To be fair, Batman's not DC's only television card. There's Arrow and The Flash.
I'm not terribly fond of the latter, but try it. It might scratch the itch for you.
Oh, I completely forgot those exist. I should try them.
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I personally like Arrow more without quite loving it. It's got its problems, but it's not bad. And The Flash... well, I keep trying to push through the first episode and failing, but that's more because the show keeps mashing my pain-points with horrifying precision rather than because it's out-and-out terrible, and I've been repeatedly reassured that it improves significantly later.
And if you're looking for a "colorful, happy show," The Flash is probably your best bet.
Flash isn't terribly bright and happy, but it isn't nearly as angsty as Arrow. And unlike most of DC's media, it fully accepts that it's a super hero series.
Because it seems that you've only watched the pilot, I can only recommend that you watch the whole series. This refers to both Supergirl and CW shows. They all get (generally) better after about half a season, though of course there are still some bumps.
Batman has long been DC's only card when it comes to television.
Superman has Adventures of Superman, Superboy, Lois and Clark, Smallville and now this show. More related shows than Batman, who has Batman, Birds of Prey and Gotham.
Could someone someone explain the \"sexism\" bit for someone not raised in a country mad on tolerance? Since, in the world of super-men and cat-women and other beautiful people in skin-tight latex suits, calling the youngest generation bat-girls and super-boys is incredibly sexist! Oh, wait, it isn\'t.
The difference is that Superboy is actually a boy (16, usually) while Supergirl is an adult (24, I recall.)
In the comics it was somewhat excusable, in that she has been a teenager for fifty odd years (i.e. an actual girl). It makes no sense to call her \"Supergirl\" in a show where she debuts as a grown woman, so it comes across as a tad condescending when people do.
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You know? You\'re right, and I know just the perfect way of screening the series based on a comic about a superpowered teenage girl!
First, we need to make the girl a 98-years-old hag instead. Wait, that\'s not enough. We should make her an old MAN, black-chinese old blind man in a full-body Mickey-mouse-like bunny suit, who lives not in Metropolis, but in Honeyland, Minnesota, where nothing actually happens. And one day he walks down the street in his giant bunny suit, and the newspaper staff decide to make an article about it, and call it Supergirl.
-But why supergirl, sir? It\'s a crazy old man. -Supergirl is a nice title, we couldn\'t help but lampshade it. Now I\'ll rename it into \"dead bunny\", and you go set him on fire for cute visual effects.
I am sorry, I don\'t get it: how exactly is the Supergirl name sexist? No sarcasm here, I am genuinely asking out of curiosity.
There is also something of a historical precedent that calling an adult 'boy' or 'girl' is a form of condescension: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCjDBQMPlw
If it is a story about an actual girl, it isn't sexist. The problem is we often call grown women 'girls', even when it would be inappropriate and a double standard do to so. Case in point: Superman is called Superman, not "Superboy". There is a Superboy, who is an actual boy. You could argue the Supergirl comics were about an actual girl, but then again that argument is undermined by the fact that she grows up to become...Powergirl.
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Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying.
It would be more logical to call a movie \"Powerlady\", then try to call her \"powergirl\" and actually rename to powerlady in-universe. But deliberately choosing \"supergirl\", then taking an actress from the other age group and try to make the chosen title sound bad - that is pretentious.
Like, maybe, remaking Men In Black where the characters would wear grey, because it\'s less noticeable, and whine because it\'s called \"men\" not \"people in black\" (who\'re actually in grey, but hey, we can make stylistic changes).
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Pilot: The Devil Wears Kinky Boots
Batman has long been DC's only card when it comes to television. Too scared to challenge the constant slew of Marvel movies, we've had little else to try, save one bloated, grim, trainwreck of a superman reboot. The upcoming Batman based movies aren't letting up on the ill advised grimness either, so it falls to a modestly budgeted show about a flying office lady to finally give us some light relief.
And it is nice to have something lighter. Supergirl is all bright colours, cute men, and beaming smiles. Melissa Benoist certainly adds a lot to that, naturally fitting into the role of the glowing, enthusiastic and altogether nicer superhero. Even in the comics, Supergirl was allowed to be a much more human character than her mythic godly cousin, and on screen, it makes such a change to having something a tad more optimistic.
Sadly, the show itself is not very good at all. From beginning to end, there is some ridiculously overwrought melodrama. Bad people pull scowly faces when they talk, and family members say "I will always love you" a lot whilst in front of soft lighting. There is way too much of that schmaltz. Also the show is full of weird, defensive scenes where it tries to handwave the comic's sexist elements. "We can't call her superGIRL, that's anti - feminist!" says Supergirl, to which her boss responds with some bizarre "Na-ah, you're the sexist!" speech. No, the girl thing is actually sexist, and the story trying to brush it off just feels like denial.
Actually, Supergirl is full of problems like that. As a character, Supergirl constantly looks up to her superiors for validation, whether it is her cliched, bitchy Devil Wears Prada boss, or later the idiot, sexist commander who literally tells her to "stick to fetching the coffee". He's talking to a woman can elbow a truck in half, and yet he still mouths off. Considering Supergirl can learn new languages in minutes and read textbooks in seconds, I can't for the life of me figure out why she has chosen to work in such crappy conditions. She isn't Clark Kent, and surely she would be better off as a Nobel prize winning scientist or something.
There was very little I enjoyed about this paltry display, and I won't bother with the rest. Unless Krpyto the wonder dog shows up, I can't see it getting better.