"The box ... It's in the box ..."
Thassright, I'm quoting myself in the title. It's time for more blathering about Supergirl!
Supergirl episode 50 airs at the end of this month. Fifty! That's over four years of this friggin' show! My name's not in the writer byline for all of it. The show became "starring and written by" with episode 16, so ep 50 will mark 35 episodes for me. Almost three years since I took over writing it.
The first season was rocky and by ep 15 there'd been three writers and ... three directors I think? And every writer has a different style and a different vision for the show. Every show takes some time to get its footing, but I think most of Pendant's other shows haven't had as much staff turnover in their first seasons. There's still some good stuff in the first 15 episodes though -- including the start to one of the unlikeliest superhero-sidekick pairings pretty much ever.*
Then with season two Supergirl was back in Metropolis and I picked up the series with little to no clue where the previous writers had been going. Pretty much had to start from scratch, with some help from characters established in Superman. As I always say, plot is not my strong suit, but a lot of pretty awesome characters grew out of season two and it's like the gift that keeps on giving. I also managed to end the season with only one significant fight scene -- episode 26. The one I threw my back out recording.
Then came the first crossover. Holy stress, Batman! Writing characters that aren't mine is friggin' hard. Plus I generally had about a week to crank out an ep, since I was depending on the scripts before mine. And I couldn't run too late, because other people were depending on my scripts. I gotta admit, as cool as they are I kinda dread the crossover stories we put between the seasons.
Season three: the season where you wanted to smack Supergirl. It was so edifying to hear people get frustrated with the character as if she was a friend of theirs who was doing something stupid. One thing that is a constant in the show is that Kara is still a teenager, and one who went through a significant trauma and had to restart her life just a few years ago. She makes mistakes, she does stupid things, and she's sometimes pretty self-absorbed. That shit has consequences for us reg'lar people, but even bigger consequences for people with a full-time public superheroing job. How can you stay rational and sympathetic when a supervillain you can't pin down is regularly humiliating you in front of the whole city? Scorch actually gave me a way to bring up a lot of problems with the way DC has treated Supergirl -- and the way comics treat female heroes in general. Kara hates being called Barbie for a reason.
Also appearing in season three, one of the most unexpected character developments for Metallo in the history of everything. Even more unexpected than getting second billing in a Supergirl show. Who woulda seen that coming back when he appeared in Superman episode 1?
Then the next crossover, which contained the episode that was the most difficult for me to write. Not in terms of being able to come up with ideas, or running out of words -- but in terms of content. Difficult to write, difficult to record. Difficult to listen to over and over while preparing for the commentary. But it fits.
And now we're in Season Four, which has a big crossover arc with Superman. Tell me, with my aversion to crossovers why do I agree to these things? Oh well, at least the Metropolis-based scenes have introduced a couple of surprising fan favorites ...
The next crossover is in the planning stages, and I already have ideas jotted down for season five. What can I say, writing the show is addictive. If only the official DC Supergirl stuff was written by people as attached to the character as I am.
As for playing the title character, well. She first appeared in Superman 4, an unbelievable seventy-three episodes ago. That's like ... six years? Jeebus. I started out six years older than Kara, now I'm twelve years older than her. Hooray for comic book time. I got the part back when it was still a matter of jeffrey asking people he knew to record lines for him. I often think that if we held a casting call now, I wouldn't get the part. But hey ... she's fun to play. I can kinda identify with her here and there. Her voice is more or less my real voice, with added teenaged brattiness (as opposed to my thirtysomething brattiness). And I'll admit it ... thanks to her, I've considered bleaching my hair blond.
* Don't tell Tally I called him a sidekick. He hates that.
Supergirl episode 50 airs at the end of this month. Fifty! That's over four years of this friggin' show! My name's not in the writer byline for all of it. The show became "starring and written by" with episode 16, so ep 50 will mark 35 episodes for me. Almost three years since I took over writing it.
The first season was rocky and by ep 15 there'd been three writers and ... three directors I think? And every writer has a different style and a different vision for the show. Every show takes some time to get its footing, but I think most of Pendant's other shows haven't had as much staff turnover in their first seasons. There's still some good stuff in the first 15 episodes though -- including the start to one of the unlikeliest superhero-sidekick pairings pretty much ever.*
Then with season two Supergirl was back in Metropolis and I picked up the series with little to no clue where the previous writers had been going. Pretty much had to start from scratch, with some help from characters established in Superman. As I always say, plot is not my strong suit, but a lot of pretty awesome characters grew out of season two and it's like the gift that keeps on giving. I also managed to end the season with only one significant fight scene -- episode 26. The one I threw my back out recording.
Then came the first crossover. Holy stress, Batman! Writing characters that aren't mine is friggin' hard. Plus I generally had about a week to crank out an ep, since I was depending on the scripts before mine. And I couldn't run too late, because other people were depending on my scripts. I gotta admit, as cool as they are I kinda dread the crossover stories we put between the seasons.
Season three: the season where you wanted to smack Supergirl. It was so edifying to hear people get frustrated with the character as if she was a friend of theirs who was doing something stupid. One thing that is a constant in the show is that Kara is still a teenager, and one who went through a significant trauma and had to restart her life just a few years ago. She makes mistakes, she does stupid things, and she's sometimes pretty self-absorbed. That shit has consequences for us reg'lar people, but even bigger consequences for people with a full-time public superheroing job. How can you stay rational and sympathetic when a supervillain you can't pin down is regularly humiliating you in front of the whole city? Scorch actually gave me a way to bring up a lot of problems with the way DC has treated Supergirl -- and the way comics treat female heroes in general. Kara hates being called Barbie for a reason.
Also appearing in season three, one of the most unexpected character developments for Metallo in the history of everything. Even more unexpected than getting second billing in a Supergirl show. Who woulda seen that coming back when he appeared in Superman episode 1?
Then the next crossover, which contained the episode that was the most difficult for me to write. Not in terms of being able to come up with ideas, or running out of words -- but in terms of content. Difficult to write, difficult to record. Difficult to listen to over and over while preparing for the commentary. But it fits.
And now we're in Season Four, which has a big crossover arc with Superman. Tell me, with my aversion to crossovers why do I agree to these things? Oh well, at least the Metropolis-based scenes have introduced a couple of surprising fan favorites ...
The next crossover is in the planning stages, and I already have ideas jotted down for season five. What can I say, writing the show is addictive. If only the official DC Supergirl stuff was written by people as attached to the character as I am.
As for playing the title character, well. She first appeared in Superman 4, an unbelievable seventy-three episodes ago. That's like ... six years? Jeebus. I started out six years older than Kara, now I'm twelve years older than her. Hooray for comic book time. I got the part back when it was still a matter of jeffrey asking people he knew to record lines for him. I often think that if we held a casting call now, I wouldn't get the part. But hey ... she's fun to play. I can kinda identify with her here and there. Her voice is more or less my real voice, with added teenaged brattiness (as opposed to my thirtysomething brattiness). And I'll admit it ... thanks to her, I've considered bleaching my hair blond.
* Don't tell Tally I called him a sidekick. He hates that.