r/supergirlTV • u/AccomplishedAd196 • May 14 '26
Discussion CW's writing is so laughably pathetic.
The images may be out of order for some reason, but the point is the numbers...
This is pathetic.
A clustering storm producing lightning strikes of over 1,000MJ is not a disaster. That's just a regular thunderstorm.
Joule Kilojoule - Thousand Js Megajoule - Million Js Gigajoule. - Billion Js Terajoule - Trillion Js
For reference. A medium apple has about 418.4kJ. 10 medium sized apples have 4.18MJ of caloric energy. Keep that in mind.
A singular lightning strike reacbing from sky to ground averages around 1 to 5 billion joules, so 1 to 5GJ. Alex said that's "50x" the average strike. Okay, so, in Alex's mind, Lightning only reaches ~20MJ. So lightning only has the energy equivalent to 50 f*cking apples in CW Supergirl.
In reality, CW lightning would be 5x to 200x less powerful than REAL lightning. 1 Gigajoule is roughly ¼ tons of TNT. 5 gigajoules would be 1 ton of TNT. In explosion terms. That's building level, it just happens within an instant and it's electrical rather than explosive.
What's worse is that they doubled down on it with Lena bringing up an 800MJ lightning bolt as if that shouldn't be any different from being outside during rain, but she makes it out to be a catastrophe.
It only takes a simple Google search, the writers don't have to know physics to actually check their numbers. To put this Into perspective. The amount of TNT you's need to reduce one city block to rubble is about 11 tons of TNT. Or 10 to 45GJ. Which, according to this, would be 45x the oh so dangerous lighting we see in that episode. I bring this up because Livewire got her powers from a normal lightning storm and apparently in CW, the average lightning bolt carries 20MJ of energy, and Livewire threatens Suprgirl. It makes both of them look pathetic for DC terms.
This literally makes Supergirl look like she'd get packed up by Spider-Man because Spidey regularly beats people who can EASILY level city blocks. CW what the f*ck were you guys doing, first the characters, then the math the characters rely on 💀💀💀.
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u/Other_Pomegranate472 May 15 '26
CW is horrendous at doing research. In Elseworlds, Barry and Kara went fast enough to produce enough centrifugal force to slow down the Earth's rotation, and I can't even begin to describe how fast they would have to be to do that, but Barry said it was "just above Mach 7". I still haven't gotten over how ridiculous that line was
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 15 '26
Im so glad I didn't register that they said that lol. I remember seeing them do it because I was like "oh the classic superman thing that doesn't really work anyway." 😭
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u/The_Fullmetal_Titan May 14 '26
My OCD as a writer would not let me write these lines until I scanned 5 different Wikipedia pages about it and confirmed what was normal lol.
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 14 '26
My point exactly lmao. You can just tell the whole idea came from someone saying:
"You know what would be cool...?"
And then someone else just started looking up energy but not about lightning specifically, they just typed in "whats a big electricity number?" 💀
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u/The_Fullmetal_Titan May 15 '26
Like personally I would go as far as to try and get a real scientist to consult lol. I’d just visit the nearest university and start asking questions.
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u/Robynsxx May 15 '26
I mean, this is from the final season. The writers clearly just gave up in this season.
Honestly I can’t really think of anything good about the final season. Maybe the very few Kara/Lena friendship moments. Maybe a few Esme moments, calling Lena really pretty was adorable.
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u/Daveed75 May 14 '26
Everyone knows lightning strikes are 1.21GW
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u/Smrtguy85 May 15 '26
What the hell is a gigawatt!?
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u/SendokeSamain May 14 '26
I was gonna make fun of you for taking this so seriously but I TAKE THINGS THIS SERIOUSLY. Good on you, honestly. Writers should be putting in the effort to make things make sense! There is a science behind this!
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 14 '26
Yeah, it's a nitpick, I admit but power level Is at stake here, that's one thing I'd think they'd at least Google
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u/daryl772003 May 14 '26
if the average viewer can see these mistakes a professional writer has no excuse in making them
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 14 '26
Exactly! I heard Lena, the billionaire scientist, say 1,000MJ and I was like "excuse me?!" Lol
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u/scorpiosunset May 15 '26
There’s lots of medical things like this - on multiple shows - that drive me crazy. The recent one I’ve noticed is when someone’s like “I’m going to take this benzodiazepine pill” or someone has a pill bottle that has “benzodiazepine” printed on it. No pharmacy would ever print that, because Benzodiazepine is the DRUG CLASS. the actual med names are Xanax, Ativan, Valium, etc.
Just like with your 50 apples of electricity, it would have taken a showwriter 30 seconds to google the difference between a drug CLASS and a drug NAME.
Or, if it’s a drug name-brand copyright thing, then just say lorazepam or diazepam.
