Naomi Chases a Superman Scoop, Gets More Than She Bargained for in Teaser for New CW Superhero Series
It’s not easy being a nebbish nerd girl when talks of Superman are in the air, as shown in a new clip for The CW‘s midseason superhero drama Naomi.
Warner Bros. TV unveiled the first look on Saturday at its virtual DC FanDome event. Written and exec-produced by Ava DuVernay (When They See Us) and Jill Blankenship (Arrow), the DC comic adaptation stars The Equalizer‘s Kaci Walfall in the titular role.
Naomi centers on a cool, confident Black teenager with braids as she chases her hidden and unexpected destiny. As Naomi “journeys to the heights of the multiverse” in search of the truth, what she learns challenges all the things we believe about our heroes. The adopted daughter of doting parents, Naomi is popular with all the kids in her military town and unafraid to embrace her “AP-student, comic book-loving” ways.
The adaptation also stars Cranston Johnson (Hap and Leonard), Alexander Wraith (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Mary-Charles Jones (Kevin Can Wait), Barry Watson (7th Heaven), Mouzam Makkar (The Vampire Diaries), Will Meyers (Bad Education) and relative newcomers Daniel Puig, Aidan Gemme and Camila Moreno.
The logline for Naomi also makes mention of a supernatural event that shakes up the teen and her hometown — and which perhaps is hinted at in the clip above, in which the title character is thrown for a bit of a loop after she bolts out of school and skateboards toward super excitement.
Are you excited about Naomi and what DuVernay and Walfall will bring to the comic-book adaptation? Watch the teaser above and drop your thoughts in the comments.
I have faith that this show is going someplace cool, but they are really playing their cards close as to what it will actually be about.
Do we know if this show is part of the Arrowverse or not, considering Berlanti isn’t involved?
The clip implies Superman has done a flyby in town so it would seem to be the same Arrowverse world.
I know a lot of words, like A LOT of words, but “nebbish” was a new one on me, and that really doesn’t happen often. Good on you, Mekeisha. As for this teaser, it’s not very effective. Failed to get me interested at all. But that means very little as to what the show will ultimately be like. Still, though, why did they release THIS? They surely could have done better, no?
It looks destined to fail to me. It’s a pretty new comic which means it doesn’t have an established fanbase, its sales figures are ok but not outstanding, it doesn’t have the benefit of being part of the ‘family of a well-known hero, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to use an existing show to launch it and it has a pretty poor name as using a single name that’s a common girls name doesn’t grab you.
We saw with Black Lightning that had more of a fanbase and name recognition built-in that it struggled to grab that initial audience so there wasn’t much room when the natural audience decline happened.
All those things mean it needed to already be knocking it out of the park with promos and it just isn’t
Black Lightning was not made for a general audience,really pigeon holed itself.
On the one hand, people create and launch TV shows based on no existing property all the time, and a lot of them work, so, in theory, it shouldn’t matter that Naomi the comic book character has existed for less time than it takes to sneeze. On the other hand, it does feel a bit disingenuous, because her “bonafides,” her “cred” from being an adaptation of a comic book and the interest and respect that label generates with audiences at the moment, is false. And as a viewer and a comic book fan, you just know the writers of this show are going steal stories from other characters and give them to her, because she has no material of her own to adapt, and inventing things wholesale is hard. And that’s annoying.
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It shouldn’t make much difference in the end as to whether the show is good, but it does feel a bit like being sold a bill of goods upfront, if you follow. But if it does turn out to be good, we’ll get over it.
“ Black teenager with braids” … wth
I cringed at this as well. It could have just said, “black teenager” and really it didn’t need to say that.
I thought she might have mentioned it because of the news articles about Black girls in braids at school sometimes have issues with school administrations because of their hairstyle choices. So maybe it was a shoutout to heighten the fact she has them as a student….
Clearly, but still cringe. I’ll wait till we get more desceiption of lead character’s hairstyle.
DC are really pushing Naomi in comics, tv, everywhere. I’m not sure why, its not a really interesting character. I feel like this isn’t going to be around long.
For what it’s worth, I saw a test screening of the entire pilot a while back, and it’s A LOT more interesting than this teaser. I’m generally not a fan of the Arrowverse shows but Naomi has more in common with Stargirl (which I’m loving) than the other shows. I’m looking forward to it and I’m definitely not in it’s target demo.
Well, ANYTHING would be more interesting than this teaser. ;)
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Stargirl is the best DC TV show going right now (and it’s not an Arrowverse show), so that’s a pretty encouraging comparison.
The CW really needs a non-DC superhero show.
I can’t see the CW ever airing a non-DC superhero show since one of its parent companies is Warner Bros., the owner of DC Comics.
They have Powerpuff in re-development.
Who at The CW / DC thought that this would be a good teaser?? This didn’t tell anything, besides that… what, the lead kid can just skip school as she wishes mid-class to go see “a stunt” (what does that mean, like a flash mob?) and that she also has… maybe asthma since she passes out after skating there in a hurry? What a bizarre PR move to release this as a clip.
I agree with you about the teaser, it didn’t reveal much, but I’ll give it a shot.