I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Damnit! They moved the show time to Wen. (around here they did anyway) and now I keep missing it.
I also liked the part where the speeding car wrapped itself around Clark Kent. Cool effect.
*typically doesn't like covers*
The only cover that I know that is as good or better than the original is Turn the Page. Metallica's version is way better.
Maybe I'm biased. 
I can't get into a show where all of the teenagers look to be about 30 years old no matter how good the writing is.
Smallville rocks. Before last week's episode, I was remarking to my wife how Lana is a very smart girl but what is it that makes her fail to realize that hanging around with Clark has gotten her exposed to more danger in six months than most people experience in three lifetimes. It appears that her waking up to that fact is where they were heading with her character.
" also liked the part where the speeding car wrapped itself around Clark Kent. Cool effect.
fightingdem | Email | Homepage | 11.27.03 - 11:49 am | #"
They consistently have great car wrecks and action sequences. The fight between Clark and Pa Kent in Metropolis also rocked.
It's a great show.
I disagree about the "Buffy ripoff" part. For me, it started off well and has kept improving.
I did dislike the dependence on the Kryptonite-induced-dangerous-powers monster of the week gimmick, but they've mostly moved away from that. And the more it becomes the Lex Luthor Show, the more interesting it gets.
Now if Chloe would just go away, the show would improve greatly.
yeah, the biggest problem was that Chloe and the other guy were never written well.
Chloe is about to break very bad. Call it a hunch.
Well actually, Clark's been the one going on and on about how it's too dangerous for Lana to be around him, in what was IMO a thinly disguised gimmick to keep Clark and Lana apart. And in this particular instance, Clark had little to do with Lex tossing Lana into a horse stall.
Anyway, I think that Clark & Lana are the most boring people on the show (sorry). Obviously we need Clark, but I like him best when he's interacting with Lex. Lex is basically the reason I tune in. He's a fascinating, complex character, and the added foreknowledge of his future makes it all the more compelling. One of the best lines of the first season was something like, "Clark, our friendship will be the stuff of legend."
As for Chloe, I really like her, and I wish they would do more with "that other guy," Pete Ross. He's the only person who knows Clark's secret; you'd think they could put him to better use.
To come back to the last episode, I love the idea that Lex might have been a
It definitely started out as a Buffy ripoff. Substitute Hellmouth for "Krypotonite meteor shower crash site" and you're good to go.
But I agree the show has grown on me. I don't watch it regularly enough, despite being a Superman fan, but the ones I have seen are good. I caught a bunch this summer in reruns c. the time Christopher Reeves showed up, and they were excellent. Good to see people taking the right chances on TV every so often.
Will consider picking up Smallville Season 2 when it shows up in stores.
bit unstable as far back as ten years old. Unfortunately I think we have to wait until January for new episodes.
It started out as a poor Buffy ripoff,
Oh bullshit.
It was always a teen action love thing. They tend to play powerfully on the alienation angle. that and Clarks inability to discuss his problems. Which differentiated it from Buffy in that Buffy was originally an heather that was drawn into the world of fighting evil.
There had been a Superboy series a few years ago. Unfortunately I never saw it to compare it.
Chloe rocks!
"Well actually, Clark's been the one going on and on about how it's too dangerous for Lana to be around him, in what was IMO a thinly disguised gimmick to keep Clark and Lana apart. And in this particular instance, Clark had little to do with Lex tossing Lana into a horse stall."
Clark was saying this, but she wasn't listening and she wasn't paying attention. And she would not have been in the barn in the first place if Clark had not drawn her into his plan to protect Lex from his father.
I kind of like how they have written Chloe. She is a consummate journalist. She even speaks in headlines.
I love Chloe -- a lot more than Lana, to tell the truth. I have that fantasy where Chloe eventually moves to Metropolis, works for the Planet -- and changes her name to Lois Lane.
I've been watching it from the start - I agree it was weak in the first season, but Michael Rosenbaum did such a good job with Lex Luthor I kept watching.
Now it's a lot better, and - on top of all that - my mother's first cousin is playing the sherrif. Which is cool.
