout.
For a bit of context here, I've never cited Supergirl as a particularly amazing or even that great a show, but I've enjoyed it because it is just a fun superhero adventure with likable characters and entertaining action set-pieces. It's light entertainment, and a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, despite its short-comings - mostly boiling down to the show's often on-the-nose writing.
So what was up with this premiere episode? Well, for starters the opening dream sequence was...um...a bit awkward to watch. It looked like some kind of shampoo advert with Kara waving her hand against the grass with a knaff-looking dreamy filter and a crap pop song. And then suddenly Mon-El shows up and it all gets a bit...soppy, I guess. And then Kara's mother shows up...who they just awkwardly recast for a crap dream sequence. Not off to a great start then.
The rest of the episode was a damn sight better than that prologue, but it all felt quite downbeat. The drama felt forced into the story as though we needed to start the season on a low to reach a high, but considering no one (to my knowledge) watches Supergirl for its intense character drama, why did the writers feel the need to do this? It stops the show from being fun, and that's why people like it. You're essentially ruining what made the show appealing in the first place. Admittedly, the episode ends a bit lighter than it starts, but if that's the case then what was the point? The drama didn't go anywhere, and it wasn't what we as an audience wanted to see in the first place.
You know what though? The episode bore striking similarities to the first episode of The Flash season 2. Deceased former team-member affecting main hero? Check. Hero cut off from friends and family to focus on heroism? Check. Hero now celebrated by their respective city with a big ceremony? Check. Ceremony attacked by one-off villain tied to a season "big bad"? Check.
To further clarify this, I haven't seen that episode of The Flash since it aired on TV back in 2015 - two years ago - and I instantly noticed these similarities. Why did the writers think they could get away with this - in a shared universe of shows?
So, 'Girl of Steel' was a lackluster start to Supergirl's third season. It certainly wasn't bad, but the drama didn't work very well, the prologue was awkward to watch and the story was a rip-off of the same writers' work on The Flash. Supergirl is just meant to be a fun, harmless superhero series. The least you could do is live up to that.
(Oh yeah, and Adrian Pasdar is in this season, which is pretty awesome.)

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