I've been watching the CW's Black Lightning series since it started. Although I thought the first few episodes were pretty rocky in terms of pacing I'm generally enjoying the show now. I wouldn't say it's perfect but it's a show I look forward to every week.
Themes
Structurally, the show includes superhero action and family drama. It's definitely making an intentional effort to include race issues into the show, but usually I don't find it heavy-handed or didactic. For example, there are clearly tensions between the police department in the show's setting and the people in the African American community, but that community is also essentially being preyed upon by a brutal gang, and the main police character on the show is himself a black man who seems to be trying to do his best in a difficult situation.
Main Character
The show centers around high school principal Jefferson Pierce. He used to fight crime as the electricity-hurling superhero Black Lightning “back in the day”, but retired from that life because his nemesis Tobias Whale appeared to be defeated and because the stress of leading such a risky life was causing too much tension in his relationship with his now-ex-wife. Escalating problems in the community that end up affecting his family convince him of the necessity of suiting up again and taking on The 100, the gang that is plaguing the city.
I think the actor Cress Williams does a good job of covering the different aspects of the character. He can do the brooding intensity of the vigilante superhero, the conflicted concern as he's being a father for his med-school-aged and high-school-aged daughters, and the goofy charm to make comedic scenes work. He can convincingly convey the depth of emotions that are roiling in a person who is trying to balance being an upstanding pillar of his community by day and a vigilante by night.
I think the costume is pretty bad. The glowing colored sections make it look kind of silly. And some of the supposedly-electricity-based superpowers seem a little cartoonish to me. Zap someone with a lightning bolt: Cool. Suspend someone in midair with a lightning lasso: WTF? I find this to be more of a mild annoyance than a deal-breaker, though. I also find it somewhat interesting in that his electricity powers are innate but are kind of “focused” or “channeled” through the suit created for him by his mentor Gambi. This lets the show introduce new or varied electricity powers over time as Gambi incorporates new functionality into the suit.
Villains
The bad guys on the show have been interesting, nuanced, and bring a lot of charisma to the screen. A lot of superhero shows can be fail if their villains aren't compelling, but I think these are more than pulling their weight. Although this is a superhero show the villains have mostly been engaging in conventional gang violence up to this point, but there are hints that there's more going on beneath the surface, such as Black Lightning's nemesis Tobias Whale not seeming to have aged in 30 years. The language and violence is probably toned down relative to what you would see in a movie or a cable series since it's a prime-time show on The CW, but I think it works to communicate what they're going for.
Pacing and conflicts
I felt the early episodes were somewhat painfully slow, but I thought they hit their stride by episode 4. One big problem is that the protagonist's main conflict with his ex-wife is that she doesn't want him to be a superhero (the strain of worrying that he'd get killed very time he went out and having to patch him back up after his fights is a big part of what broke up their marriage). However, the answer to the question “Should the main character on this superhero show be a superhero?” will have to be “yes” so this always feels like a time-wasting false conflict to me. It makes realistic sense that her character would feel that way, but I don't think it works for the drama of the show. Later in the series this conflict isn't as foregrounded, and there are also more dramatic threads to provide more variety in each episode, so it isn't as much of a problem for me.
Not exactly to my taste, but still good
Personally I like my superhero shows to be a little lighter in tone than this one, such as with The Flash or Gotham. However I'm still enjoying what this show is doing even if its not a perfect fit with my normal preferences, it's good enough at what it is doing to offset that. I think it had a bit of a rocky start but I was glad I gave it some time because I'm generally enjoying it now.