Shows that I’ve been watching recently

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I get the impression that Dickinson is not getting as much attention as some of Apple TV’s other originals like The Morning Show and See, it doesn’t seem like many people are talking about it at all which is a shame. I found it to be such a charming and funny coming of age tale, and there were some genuinely heartbreaking moments too when it came

Comments

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I had to delete my tumblr when I renewed my U.S. visa --- they asked about all my social media and wanted my handled etc. ... fortuntately LJ wasn't among them and it's not like I ever posted anything but Reign, Once Upon a Time and the other odd fandom picture series on my tumblr but it felt so bloody invasive? Also I hadn't used it for five year, so I though I should probably either otherhaul it or get rid of it. I always found it hard to have proper fandom discussions on tumblr. And then where OuaT was concerned I stumbled into fandom wars again and it felt like I was back on Roswell circa 1999.

I completely agree with you though I so miss the fannish discussions on LJ - I feel like it is the idea platform to have these things given the comment thread structure and all.

Yes, you got that right - I mean to our eyes early seasons of TheWB shows must alwasy be slow and somewhat cheesy but I do happen to appreciate that all the tropes aside they took time for character building. Now, I wasn't into the slash aspect of it all but I really enjoyed how slowly they built the Clark/Lex friendship or like I said before the Lana/Lex friendship... there was no crazy rush to throw everything on the wall and see what may stick.

I wasn't a fan of season 7 - see Clana felt unnatural to me, forced even. Clark constantly (even in season 6) insisted how she couldn't love Lex although Lana most certainly did throughout the end of season 5 and beginning of season 6... and then there was the awkward Bizarro storyline and finally FINALLY Clark said with such contempt to Lana "Well, you were the one who fell in love with Lex." ... and she did not deny it. That was such a relief because finally they stopped retconning Lana's love for Lex. I mean I was okay with a few things in that season like Lana keeping secrets from Clark and getting more "evil" -- it made me hope for a Lexana reunion but of course the writers didn't want that.

Yeah see, since I wasn't around I had no clue that Lexana wasn't popular and that there was a Clana campaign. In hindsight that is like... oh why... I mean fanservice is nice to a certain degree but not like that. I never understood in Season 6 why Lana would go back to Clark after she found out his secret. It's not like he finally confided in her. No, she had to trick him and he didn't know she knew. Meanwhile (let's ignore the icky pregnancy storyline for a moment though really ... look if Lex is really this evil mastermind and doesn't want Lana to leave him, has this doctor at hand, and at some point Lana was sedated why just give her hormones? You have crossed the ethicial Rubicon already, lad. Why not impregnate her with your child? That whole storyline made NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.) at least Lex told her for the most part what he was up to and I think had they continued their relationship he would have confided in her further. Why would Lana decide she was suddenly totally in love with somebody again who told her he wasn't in love with her to her face and lied to her all the time but told Chloe all about his abilities? That made no sense.

I just didn't care for season 4 because Lana was mostly disconnected from the group because of Jason. Also I think that was season 5 though when she got together with Lex and Chloe and Clark gave her an ear full about it, Lois came to her and said "look I'm not one for girltalk but if you need an unbiased ear" --- then she came back to the Luther Mansion, Lex asked her where she was, she told him she had coffee with Lois for three hours and Lex said darkly that will land them on the front page of the Inquisitor but Lana said it wasn't like that and she was right... that was one of the the things that bugged me... unfulfiled potential. I felt they could have been good friends.

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I agree, I didn't care for the Jimmy/Chloe romance but I liked Jimmy as Clark's and mostly as Lois's sidekick. There were some great scenes in there which I really appreciated. Maybe another reason why I had wished that they could have got more of Lucy. After all in the comics Lucy and Jimmy were a couple and I loved it when Lois and Lucy could finally resolve their issues. Erica Durance and Peyton List were so extremely well cast as the Lane sister in my opinion and I would have loved to have seen more of them.

But yes, I agree... it was a bit painful these mid-seasons when neither Lois or Clark had a proper job and it was Chloe with the career at the Daily Planet. It wasn't right.

