Replying to you both. :)
I get trying to reach as many people as possible and increase your viewers/viewership/ratings. If I was a show-runner I’d cast as wide a net as I could throw – and I’d stick every character together in at least 1 scene to appeal to as many shippers as possible. But that’s tricky to do, without alienating one group or another.

I’m not a comics gal, and could frankly care less – since from what I’m told there are multiple different versions/verses with the characters anyway. But, people have posted that Mon-El was a different, more heroic dude than what we saw on screen. I’m just baffled why he was written so badly and the “Karamel” romance was so rushed that it seemed offensive not just to fans of ‘ships’ (I have no dog in those hunts), but to the majority of professional reviews. It just seems mishandled and ham-handed.

But, Supergirl is different in several regards: a) it started on a different network, and b) it has a female hero at the core. The switch to the CW (while allowing for easier crossovers) seems to have brought out more negatives than positives. And I’m not really excited to see a “darker” Supergirl. One of the joys of the show was Kara’s sunny optimism and joy in being a hero. Is that tempered by her experiences? Of course. But just because it’s on the CW doesn’t mean it now needs to look like all the other CW hero shows. I don’t want mopey Kara to take over the majority of Season 3.

You’re right.

For a moment, I forgot about “Olicity”.
That fandom and the anti-fandom was worse than the Mon-el controversy.

You can’t make everyone happy.

I think the problem the show has is similar to many others in the Arrow-verse right now: Very specific audiences watch the show, and they all have VASTLY different opinions of where it could go. Sadly, there’s not a lot of middle ground.

I think the show was trying to draw in different audiences.

The supercorp millenials, the karamel tweens and DC comic fans – the fan boys and gals.

However, the show tried to appeal to different groups incrementally. Thus, the inconsistencies and changing focus.Mon-el was brought in to bait the fanboys and girls (Legionaires).

Season 3 has new showrunners, so the political tone and agendas “may” be brought down a bit. If they write/make the show appealable to a broader audience, they wouldn’t have to micropander to different groups. Going more broad with the show’ s direction would allow the storybuilding to flow instead of fragmented storytelling. This would allow Supergirl to be the title character.

Hmm that’s interesting!