Black Lightning, Season 1

could be better written.

Compared to the Luke Cage, Black Lightning's early episodes deal with race and racism in an awkward and sometimes hokey manner. Unlike the Hero-of-Harlem, BL's Freeland and the Pierce family's experiences seem tone deaf. They lean a little too much on the Huxtable model of an exceptional family and community untouched by modern realities of race and racism in the United States. However, as the series develops it hones itself to become something.. in the words of Oliver Queen... more. The series is not without its flaws, but it is a series finding its footing in how it begins to incorporate racism, the drug epidemic, the school-to-prison pipeline and poverty into Season One. The series starts with candlelight vigils and the tired tropes of street gangs. It ends with a rogue Agent crowing "Make America Great Again" and human experiments on impoverished communities. Perhaps it is a coincidence of watching Cloak and Dagger around the same time, but the more I watch the more I feel like Freeland could be an analogy to New Orleans and the American South... one episode deals with the tearing down of a Confederate monument. DC has always gone a little more four-color on TV compared to Marvel offerings, but this is a welcome companion piece to The Flash and the other DC series. We need less gritty Arrowverse, and more Black Lightning. Recommended!

Please make a second season

Salamander... You better fight back or bite back

I was a little put off when I saw that they gave Nina Turner a role that could have gone to an actress. I will give the series another chance because the production is high quality and the casting is mostly great.

This is by far the best DC CW series!!!!

If you guys haven’t been catching Black Lightning you should. Seeing a superhero operate in the real world, against real adversity is interesting and compelling. And watching a middle aged guy deal with the physical roadblocks of aging while fighting crime makes him all the more noble. But the superhero stuff is the icing on the cake, because as good as those scenes are, watching a brave and committed high school principal stand up to corrupt cops and violent thugs wearing a suit and tie instead of a costume is just as involving. The setting is authentic, the dialogue is well written, the acting good all the way around and the action is electric (pun intended). Plus James Remar plays a kind of cross between Batman’s Alfred and Lucius Fox, and he’s great like he always is. Highly recommended.

Love it!

Definitely a superhero show and it is great. I do think that it is a little cliche but it's not as bad as people are trying to make it out to be. I hope that they get into more deeper style villains like Savitar on Flash or Prometheus on Arrow. Just give it a while and I am sure you'll like it.

The entire cast is great, in particular Cress Williams (Black Lightning). It's a hard hitting show dealing with darker issues in an exciting and intelligent way. On all levels the quality of this show is very high. So far it deals with street level threats and violence better than any of the other CW Superhero shows and that makes it stand out in a very good way. Worth checking out.