Television Review: Supergirl, Season 4

It’s time to return to another superhero today. Alas, it’s again a disappointed review – here’s my thoughts on Supergirl, season 4.

Company:  DC Entertainment | Date: 2018

Synopsis: Season three saw Supergirl stop Reign and the other Worldkillers’ threat to our planet, and in the process, Kara discovered her mother survived the destruction of Krypton. Reconnecting with her past caused Kara to realize that her true home is here on Earth, where big changes are taking place for her and all of her friends in National City – and also, it appears, for a doppelganger in Russia!

Supergirl, Season 4 Review

It has taken a long time and multiple drafts to write this review. I nearly didn’t – then figured as I’d done the rest, it would bug me if I didn’t.

Supergirl season 4 has become another DC show that’s disappointed me. That makes three this year – not a good track record.

The others had their reasons: the huge crossover meant it was easy to feel lost if you hadn’t caught up with all the shows, and the fall-out from that resonated through the shows.

But this time around? I was bored.

This entire series was so political. It felt the focus was on democracy, and the wrong people rising to power due to support of the desperate and the scared. You could argue it’s a timely topic. When the show tackled racism last season, it led to some powerful episodes. But here, there was no tension, the stories were flat, and I wasn’t engaging with the characters, good or bad. I didn’t connect with the message it was pushing.

The plot didn’t work. But what let it down was the mass re-set on quite a few main characters. Spoiler alert: Alex forgets Kara is Supergirl for most of the season. It meant their relationship fragmented and stalled, with tension between them in a way that didn’t help either character grow. It lost their dynamic and took them back to series 1. After growing with them for this long, it wasn’t a fun return.

I’m not sure if it’s because of events with Alex, but I also can’t pinpoint any development for Kara this time. Sure, she goes and saves the day, and has to do it in different ways without her support network. But she doesn’t come through it stronger, and there’s no hard choice for her to show her inner strength. Only one friendship feels it develops, and everything else is the same as before.

Lena and James also fall out. Lena becomes more centre-stage this time around, but James takes a back seat. I have heard the next season is his last, so perhaps it’s preparing the way for that, but I can’t be certain what he actually did. He was the damsel in distress to spark a few plot-lines, and that was it.

We saw the arrival/return of the greatest Superman nemesis in this season. There’s a lot of potential there – and it felt they totally missed the mark with it. But there was no tension, no sense of a threat, and it fell flat.

It’s hard reviewing this. I’m a huge fan of the Superman stories (I’m also currently watching The New Adventures of Superman, for starters!). I hoped for the feel-good, inspiring streak these shows are capable of.

I’m losing faith in all the Arrowverse shows right now, which is a shame.

For now, I just hope season 5 lets the characters grow, there’s no reset buttons and the story-arcs are ones we care about. Series 4 has been a big disappointment for me.

Are you a DC fan? Have you been enjoying Supergirl?

Also in the series:

• Season 1
• Season 2
• Season 3

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