Yeah, it used to be a guilty-pleasure, but it's not any more. The twin themes of Lex Luthor as tragic hero and that having a secret identity really means that you constantly lie to everyone close to you are actually pretty powerful, and bring something truly new to the Superman story. My favorite moment is still the vision of Lex Luthor's future in the episode with the elderly woman who could see people's fates by touching them.
I wish SMALLVILLE had been about a teenager LIKE Superman. The SMALLVILLE stories just don't lead into the Superman legend as we know it. What would happen if the Weller/Superman swooped down on the Rosenberg (?)/ Luthor in Metropolis in seven years? "Oh, Hi, Clark -- what's up? What's with the spandex?"
And Jor-El's guest appearances on Earth in previous decades? Kal-El was rocketed off Krypton because the place was blowing up and the inhabitants couldn't excape -- the baby carrier was a one-shot experimental model. If they were wandering all over, all ov them could have got off.
Too many plot points don't jibe. I can't watch anymore. Though Tom Weller still is gorgeous (though obviously not 17). If only he and Ashton Kutcher could have children.
Will Atrios'"Survivor" fans defect to CalPundit?
Mmmm, Cloevage!
I love Chloe -- a lot more than Lana, to tell the truth. I have that fantasy where Chloe eventually moves to Metropolis, works for the Planet -- and changes her name to Lois Lane.
Having not seen a lot of Smallville, I know she's an undercover reporter for Daily Planet and a spy for Lex. Whose to say her real name is Lois Lane?
Too many plot points don't jibe.
I think Smallville works if you consider it an alternate take on the Superman mythos, like he recent "Red Son" book.
i cannot bring myself to believe that this brilliant political commentator, that whose blog i religiously visit some 10 times a day, watches cheesy TV programs like Buffy and Smallville... i woulda thought you were more into NPR and PBS kinda stuff...
sigh..
I wish SMALLVILLE had been about a teenager LIKE Superman. The SMALLVILLE stories just don't lead into the Superman legend as we know it. What would happen if the Weller/Superman swooped down on the Rosenberg (?)/ Luthor in Metropolis in seven years? "Oh, Hi, Clark -- what's up? What's with the spandex?"
As unlikely as it seems, the idea of young Lex interacting with young Clark goes back to the original Superboy comics from way back when; and if you can swallow a pair of glasses being a sufficient disguise to fool Lois Lane, the world's top investigative journalist, up close for years, then you can certainly suppose that Lex is somehow equally oblivious.
We haven't watched Smallville this year (we've let our VCR watch it for us; we'll catch up eventually, maybe), but I certainly agree that Lex Luthor was by far the best thing about the show in its first two years. Man, if George Lucas had handled young Anakin's character development one tenth as well, Phantom Menace and, er, that other one with the crappy love story would have been at least twenty times better than they were.
I've been saying ever since the show began that Smallville is good exactly to the extent that its writers and producers realize that it is Lex Luthor's story, and that it is a tragedy.
lumpskin, dude, you obviously haven't watched an episode of Buffy if you think it's cheesy. it's anything but.
Smallville is great, too. They just need to make the romance between Clark and Lex text instead of subtext.
People want Chloe to go?!? Are you watching the same show I am? Lana (Blahna) is the one who needs to go. How many more times can we hear about her dead parents? (They died when the meteor rocks came--did you know that? :P) She has NO chemistry with Clark, unlike Chloe. Though the truth is, Clark and Lex are the ones with the chemistry. (I'm with you, pepper!)
Yes, I agree the last episode was great, but the three before that one sucked. And as great as Chloe is, she's no Lois Lane.
Make sure you stay tuned after Smallville and watch Angel. Spike's no longer a ghost, and last week's episode rocked!
...yeah well when Cosmic Boy Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl show up in SMALLVILLE to invite clark into the Legion, THEN it will get cool...
....with nearly three quarters of a century of stories, you'd think they could have some better supervillans.... i mean clark n his pa fightin? pleaze....
...and they SO need to do Bizzaro...
you want a good superman story you gotta check out the animated one that used to be on cartoon network....they knew how to rock the joint...
piffle, i am trying to figure out Carnivale.
with nearly three quarters of a century of stories, you'd think they could have some better supervillans
I really don't think that supervillains, at least in their common incarnations, would be any kind of an asset to Smallville (although without them, it becomes a little more difficult to find new ways of making Clark use his powers -- hence the lame "Monster of the Week" phase it went through in year one). Lionel Luthor should be villain enough.
