Supergirl: a super role model

Melissa Benoist does a remarkable job in the lead role.

TV character’s a standard bearer for the Millennial generation.

The ad campaign for CBS' Supergirl, which premiered overnight in the United States, quotes some of what the nation's TV critics have already said about the show - including a top-of-the-skyscraper cheer from yours truly.

There are many reasons to see Supergirl as more than just another byproduct of the mania for comic-book culture. A short list of the many things it gets right include:

Writing and editing. Supergirl doesn't waste a word or a swoosh getting started. And, unlike so many he-man super stories of the multiplex, it doesn't involve a long and excessively metaphorical origin tale. It's as simple as this: As Krypton was exploding, baby Kal-El's parents rocket-shipped him off to faraway Earth, where they hoped he'd grow up to be a strong symbol of peace and hope. Trailing not far behind in her own rocketship, his older cousin Kara Zor-El was supposed to babysit Kal-El and make sure it all worked out.

But when Krypton exploded, it knocked Kara's ship into the Phantom Zone, where time stands still. When her ship finally broke free and landed on Earth, Superman was all grown up and Kara was still 13, so she was adopted out.

Casting. Melissa Benoist, 27, does a remarkable job of inhabiting the lead role - not just in the cape-related flying and fighting scenes, but also in a role that requires her to become a new kind of secret-identity nerd, who is less likely to keep her powers hidden from her trusted friends.

Easy-breezy feminism. Benoist's Kara may toil and fetch lattes as an assistant to the demanding, Devil Wears Prada-style media magnate Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart), but she seems to have the full force of Twitter-era, post-grrrl feminism at the ready. Kara protests Cat's top-down decision, in the Daily Tribune stylebook, to refer to National City's mysterious new flying hero as Supergirl (instead of Superwoman), but acquiesces when Cat gives a succinct argument that "girls" (of any age) can be indomitable.

Still, it turns out that Supergirl's strongest asset is not the fact that she's female, it's that she's young.

Millennial wish fulfillment! Supergirl' is one of the few shows on TV that seems to effortlessly embrace both the inhibitions and independence of someone who is proudly and uninhibitedly young, without a single scene that involves texting etiquette, swiping or whining about how hard her life is compared to everyone else's.

In her secret identity, Kara masterfully and capably navigates the workplace. She doesn't toy with the lovesick IT guy who has a crush on her; instead she co-opts him into helping her design Supergirl's costume and launch her crime-fighting debut. She may have X-ray eyes for the handsome new art director, but, since he's a friend of her famous cousin, she also welcomes his advice on how Supergirl should demonstrate her might.

Supergirl' is a reminder of how little TV audiences get to purely idealise a young woman and root for her amazing abilities, instead of joining her for a wallow in self-absorbed millennial misery and relationship mistakes.

Whether or not actual millennials, who tend to avoid broadcast TV like the plague, will respond to this aspect of Supergirl is unknown. Kara's biggest and most relatable vulnerability is that she worries that she's somehow not living up to her potential.

"You want to help?" snarls the head of the government's Department of Extranormal Operations, who is none too pleased to see Supergirl's brash arrival on the scene. "Go back to getting someone's coffee." There you have the one sentiment that millennials say they most despise: Being told to wait their turn. Supergirl very clearly and without a hint of cross-generational acrimony says: Move over and make some room.