Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Melissa Benoist, Mehcad Brooks, Chyler Leigh, Jeremy Jordan, Katie McGrath, Odette Annable, Chris Wood, David Harewood, Erica Durance, Emma Tremblay, Adrian Pasdar, Andrea Brooks, Carl Lumbly, Chad Lowe, Amy Jackson, Jesse Rath, Anjali Jay, Floriana Lima, Helen Slater, Betty Buckley, Curtis Lum, Brit Morgan, Brenda Strong, Laurie Metcalf.
A fantasy/superhero series that doesn’t acknowledge its dark side is not being honest to its fans, or the graphic novels that inspired the leap to the cinema/television medium.
Long since gone are the days in which Truth, Justice…and the American way enough to have held sway with the viewer from the golden age of comic books and the television series that held captive a lighter existence through the performances of Adam West and Burt Ward in the colourful, but ultimately weak expression of Batman, or George Reeves in the televised outing of Superman, those days, however looked back upon with fond nostalgia, didn’t even reflect the truth of the era they were meant to portray, a downsizing of the grit and fire that was the United States of America in the post war years and the burden of psychedelic fluorescence which accompanied the late 60s love fest that led to the crisis of confidence in the country and the political damage inflicted by President Nixon.
The dark side of graphic novels is not just an acknowledgement to the world we live in today, but to the truth of division, that ordinary people and the heroes they hold in reverence are neither expressly good or bad but the canvas to which they have all been painted at one time or another, and in that acknowledgement the third series of Supergirl takes a wonderful different turn, and one that perhaps on the whole was required before it became staid, before it went down the same path as George Reeves’ time in the cape, full of twee and wind but no darkness to back it up.
In the introduction of the genuinely enjoyable character of Samantha Arias/Reign, portrayed by the expressive Odette Annable, Supergirl’s third series took a delicious turn into the bleakness of heroism, and with the inclusion of the talented Carl Lumbly as M’yrnn J’onzz and the continuation of the story line involving Melissa Benoist/Mehcad Brooks/Katie McGrath as faithfulness and friendship is explored with Supergirl crossing the line in the burgeoning relationship between Jimmy Olsen and Lena Luthor, what plays out on screen is an insight into the dynamic of how friendship and love often can overlap and sow seeds of distrust.
A series that continues to thrive and surprise, cinema may not truly get to get grips with how to portray the families of Krypton, but on television in the 21st Century, it holds the principals set out by the graphic novel in absolute high regard.
Ian D. Hall