Although, now that I think about it, I could see an episode involving Ra's Al Ghul coming to Smallville to collect some meteor rocks for use in some kind of immortality experiment, as well as to wreak his vengeance on Luthor Corp.'s operations there for their environmental crimes...
you want a good superman story you gotta check out the animated one that used to be on cartoon network
Oh, yeah; the (most recent) animated Superman was an excellent show -- almost as good as the animated
Oh, yeah; the (most recent) animated Superman was an excellent show -- almost as good as the animated
...Batman Adventures, which was easily the best superhero TV series ever.
Another thumbs up for chloe and Lex.
[About Lana] She has NO chemistry with Clark, unlike Chloe.
They actually have a decent "friend" vibe, which they occasionally mess up hy getting all hormonal and stuff; which fits well with the comic-book (and animated series) Lana, who treats Superman like, well, her old friend Clark; and who either learned his secret sometime between now and then, or was the only person on the planet who could see through his amazing disguise.
Lana's first line to Superman in the animated series: [Looks his costume over] "So -- is Martha still sewing your outfits?"
Interestingly enough, in the current Superman comics, Lana is married to -- wait for it -- Pete Ross; and last time I noticed, Pete was the Vice President of the United States. Since Jeph Loeb works on both Superman (or Man of Steel, or Action Comics, or one of those Superman titles) and on Smallville, it'll be interesting to see if they slip in any hints of tha
..well the thing about pete ross is that he's a Legion Reserve member because of his knowledge of clark's identity and his willingness to protect it over and over again..back in the day Lana had NO idea..even as insect queen, fighting along side Superboy, she had no clue..it wasn't untill John byrne's Man of Steel that they wove in her being aware of his powers, and they pretty much copied the scene fer the animated adventures, which is a nice amalagamation of the pre and post crisis Superman mythos..
Yeah, I thought that both the animated Superman Adventures and the animated Batman Adventures did an excellent job of picking and choosing the best elements of all the many incarnations of their characters (with a special award to the Rashomonish episode of Batman Adventures in which different individuals argued about Batman, with each one's perceptions matching a specific incarnation: Dick Sprang, Frank Miller, and even, in a beautiful throwaway line, Joel Schumacher).
Thought I read somewhere (Comic Book Resources, maybe) that Chloe has a cousin named...wait for it...Lois Lane. And that at some point a dashing young industrialist/screwed up psyche named Bruce Wayne (as counterpoint to dyi/sup Lex Luthor) would be making appearances at some future episode. That was at least a year ago, and haven't heard anything more.
Also, I wish that they would introduce a superhero from the past like the original Flash or Green Lantern (JSA versions), in part because if Kryptonite can cause this sort of mutation in humans then there must be other metahumans before this. Also, I think that it would be cool to see an older Jay Garrick (the original Flash before Barry or Wally) 1) racing Clark & 2) giving him advice on balancing secret identities and public displays of super abilities. Or maybe an appearance by the Green Lantern Corps or the Legion (especially since The Legion comic is re-integrating Superboy as a member as I type this).
And that at some point a dashing young industrialist/screwed up psyche named Bruce Wayne (as counterpoint to dyi/sup Lex Luthor) would be making appearances at some future episode.
I believe that they are holding Bruce Wayne for either late in this season, or next year.
Also, I wish that they would introduce a superhero from the past like the original Flash or Green Lantern (JSA versions), in part because if Kryptonite can cause this sort of mutation in humans then there must be other metahumans before this.
I want to say that there was a scene of a fighter sitting on a runway with the pilot's name of "H. Jordan" stencilled under the cockpit, but I may be thinking of a scene from one of the animated series.
..yup that was the animated superman episode 'in brightest day', the green lantern origin story-they pretty much had a refernce to all the guys except alan scott and stuart, but mebbe cause they were saving them for something..
Well, Stewart is the Green Lantern they are using in the animated Justice League these days, so maybe that's what they were saving him for.
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