Smallville season 10 (2 Viewers)

[Adam Lenhardt]

The five years was since they graduated high school, not since Chloe disappeared. She was looking at a photo of Clark and Lois at their five year high school reunion, from the episode earlier in the season. AFAIK, Chloe was only MIA for a few months.

 

[Jeffery_H]

Only thing I can say about "collateral" is this was another HUGE stink bomb.


I mean seriously, can these writers get any more lazy with the scripts? They have no creative ideas so just rip-off more and more works that have been done before by writers that actually had talent. In one show they managed to work in a lot of Matrix, Avatar and some small amounts of Inception. Soon I expect to see Jedi type powers, light sabers, Transformers, Lord of the Rings and maybe even an ET rip off. Why stop there? Send Lois and Clark back in time and let's do a Gone with the Wind rip off too! It's just down right slop they are doing given all you can draw from these great characters. I enjoyed some of the past few years, but this one just keeps getting worse and hitting new lows.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I agree with everything you wrote, except I don't think it's particularly worse now than it has been for the last few seasons. I think the show took the nose dive when Millar & Gough left as showrunners. The recent seasons I grade on a curve. The only thing that makes it kind of worse is that we're down to the last dozen episodes. The writers should have plotted out what it would take to get us from where they had us to Clark Kent as Superman, and just done one long arc for the home stretch. But what we're getting is entertaining enough for what it is.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

The five years was since they graduated high school, not since Chloe disappeared. She was looking at a photo of Clark and Lois at their five year high school reunion, from the episode earlier in the season. AFAIK, Chloe was only MIA for a few months.

Did Clark ever even finish College??

 

[Jason_V]

Aside from the usual problems with Smallville episodes-insanely quick wrap ups, for one-this was an agreeable episode. At some point, the entire idea of one show/movie "ripping" off something that came before it is plain insane. For instance, the series VR.5 dealt with virtual reality, as did seaQuest before The Matrix ever made it to the air. (The Deep Space Nine S3 premiere 2 parter also comes to mind.) An episode of Voyager also used Matrix-like stunts. The idea of VR and people sharing a reality was not created by The Matrix and no one has exclusive use of the concept. The fact that Smallville's writers are pulling inspiration or ideas from a wide range of sources isn't surprising: entertainment does it all the time.

This criticism of the episode is like saying Shrek the Third is no good because it rips off Pinocchio, Cinderella, Snow White, King Arthur, perhaps Beauty and the Beast and any other fairy tale out there. Comic book TV shows have pulled from literature or pop culture for decades. One special comic I remember had the Teen Titans interacting with Santa Claus. Was that a rip off of the Santa legend? Of course not. That was a writer finding a new way to tell an old story.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Mikel_Cooperman

Did Clark ever even finish College??

That's where the timeline gets dicey.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Come on, Jeffery. Be fair. They are doing a great job this season. A great job in making me wish season 9 had been the last. A great job in making me not care that the show won't be around next year. What a horrible piece of shit. This is what they return from the break with? Superman has always been about hope. This show's relentless darkness is starting to wear mighty thin. There was an episode a season or two ago where Lana returned and was in some superpower suit. It was so bad, it took all my willpower not to cut it off midway through. I wanted to cut this one off from before the title sequence. I'm starting to understand the prequel haters who say the recent movies destroyed Star Wars. This season's storyline has basically soured me on even past, good seasons. They have explicitly decided to piss on anyone in their audience who doesn't hold with their political views, and I am absolutely only in the audience at this point for the "well, I made it this far and it's only a short way to the finish line" factor. At some point, that won't be enough. That point should be right now, since it's ceased being entertainment for me.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I appreciate the message in this episode that Adam pointed out but I don't know, man, they tried faaar too hard to be reminiscent of The Matrix and Inception IMO, too much. But, I was happy to see Chloe again.


Greg, I like you, your cool in my book but can I be frank? Only an idiot would stop now and your no idiot so c'mon, dude, press on. Just my opinion lol.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Why do you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it?


Nah, that's cool. I probably will stick with it, but it's feeling like work now.

