It seems the woman in charge of CBS Entertainment, chairman Nina Tassler, is a bit of a comic nerd herself, and loved the idea of bringing ‘Supergirl’ to her network, especially after hearing the pitch from Greg Berlanti and Ali Adler. In her words:

“First of all, when Greg Berlanti and Ali Adler came in, they had a fantastic pitch,” Tassler said. “We were really excited and interested to hear the pitch. By the end of it, literally we fell in love with the character and the story. She was imminently relatable. The journey they were taking the character on we felt just spoke to where today’s generation is. We also really responded to the fact that it had a very broad appeal. So we felt we could have genre fans but we also felt the relationship of this young woman to the people at work, it was a great workplace comedy, and more importantly we thought this was a genre and a franchise that would open up and bring in new viewers, as well as being very appealing to our CBS fans.”

Of course, despite her excitement for the series and the viewership it will bring to CBS, or maybe because of it, she has recently come out saying that for the moment they do not want to do any cross-overs with the CW shows ‘Arrow’ or ‘The Flash,’ though admittedly she is not entirely ruling out the idea, or the premise that they all exist in the same universe. The reasoning for the non-crossovers, according to Tassler, can be read below:

“I’m a little bit of a superhero geek and I have a lot of respect for what characters inhabit certain universes,” Tassler said. “You can’t just] just pick up one character and let them fly over and appear in another setting. You really have to be respectful and mindful of what each universe says you can and can’t do. Obviously working very closely with DC and our producers, Greg Berlanti is the poster child for this field. Right now we’re not doing it. We’re doing it promotionally, but we’ll always stay open. They’re very inventive about what they can and will do.”

When asked about the villains that will be featured on the show, as well as the power limitations of the character, Producer Andrew Kreisberg had the following to say:

“In the first 9 episodes, Lucy Lane, also her father general Sam Lane, will be coming to town with an agenda. We’re also going to have The Red Tornado. We’re also going to be introducing Non, a Kryptonian villain memorably played in Superman II. We have a slightly different take on the character…In the comics Superman takes more punishment than just kryoptine. It was important for a weekly TV show to put her in situations where she’s not all powerful.”

Lastly, when asked about whether or not the people behind Fox’s ‘Gotham’ were unhappy that ‘Supergirl’ would be airing opposite their show (Mondays at 8pm), Tassler replied with the following statement:

“I think that they’re different audiences,” Tassler told reporters. “I think Supergirl has a much bigger, broader audience. It’s more family entertainment. They look different ,they feel different. Judging by the 14.1 million streams of the trailer, I don’t think anybody is worried about oh my God, there is not enough audience out there to watch both those shows. I think there will be.”

Personally, I am still a bit uncertain about ‘Supergirl’ and what audience the show is trying to garner, especially after the rom-com-ish trailer Tassler mentioned above, which as most will remember, skewed a little too close to an SNL skit making fun of the type of super-hero move Black Widow would get if Marvel ever gave her a franchise. I personally wish the show well, and hope that at some point in the future we do get to see a cross-over event, as it would introduce interesting new dynamics into the shows on the CW (the existence of Superman and Supergirl would definitely create some ripples), and help bring audiences to all 3 shows.

Look for ‘Supergirl’ to premiere on CBS on Monday October 6th at 8:30pm, and then move to its regular time-slot at 8pm on November 2nd.

Source: Slashfilm