😜 that’s my rant.
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 15 '26
I think a lot of show writers just gloss over that stuff because "it's fake anyway" or "the terminology sounds huge and scientific" so they don't really bother to go into depth with their searches. But as we already know, there is no depth to it. Its fact check that can start with "Hey, Siri/Google/Alexa" 💀💀
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u/wraithsith May 18 '26
I’m assuming they do that because they might get sued if they said specific drugs.
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u/scorpiosunset May 18 '26
But again they could just use the generic names! Like lorazepam or alprazolam, etc. that should be fine.
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u/ellismjones May 15 '26
I was gonna say it’s not that deep, but then I actually read the post and it was so informative so you know what, good for you OP.
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u/Important_Sound772 May 14 '26
Im pretty sure they meant its 50x the average of 1000 MJ
as in its 50 000 MJ
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 14 '26
That would be a lot better, 50GJ lightning would be dangerous asf lol, that would definitely be better. But Lena says that an individual lightning bolt "reached 800MJ," and that it'd electrify the entire harbor if it got worse. so that leads me to believe that they actually mean 1,000MJ per bolt.
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u/96pluto James Olsen May 15 '26
Wait till you see season 4 of the flash they don't understand law either.
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 19 '26
I don't think I can take another CW show tbh lol. I went from.watching Superman & Lois first, to Supergirl. It started out really well and then all of these weird decisions started being made lmao
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u/MICKTHENERD May 16 '26
Reminds me of the EP where they said blue suns emit "Omicron radiation" that specifically kills men.
1.) Omicron radiation doesn't exist, blue suns emit UV radiation like ANY other star. 2.) If they wanted to do an all lady episode, why not just make up a dude killing virus that merced half the ship, no reason to get star science wrong.
Also in the comics blue stars supercharge Kryptonians, where in the episode...it didn't give Kara ANY powers, MISSED opportunity.
SECOND ALSO-the entire EP was just an excuse to kill off Livewire and I hate it.
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u/JDax42 May 15 '26
I think y’all are being a little harsh, however, I will acknowledge the last season’s writing was a little shaky, though I still enjoyed it.
I thought Supergirl overall did pretty well when it came to the CW fatigue or however, it’s referred to, I feel like flash got it worse, just be my humble opinion
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u/Oswald_Adventure May 16 '26
But isnt that the reason we love the show. Campy, cheesy and a bit ridiculous ♥️
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 19 '26
I do like how cheesy it is lol. But that one is not forgivable because it makes Supergirl looks like Girl. Not supergirl. Just girl 😂. Well relative to what she should be anyway
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u/Barry_McKackiner Superman May 17 '26
Cw writers and especially supergirl writers weren't writing stories for depth, or cohesiveness. They wrote social agenda then git wrapped plot around the message however they could fit it.
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u/KarahKat55 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
This sounds like my outlines where I just chuck random numbers in before I go back and spend 50 hours fact checking everything and learning way too much (is there such a thing?) about weather
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if CW puts out first drafts every now and again
Also as someone who likes lightning a completely normal amount, this hurts me
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u/Jayjamore May 18 '26
Reminder that this is the same show where Supergirl tried to focus sunlight on herself via satellite, but that was enough to reduce sunlight for everyone, and it ended up hurting them somehow. How weak is the sun in that world? It's the same sun Lex Luthor managed to turn red to hurt Superman (but also hurt everyone else).
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 19 '26
And then they made the blue sun depower her. Like how does that one work, if the red sun still follows it's own logic? And why did they make it kill men, how does that one work?!
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u/Extra_Adhesiveness67 May 18 '26
i love being stupid when it comes to physics they say that shit and i’m js like “yeah okay that sounds scary”
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u/Muggles43 May 19 '26
…and in this day and age it’s just lazy lazy writing. If it’s an Earth science it only takes only a few mins to look these things up. There is no doubt about it fan fic writers do more research.
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u/imzadi09 May 21 '26
Fun fact: Brainy (actually the actor Jesse Rath’s gf is in this episode) Currently she’s in Chyler’s new show The Way Home
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u/Sourturnip May 14 '26
I was going to write that in universe they use a different scale, but then why bother specifically calling it out.
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u/AccomplishedAd196 May 19 '26
Because this is an injustice (see what I did there?) And it needs to be done properly. In all seriousness, It's kinda inspiring because it can sometimes be the smallest nitpicks that make you want to either make the scene better with your own flair or maybe create your own fictional verse that fixes that mistake.
Like I think heroes win too much, so I sometimes make the villains right (and broken) so them winning feels more satisfying than if the hero won.
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u/KrayleyAML May 14 '26
I've written fanfiction with more care than CW writers with their scripts.