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And yep, I liked when they used Jimmy more like his comic book equivalent with Clark and Lois, but the romance with Chloe just never felt right to me, I hated how much they played up his jealousy especially

Smallville definitely stalled for way too long at times, it was originally a five year plan and it was going to end sometime after Jonathan died, but then it just kept getting renewed and they kept stretching out Clark’s journey. Honestly in seasons 8-10 they may as well have just had it as a Metropolis spin-off and called him Superman, it was a stretch to insist on still keeping him at the farm and calling his alter ego the blur. And then Tess at the Luther mansion as well when it would have made way more sense to give her a sleek new office set in Metropolis

It always made me laugh how characters kept making these supposed quick trips back and forth to their homebase at the Talon, the timeline there frequently made no sense at all

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I hated how much they played up his jealousy especially

Another thing that doesn't even seem to make a lot of sense within the show. So Chloe had her first time with Jimmy when she was a summer intern at the Daily Planet and then they basically didn't keep in touch and Chloe seemed rather down like that one episode where we got the sex talk after "don't throw your virginity away"... and then he resurfaces, suddenly his feelings are super strong and he is totally jealous of Clark then of Davis... it was too much.

I guess they wanted us to make the connection that Tess is really Lena Luthor by having her move into the mansion but yeah I agree it seems an awefully long commute. Especially and that made me sad as somebody who comes from the town where all these luxury sports cars of the Porsche and Mercedes persuasion that Lex drove were built, what did Tess get, the one time she was driving? A Nissan? I guess personally I got attached to the farm but I agree about the fact that they basically made a show about Superman without Superman too long.

Oh yes, it makes me wonder how far away these places really are. I think I googled map of Smallville at some point. Sadly this is not really a map because it's missing a scale and a north arrow but let's say that bridge between Metropolis and New Gotham is 2.5km long then it's about 25-30km from Smallville to Metropolis and it doesn't look like motorway.

I guesss I wanted to ask one thing that I forgot previously - again since I wasn't there, so if Lana/Lex was so hated how was the fan reaction to the Lana/Jason relationship? Personally I found it unbearably boring and out of nowhere. (But then I thought the whole season was a slog for the most part.) He didn't even make a good villain in the end in my personal view.

Hm... I need some icons...

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I agree, it felt like a retcon to suddenly make Chimmy an endgame ship when he had always been the intern that never called Chloe back in the past, and they never really explained what changed there and why they were suddenly into one another again.

And hmm I don’t remember people caring about Jason/Lana much one way or the other, his switch to being a villain definitely felt very abrupt, but even his whole romance with Lana as well happened way too fast for me to care about. From what I remember it was a network request for Jensen to be added to the show for season 4, and then (although they denied it and said it was all planned from the beginning) they quickly switched him over to working with his mother after Jensen got the pilot for Supernatural and obviously wasn’t going to be sticking around for another season.

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I had trouble shipping Chloe with anyone tbh and I admit my view is probably tainted because I watched it now and I had to work on separating the actress from the character. But look even when she was with Oliver, I was a bit like I don't understand why? Because comic book-wise Green Arrow/Black Canary are a thing and it wasn't like Justin Hartley had much of a role apart from overcoming his manpain post-Doomday so I had really hoped to see Alaina Huffman again and they would get them together somewhere background-ish. After all, she was already on his team of heros. I'm sorry if that goes against your ship by the way.

Yeah, I get the not caring part. Jason was such a wet blanket and nobody really understood what he was doing there except for separating Lana from the rest of the group, which was annoying. I think I read somewhere that Jensen had a decision to make 'Smallville' or 'Tru Calling' and he chose the former, probably wisely thinking they'd finally give him his own show after a season. I mean the casting choices were so very weird and usually I thought 'Smallville' did so well with them but it was hard to buy Jane Seymour and Jensen Ackles as mother and son.

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I haven’t really watched SV since what came out about the actress, but yeah I think that it’s definitely going to be a little weird for me as well when I next have a rewatch, especially in seasons 7-10. And lol no worries, I did like the Oliver/Chloe ship all right, but it wasn’t my favourite or anything, it always felt really underdeveloped imo and like it was a bit of an afterthought to the writers. I think they just saw fan response to the ending of Oliver teaching Chloe to shoot with a bow and arrow, and so they ran with it. The Chloe relationships that I was more into were Clark/Chloe and Chloe/Davis, but of course everything with Davis then got a bit too sick and creepy towards the end! I thought they had great chemistry early on in season 8 though, and I was honestly rooting for them over Chimmy