 

[MishaLauenstein]

He doesn't need any kind of education. He's just a journalist.

 

[MishaLauenstein]

It looked to me like Pete was in that reunion photo, though I remember thinking it was a shame he couldn't be in the reunion episode.

 

[pitchman]

The Smallville series finale is set for May 13th, and yes, it will be a two-hour episode according to this news item over at TheWrap...

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

So now we're supposed to believe that Perry White was a hippie? Good grief.


The frustrating thing for me is how lazy the writing has become. A national referendum? Have the writers even heard of the constitution? And why bring a liberal/conservative construction to this when nothing about the issue would seem to indicate such a construction? Instead of having all the newspapers and all of the TV stations on the anti-hero side, it would have made far more intriguing television if different newspapers and different television stations were taking different sides on the issue. A lot of what we've been seeing lately reeks of fan fiction, where events happen as they do because the writers solely because they writers need them that way to make their half-baked story work.

On the plus side, it was nice to see Martha Kent back. Her warm presence has been sorely missed in recent years, and the writing for her character wisely focused on what was important instead of using her as an ideological prop. Everything she had to say in this episode is what we'd expect Martha Kent to say, and that's a good thing. I loved the way she spoke of Jonathan so frequently, showing that this plan they had for Clark was the product of a loving and decent marriage.


John Glover always makes the most of what he's given, and tonight's episode was no exception. The writing for his character was a pale shadow of what he got during the Millar/Gough years, but his performance elevated it so you wouldn't know that.


And it looks like Clark's finally giving serious thought to creating separate Clark Kent and Superman identities. That's exciting, and it's what will keep me watching through to the end.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

UPDATE: Fantastic news, huge spoiler for the finale:




Exclusive: Michael Rosenbaum Reprises Role of Lex Luthor for Smallville Series Finale

 

[Greg_S_H]

Yeah, that vote was idiotic. And, the polls close and the results come in for a fifty state vote when it's broad daylight in Kansas? Okay. Maybe the ugliness of this season will now end with the measure's defeat. I guess if this Lex grows into the Lex we know, the memory loss will conveniently cover why he doesn't recognize Clark as Supes. I'll admit: a much better episode than the previous one, which I would have found terrible even if there was no agenda driving this storyline.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I don't really care how this ridiculous vigilante act storyline ended just as long as it ended, it was a bad idea anyway.


That kid who played Lex was profoundly creepy looking I thought, something about him made me uncomfortable.


Outstanding news in that update indeed.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I really enjoyed last nights show. Almost like a family reunion.

Let's hope we see Martha at the Wedding!

 

[NeilO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg_S_H

Yeah, that vote was idiotic. And, the polls close and the results come in for a fifty state vote when it's broad daylight in Kansas? Okay. Maybe the ugliness of this season will now end with the measure's defeat.

Just about everything they did with the VRA was idiotic, so it isn't surprising that how they brought it down fit the mold. I guess they just want to take shortcuts.

 

[Jason_V]

To paraphrase, that was poopy. The writers played really fast and really loose with time and geography, from the aforementioned fifty state vote during Kansas daylight to Martha being transported to the hospital and bandaged up before Clark can get there (not to mention Clark's assertion he didn't realize what Tess said until he was halfway to the Fortress. Sure, he doesn't travel at light speed, but was he going at half speed? The idea Martha has been campaigning against the VRA and this is the first time we're hearing of it reeks of short sightedness.

The only good thing I can say about the lack of Darkseid the last few eps is at least we're spared the inane filler episodes that came with the Doomsday arc.

So...I know Clark wasn't going to leave Lionel to die in the fire, but did he really have to just leave him on the steps of the mansion? Not a jail or Siberia or encased in carbonite or something? Just leave him out there? And why was Martha dispatched to confront Lionel? Who thought of that brilliant plan?

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I don't get what you are talking about how are they working in any kind of political agenda, as far as I can tell they are no more political that that X Men II Movie from a few years back concening the government requiring the mutants to register and or take the "Cure". The Military/Government being evil goes back to the X-Files I never heard any complaints about that show.