I have a problem with “Supergirl”: I find it incredibly cheesy, annoying and in-your-face, in the sense that it has the moral complexity and thematic subtlety of “Sesame Street.” And I love it.
Okay, maybe “love” is too strong a word. I may get excited at new releases, but never would I spent my entire evening bingeing on a show like “Supergirl” — the plots are so predictable that it would be like watching the same episode 20 times over. But in a way, that’s what makes the show so great: being simple (and admittedly quite uncreative), it never requires viewer’s full attention in order to make sense. Great entertainment needs to be absorbed in full, but bad shows like “Supergirl” can be enjoyed on a secondary level, like playing on the background while you’re cooking, cleaning or some other activities that, like bad TV shows, don’t require your full attention.
But, say, you’ve finished every other movies and shows and are still craving a night off featuring five hours of uninterrupted content — “Supergirl” is better than nothing. Movies and TV shows have always banked on being fascinating, gripping or suspenseful, and it’s a great thing for creativity, but in the streaming age, where thousands of shows flex off their intense uniqueness through ads and trailers just to more often than not let you down, it is perhaps better to stick with the familiar and mediocre. It’s expected. It’s comforting. And if you don’t think too much about the message it’s so desperate trying to convey smartly, it’s really not that annoying.
That being said, I don’t appreciate bad TV shows being churned out continually. But as long as there’s been art, there has been bad art that likes to act like it’s good art. There is nothing for the common man to do against this epidemic of pseudo-high-brow entertainment — we just have to live through it. And live through it I did — I finished all seasons of “Supergirl” available on Netflix, as well as “The Flash” (whose quality sinks after season one), “Arrow,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” and “Once Upon a Time.” Oh, the length one would go to evade boredom.