And hmm yeah I know what you mean, after Jason was introduced to us as Lana’s bf and a football coach, it was hard to square that with him supposedly being Jane Seymour’s son and being from old money. I think that Jensen is better at playing more blue collar and roguish characters tbh, and Jason never really played to his strengths as an actor

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Putting my feelings towards the actress aside, I agree that in the beginning I thought Chloe and Davis were interesting. It was also that it had a journey for Chloe other than her just being Clark's sidekick that I appreciated to some degree and there was chemistry. But it definitely got way too creepy and sick towards the end. I guess yeah things with Oliver were always way underdelveoped and I only ever saw her and Clark as friends, because he never seemed to look at her with the same interest he looked at Lana, Lois or even Lucy that first episode she was in. Like I said before I wish Chimmy had not happened because I actually loved Jimmy in his scenes with Lois (and Clark). But with Chloe ... the whole thing was sucking the air out of the room.

The problem with Jason was always that we were only told things - we were told he was from old money but to explain why he lives how he lives we are told he was cut off ... however then we learn that his family is involved in this cabal with the Luthors and the Queens etc. and his mother has possibly engineered his meeting with Lana so why cut him off once he followed her to Smallville where Lex and possible things they want from their ancient cabal are anyway? It was really nonsensical. And okay then his mother shows up and that's fine we believe she is sophisticated and from old money but the way Jason speaks and dresses, we don't want to be judgmental but unless he is still in his rebel phase in his late twenties, then it's hard to reconcile? It was really messy in my opinion. I read through some posts on tumblr and maybe even ancient LJ posts and somebody said that season 4 was the best and where SV reached its peak. And I was baffled because … I thought it was mostly a slog. Every other episode somebody seemed to have been possessed or body switched or snatched and then didn't remember at all anymore after waking up. I'm exaggerating but not many of my favourite moments were in that season. I found more before or after.

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I think that season 4 was possibly the first time that the writers really tried to have an overall plot with the search for the stones leading to the Fortress, maybe that’s part of why it’s seen as a new era for the show, along with Lois’s arrival, but yeah I totally agree on how unplanned and messy it all came across. I remember actually that there was a LOT of frustration on LJ because of how much the increased high school focus meant that Lex scenes were cut back to five minutes an episode or less in a darkened mansion, someone used to record how many there were in each episode and call them the Lex minutes lol. It really wasn’t a great season for Lionel either, and that was a shame after season 3 had such great scenes for the Luthors, but all I can say about its popularity with some fans is that I think it really appealed to new viewers who came in for Lois Lane? There was also more of a comic book focus with episodes like Run introducing the Flash, there was Krypto with the dog from the comic, Clark flying in the premiere etc. Season 4 was deliberately introducing more humour to the show with Lois too, as well as cutting back on Clana pinning after one another, that was much appreciated by some viewers who saw Lois as a breath of fresh air in that respect. I think there was a tendency to see the first three seasons as being more about cheesy meteor infected one-off episodes, plus high school drama with Clana and Chloe, and so a lot of viewers were calling season 4 the time when SV really got started/got good to them. Personally I’d argue that season 5 would be the more obvious cut-off from the high school seasons in fact, but I guess that Lois’s arrival made season 4 stand out more there?

IMO also season 3 was a *far* stronger season than season 4, ironically the writers talked at the time about season 3 getting too serious and adult’ with all of the time spend in secret labs with the Luthors, that hurt them in the ratings with younger viewers, and so season 4 was a reaction to that. They specifically said at the beginning that they wanted to go back to high school and bring in more of a sense of fun in season 4, hence Clark playing football, Lois going back to high school etc, and yet for some season 4 is seen as when SV first becomes adult and worth watching 🤷‍♀️

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Oh, I definitely appreciated Lois's arrival (I mean over the seasons she evolved into my favourite character). But like you said, I found it ironic how suddenly it was a much more highschool focused show than ever before with Martha, Jonathan and Lionel next to Lex not getting much screentime or interesting things to do. I totally also appreciated the less Clana thing because before and then also later that was a relationship that was shown to not work over and over and over again which is why not only while watching but now that I can draw a bottomline under my watch I have to say I much preferred Lexana (and later Clois). The funny thing is you say people perceived seasons 1-3 as cheesy but like you said I found season 3 much darker (suddenly everyone seemed to have a secret lab... that was continued later, Oliver had a secret lab, Lana had a secret lab... I honestly felt like... should I get a secret lab?).

