Smallville Season 9 episode mini-reviews Part Uno

Source material can be found here PLUS watching the show.

Already wrote about the first two eps so we’re starting with the third one…

Rabid – It’s a zombie movie, only with no gore!  I always hate rip-offs of other shit, be they of effects, plots or both.  Which means I am unhappy most of the time.

Echo – I understand how difficult it is to write balanced stories with nearly-indestructable characters, but I’ll always resent the pain-in-the-ass Jor-El Easy Button.  The Jor-El of Smallville can strip Clark of his regular powers at will; in this ep we learn he can also bestow new ones (only to remove them again at a critical moment).  Clark’s imperfect humanity is what makes him a hero, so having a mind-reading ability cheated him (and us) out of having to work up the courage to ask out Lois without knowing the outcome. The Toyman (Christopher Gauthier) is played by a guy who can really act (always good to have a few of those around) and the same, as always, goes for Hartley’s Green Arrow.  Oliver’s rock-bottom suicide attempt transcended dramatic expectations, and weren’t you pleasantly freaked out by the robot?  One more thing:  that poor dude in the bomb mask at the beginning was an innocent kidnap victim. It was probably bad editing, but it seemed like Clark let that guy die in the explosion.  WTF?

Roulette – I can’t watch anyone “buried alive” or even trapped in a coffin above ground so I had trouble breathing and had to TIVO through that shit.  If it wasn’t Oliver as the victim of this lame The Game rip-off it would be unwatchable.  No, I take that back, this was a pretty damned good ep overall.

Crossfire – Don’t really remember this one, except the threat of a potential Oliverarrow sidekick worried me.  Even though it ripped-off the effects of Superman Returns, the ending kicked ass, and the “pimp” who got served looked like a fat-faced clone of Justin Timberlake.  Oh yeah, and Clark kissed Lois.

Kandor – This is the one where this season shit the cot, for me anyway.  It was cool to start the show on Krypton, but it got me thinking (uh oh).  Kryptonians were supposed to be this very “advanced” alien race, but there they were, fighting in trenches like it was WW1.  And what exactly were they fighting about?  Seems there should have been some kind of super-suit that duplicated the yellow sun, so that at least Krypton’s armies or police force would be Superbeings, thus shortening, ah, wars and conflicts and such.

The story of the blood wasn’t explained very well, and to this moment I don’t really care enough to explore it.  THE Moment of Logic Fail:  all the Kandorians on earth are CLONES.  That means the real people (Zod, Jor-El, etc.) are LONG DEAD and these clones should be free to chart their own destinies.  If they were so dangerous, Clark should have (painlessly) killed them all, it would’ve been like tearing up copies of an obsolete original document, OR he could’ve just killed Baby Zod as he seemed to be the only troublemaker (obviously there would be no stories at all if Clark did what he was supposed to do in a timely manner).

The greatest WTF moment of the season also occurs during this episode.  As Jor-El faces criminal charges we get to see the Kryptonian “Council of Faces” and they added an old broad to the mix (ah, diversity!).  I really think that was the whole point of the scene, showing off the broad, but the WTF occurs when the Faces sentence Jor-El…..to DEATH.  ??????  According to the first two Superman movies the Kryptonians had no death penalty; they were stupid liberals, launching Zod and Friends into space in the Phantom Zone mirror-thingy where the odds of them being freed were infinitesmal yet dangerous enough not to do it (“forever” is a time long enough for even God to screw up, witness Earth).  And apparently the Kryps couldn’t program the Phantom Zone to avoid galaxies with yellow suns.  For the record, actor Callum Blue as Baby Zod is entertaining, and did well all season considering what he had to work with.

Idol – Wonder Twins?  All right, all right, but they kept the bullshit to a minimum, so really it was like watching any episode with additional super-powered beings.  And Allison Scagliotti as Jayna was cute as a bug’s ear.  Every actress on Smallville should be named Allison in real life.

This ends Part Uno of Smallville Season 9 episode mini-reviews.  When Part Deux is up, this sentence will become a link to it.

Smallville Season 9 — Too Cloney

Season 9 is a VAST improvement over the last two, but it’s stalled.  I don’t understand why Clark doesn’t just wipe out all the Kandorians.  If I’m understanding it right, phantom versions of General Zod and his wife presumably remain trapped in the appropriately-named Phantom Zone, so these “Kandorians” are really just clones of Kryptonians long dead.  Clones that can only go bad and make for dumb stories.  Clark continues to be an idiot, and this bullshit with the non-flying is just that.  Supercheekbones Kara, Bizarro and now fucking Baby Zod (via an embarrassing hackneyed plot twist) all get their powers and can immediately fly while Clark is a trapped earthbound doofus.  Enough is enough!

Smallville Season 8 Finale – Sucked

I’m not gonna put any more effort into this review than the writers did with Smallville’s season finale.

