Supergirl Creators Answer Burning Questions About Season 1

Supergirl is going to be up where she belongs when she takes to the skies tonight on CBS. The superhero will join her male counterparts—Arrow and The Flash—who have their own series on CBS’ sister station the CW—and it’s about high time that young girls have a superhero to call their own.

In the premiere episode, we get a bit of an origin story as Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist), aka Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, first appears as a mild-mannered assistant to mogul Cat Grant (Calista Flockart) [think Clark Kent at the Daily Planet], who is the founder of CatCo Worldwide Media. But when her foster sister Alex’s (Chyler Leigh) plane is about to crash, Kara knows she has no choice. She has to bring her powers out of mothballs and save the day—and Alex’s life!

Also on tonight’s episode, we meet the updated version of Jimmy Olsen (Mechad Brooks), who has moved to Metropolis to take on bigger challenges as part of Cat’s empire. And this version of Jimmy is 180 degrees from what we expect.

Viewers will also learn why Supergirl was late to the party. She took off from Krypton at the same time as her cousin—in fact, she was supposed to watch over him on earth as she was older than he—but her spaceship got trapped in The Phantom Zone, where she was in limbo until rescued by Superman.

And then there is the secret agency where her sister works, the Department of Extra-Normal Operations (DEO), and with whom Supergirl gets involved as they battle to save earth from an alien prison spaceship that crashes, setting free a whole bunch of villains that Supergirl will battle in Season 1.

The cast of Supergirl also stars David Harewood as co-worker and IT technician Hank Henshaw, and Jeremy Jordan as Winslow “Winn” Schott, head of the aforementioned DEO.

Before tuning in tonight, check out Parade.com’s interview with the creators/executive producers of Supergirl, in which Greg Berlanti, Andew Kreisberg and Ali Adler answer burning questions about Season One of the CBS series.

What can you tell us about the villains that Supergirl will face this season?

Andrew Kreisberg: We always have a traditional big bad for the season, an über villain, setting the plans in motion. But just like the other shows [Arrow and The Flash], there will also be villains of the week. The pilot sets up the idea that there is an alien prison from Krypton that crash landed on earth and all those prisoners escaped. We are going to be meeting some of those alien villains. There will also be some human villains. We have announced that the Toyman [played by Jeremy Jordan] is going to be appearing on the show. Additionally, we have some major Kryptonians, who are going to be the big bads for the season.

Not everybody is going to have kryptonite, so how are you going to make Supergirl vulnerable each week, so we feel she is in jeopardy?

Andrew Kreisberg: I think it is a little bit of a collective mistake that kryptonite is the only thing that can hurt a Kryptonian. In the comic books and, especially, other adaptations, specifically the Superman animated series, we see that Superman himself can be hurt by a lot more than kryptonite. On this show, we show that fighting certain aliens—she fights Livewire [also known as Leslie Willis, who will be played by Brit Morgan], who has electrical powers and enough electricity to stop Supergirl’s heart. There are other things on the show that are beyond kryptonite. Again, on the old series, unless you had a rock of kryptonite, it was pretty much lights out for the bad guys. We certainly don’t want that. We always want to feel as if our hero is in jeopardy.

In the pilot, Calista Flockhart gives a big speech about why it’s Supergirl and not Superwoman. Where did that come from? Did you anticipate backlash about the word girl in the name?

Greg Berlanti: That speech was in the original pitch for the show. One thing I have found is sometimes the temptation is there by executives to alter things that are part of the DNA of what was so great about the comic book. We really wanted to be protective of the name of the show. We wanted to have a conversation with our characters that we believed our audience may be having in terms of, she’s an adult woman, why isn’t it called Superwoman? That was the origin of it. It was pretty much always in existence.

In the pilot, Supergirl seems to have a lot of control and know a lot about her powers and her abilities. Does she know the full extent of them?

Greg Berlanti: I think our collective gut is that she is at the beginning of her journey. Even the stuff that she thinks she knows will come into question. Not just about her powers, but her backstory and where she comes from. So there is always a bit of mystery around that, her origins, and just around what her capacities are.

Kara’s biggest advocates are going to be her sister, James and Hank, but they are working separately in the pilot. How are we going to see them helping her in the series? As a unit, or are they going to be disparate?

Ali Adler: I think something that separates Superman from Supergirl is he is autonomous. He flies in Metropolis by himself. Episode 2 of Supergirl is titled: Stronger Together. It really is not just about a woman that is more readily able to accept help, but Kara really embracing that and getting that help from her sister, Hank and other forces at CatCo.

Andrew Kreisberg: I think one of the fun things about the show in the beginning is Kara does have very differentiated parts of her world. She has the DEO, led by Hank and where her sister works, where she works as an unofficial agent of the DEO as Supergirl. But she also has Jimmy Olsen and Wynn and, whether she realizes it or not, Cat at  CatCo in her daily life.

Part of the fun of the show is keeping these things very separate. As the show moves forward, they start to bleed into one another and you get the fun complications of the people who consider themselves the professional alien hunters having to deal with what they consider to be the civilian amateur alien hunter.

What is great about the show is everybody has something to contribute, everybody has value, and everyone is constantly learning from each other. Kara learns very different things from these worlds. With the DEO, her sister and Hank, she learns to hone her powers and become an even better superhero, but from her friends at Cat Co, she learns the importance of being Kara Danvers, being a woman and a human being, and staying grounded and tied to the people she is sworn to protect.

Is Kara going to develop any other friendships with women besides her sister?

Ali Adler: Absolutely. We talk about her relationship with Cat Grant as a very important woman of power in her life. Ultimately, Cat Grant is a superhero, too, as is her sister a superhero. But Cat in the pilot is the voice of wisdom, whether she says it in a kind way or not. She is always inspiring Supergirl to achieve higher heights. That is an amazing female relationship.

Greg Berlanti: She is also going to become friends with Lucy Wayne, played by Jenna Dewan Tatum, who comes to the show as a former love interest of Jimmy’s to add some complications. Part of the fun of it is Kara being the nicest person in the world, Lucy really likes her. The two of them have some adventures together.

Supergirl premieres tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, before moving to its normal 8 p.m. ET/PT timeslot as of November 2.