Really, the show is so bad that I’m more impressed with how little the producers are offering fans and how much they’re getting away with rather than how well any story is told.

Doomsday, both character and storyline, was a total flop, and the featured non-battle lasting less than a minute was exactly what I figured they’d do, with the exception that Super-Lana was nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t look for any announcements online that a Season 9 had been approved, hell, maybe it hasn’t been. It would almost be a blessing to leave it all in limbo.

The obscenities against fans are stacking up: power orbs, talismans, prophecies, the female Lex wannabe, a dumbfuck Clark whose powers are stripped from him or their limitations rewritten every other episode, and now future/time travel shit with the League from the Future or whoever they are, brought in as a plot-saving cheap stunt in the vein of “it was all a dream”: I can’t believe there’s any Smallville fan over the age of 12 who shed a tear when Jimmy Olsen “died”.

I’m wondering if the one guy who actually visited M39 to argue that ‘you’re not being forced to watch the show’ would still show his face after tonight’s miscarriage.

Why do I still subject myself to Smallville? Because I love Superman and the Superman mythos.

Unfortunately for the still-millions of Smallville fans, we’re not being entertained and rewarded for caring.

We’re only watching for signs of life.

Smallville In Extremis

It’s sheer kryptonite masochism to even write about Smallville anymore. The last 3 episodes have been as dismal as the previous.

Jimmy Olsen as 007/Bourne – Another “20 hours earlier” crapfest. My favorite part is when Olsen soundlessly drops from an AC duct. Must be a great feeling to start out an aw-shucks camera-wielding doofus only to discover you’re a ninja who can dance like Arthur Murray when forced into service by an agent of the “Department of Domestic Security.”

What if? – What if Clark had never made it to earth for some reason? Who knows, nobody bothered to come up with an interesting answer. Clark and his idiot super-cheekboned cousin can’t dodge a bullet across the room just because it’s made with kryptonite. This after countless previous seasons’ encounters where Clark had time to yawn and cook eggs at superspeed while various bullets crawled out of the ends of guns. If k-bullets were all it took to kill him, every villain would have such a gun.

Once again, Rosenbaum finds himself in the natty ironic all-white Apocalypse suit while the same footage of Judgment Day missiles from Terminator 3 gets re-used. Whew! That saves us writers like, a whole minute of creating anything new!

Then we’re treated to one of the most absurd scenes in the entire series’ history when Clark holds his baby self and places him in the ship that will carry him to earth! Is this still a dream? If not, where are Jor-El and Lara? Why does Clark lose his powers 2 seconds after skipping through the portal to Krypton? (Yes, I know about the red sun, but only kryptonite drains him that fast, otherwise, he loses his powers slowly).

(We interrupt this review with a mini-rant about Brainiac. This fucking plot irritant has never been given a solid background or explanation as to why it’s programmed to be evil, nor does Clark EVER try querying the Fortress crystals/Snore-El for answers about how to defeat it [or fly]).

The current episode where Lex follows yet another Macguffin – I don’t know what to say about the “Veritas” plotline other than that it’s dumb. Just…dumb.

Wait…my super-hearing is picking up a meeting of Smallville’s writing team…

Smallville Writer #1: ….so we make Lionel part of this secret society that knew about Clark “The Traveler” all along!

Smallville Writer #2: But that makes no sense! It negates whole seasons’ worth of build-up! What about the Malachi caves?

Smallville Writer #3: Kawachi caves, dummy. Malachi was the name of the brothers in Happy Days that tried to crush the Fonz in a demolition derby. Thus, the Malachi Crunch.

SW#1: How did you know that?

SW#3: I’ve got internet access on my Sprint Gigapump Phonetextthingy! Everything you need!

SW#2: Shit. I’d have known that but I left my Sprint Gigapump Phonetextthingy in my Toyota Yaris. It’s sitting between the Yaris’s standard dual airbags and mp3 jack, right next to my pack of Stride Penguinmint Gum!

SW#1: AS I WAS SAYING, Lionel was part of this Secret Society along with Christopher Reeve, I mean, Virgil Swan. We just make everyone a part of this Secret Society in order to fill in any plot holes we missed: Swan, Margot Kidder, Chloe’s Mom Lynda Carter, The Queens, Lois’s Dad The General, Lana’s Parents, The Olsens, The Olsen Twins, The Trumps, The Jeffersons, The Bunkers, The Flintstones–

SW#2: —The Kents. (The other two look at him.) No? You said everyone! What’s the name of this Secret Society, anyway?

SW#1: I don’t know, but it’s got to be something Latin. Yaritas?

SW#3: Worry about that later. This Secret Sprint society will be the reason Lionel was always busy and ignoring Lex! Even though we’re not mentioning it till now!

SW#1: Because up until now it was a secret!

SW#2: What about when Lionel was made a Kryptonian vessel by Jor-El and won that episode’s superpowers lottery? Didn’t he get all of the answers right then? How could be give a crap about the Stride Gum Society after learning everything?!

SW#1: The answer to that, my friends, is simple. We kill off Lionel.

SW#2: Can’t we just make him blind again? Or shave his head in slow motion? That was cool.

SW#3: All right, let’s get started. We need another villain this week. The rebel vampire guy from Buffy?

SW#1: What the hell! It’s lunchtime! I’m having a salad! A very-tossed salad!

SW#2: Did you just say “veritas?” Isn’t that Latin?

This week we got a dose of “The Doctor” from Voyager as the last survivor of Veritas. Once again a mere mortal gets the drop on Clark–who can move at a speed par with light–by opening a secret lead compartment on his staff, revealing that all-purpose plot device, kryptonite. Oh well, even Clark’s not fast enough to speed away from lazy writing.

There was one cool moment this episode: the workings of the creepy CGI clock. spoiled only by the rest of the episode surrounding it. One cool moment in an hour (40 minutes, if you have Tivo) ain’t enough. Lest you challenge my opinion of the lameness, when Clark speeds out of the church the candles near the doorway don’t even flutter.

Coming up next week, it appears Lex, after weeks of chasing Super Macguffins around the globe, finally discovers the Fortress and possibly Clark’s “secret” now known by at least 10 or more people. Incidentally, the Fortress of “Solitude” has seen almost as many guests as the rent-controlled apartments on Friends.

I don’t know how finding the Fortress will enable Lex to ‘control’ Clark when NO ONE, including SuperBlonde Cheekbones who lived on Krypton for many years, knows how to operate it. The thing must’ve been made in China as it’s provided ZERO help from the day it was created. You’ve got the last remnant of an advanced world and civilization yet the writers can’t make a single compelling story around it. That, friends, is a total load of Stride.

Best place to meet your future wife? Jeopardy! tryouts

The JEOPARDY! Bangbus BrainBus came to town last Tuesday. I did not go to the tryouts and now regret the decision, not because I’d have a chance in hell of making the cut, but because I can’t think of a better meeting place to find a wife (if you’re into that sort of thing).

If you watch Jeopardy! regularly, you’ll discover about a third of the female contestants look like these lovelies.

I didn’t see the first two lasses who share the same first name in action, but I did “happen” to glean these pics off the Tivo with my camera. Yes, I’m that depraved, as the Jep! website has little to offer in the way of centerfolds.

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First up: Rebecca Watt. Unfortunately I didn’t see her play, but she’s a nice introduction.

Rebecca is pleasing to the eye but no knockout, and that’s a GOOD thing. Practical hair, sweet face, glasses, more cute than hot. <—This last bit, gentlemen, is the Secret of Wife. You don’t want to marry a super-hottie, their beauty is bright but it’s brightness like a camera flash, over in an instant (unlike the camera flash on Rebecca’s forehead…the additional head shot is for contrast).

Rebecca’s modest beauty is no flash but a single luminous candle; she’ll look exactly the same for most of the decades you’re married. You know she’s smart as a whip, having made it on Jeopardy!, and most of the people on the show are upper middle class with lucrative careers.

Next up is Rebecca K. I also missed her performance but we’ll always have this screenshot. She looks like a zaftig Allison Mack (Chloe) from Smallville and you’ll notice the beginning of a theme: huge, mighty breasts any man would be proud to have on the front of his viking warship. Usually there’s not much Jeopardy! cleavage but the clothing is usually tight-fitting. Many of these women are tall enough to give you the viewer a teasing glance.

Okay, Susan here, her pic doesn’t do her justice, it’s from the game I didn’t see, but the game after this one, which I saw but didn’t Tivo (idiot!) her hair was pulled back and she was wearing a clinging long-neck dress shirt. As per the movie Top Secret, her name must mean “She whose breasts defy gravity” and they were mighty indeed, Double-Ds.  I prayed to the Jeopardy! gods she’d win so I’d see her again, but it was not to be.

Earlier in the year Susan’s kid had already made 12 grand on Pedophile!-Jeopardy! and now it was her turn to clean up, for two days anyway. Sexy, smart, successful and a good mom? If you meet a Susan-type, get thee to Vegas!

I saved my personal favorite for last.

Angela (one of my favorite names) has one of those adorable faces that if she’s your type, you do nothing less than fall in LOVE. Sexy, sweet, sharp and admitted to being a wench at the Ren Fair with the name you see below hers. (Once again I screwed up, because the day AFTER this pic on her final day playing she wore a violet sweater that showed off her FANTASTIC body, as much as we’re allowed to see).

So, by not going to the Jeopardy! tryouts, I lost both a scant shot at being on the show as well as meeting my future wife, and I say this as someone who never, ever plans to marry.

I can always take the Jeopardy! challenge on-line on the 29th.