Personally I’d argue that season 5 would be the more obvious cut-off from the high school seasons in fact

I agree, because as much as like you said I appreciated the attempt at a storyline that was going all season long it was also called on just as many tropes as the meteor freaks... I mean let's just remember the episode where Lana, Lois and Chloe were possessed with Lana's ancestor and her friends and they were witches? I guess the production had costumes and props from the set of Charmed on loan for that but it was immensely cheesy. Whereas season 5 took on a much darker tone again getting back into the whole alien/Krypton saga.

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:nods: I’d say that my favourite seasons were 3, 5, and 8, and my least favourite seasons are probably 4 and 7. It’s been a long time since I last watched though, so who knows if my views will have changed or not since!

It definitely was a relief not to have every episode end on Clana looking at one another in the loft with sad music playing, really I don’t get why the writers didn’t just put them together in seasons 2 and 3 and let them actually date and be the high school sweethearts, it would have been far less annoying than all of the pining. I was surprised to actually find them pretty cute together when they did briefly date in season 5, because most of their scenes in seasons 1-3 had just been so repetitive and painful to sit through. Tom and Kristen were both fairly new to acting, and they tried their best, but those scenes in the loft were so clearly not playing to their strengths.

The funny thing is you say people perceived seasons 1-3 as cheesy but like you said I found season 3 much darker

I mean tbh I do recall that some of the new season 4 viewers never even watched the earlier seasons, there was talk about it only being worth getting into when Lois showed up, so that could be part of the disconnect you are coming across with season 3 being dismissed as childish? I’m not sure if that’s still the case or not, I’d like to think that most viewers would have watched from the beginning by now, but there were viewers at the time saying they didn’t see the point in catching up with seasons 1-3. Season 3 definitely wasn’t just one-off meteor infected episodes like seasons 1 and 2 were, Shattered, Asylum, and Memoria were some of the darkest episodes they ever did, and there was even a bit of a seasonal arc running through it all with Lex and Chloe trying to take down Lionel. Certainly one was better developed than the stones and the witches from season 4...

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I think for me it was 3, 5 (with the first half of 6) and 9. And yes, I get what you're saying but then you strike me as having really thought this through at the time, so maybe not too much will change. For me when re-watching things it's more that I gain a new appreciation for some details and storylines but not too many things change about my original outlook.

Yes, that was hard to stomach - I wasn't feeling it so badly in season 1 because there at least we still had Whitney (I will admit I liked 'Flash Gordon' where the actor migrated to) but yes the impossible chaste love with contemplative music in the barn attic was not happy times. I mean generally, the actors were all so young and I felt at the time they did their best but it they truly profited from being in scenes with veterans O'Toole, Redmond, Schneider and Glover.

Like I said, I love Lois to pieces and with time she evolved into my favouriet character but I found the early seasons not really childish. I mean coming from 'Roswell' fandom - not directly obviously but this what Smallville basically followed on The WB at the time and I watched back in the day and still remember well- I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get storylines that were going like a read thread through the whole season but I appreciated the morsels of character development and like you said season 3 was intense. Especially with Lex being hospitalised. That was hard for me to watch and I hardly think could be called childish.

At least the stones did come up again from time to time later but the witches were a weird one off.

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I didn’t mind the will they/won’t they Clana angst as much when Whitney was in the picture either actually, because at least Lana having a longtime boyfriend was a legitimate obstacle to keep Clark and Lana apart, but it got very frustrating watching them moon over one another so much in seasons 2 and 3 when there was no real reason that they couldn’t give it a shot. Both actors definitely benefited from being in scenes with more experienced cast members

Frankly I think that the witches storyline were just there to give Kristin something to do. I think they admitted really struggling with finding things to do with Lana outside of being the love interest, and season 4 was kind of the inbetween place when Clana were temporarily less of a focus and Lexana wasn’t happening yet, and so I guess they needed to give come up with a separate storyline for Lana as she was one of their leading characters. I remember them talking about always wanting to get to Lexana and a Clexana triangle eventually, but season 4 felt too soon when Lana was still in high school, so I guess the witches storyline was what they resorted too instead? I think they struggled with making Lana interesting in her own right because so much of the show was geared around Clark and Lex’s interest in her, and that really comes across at times when they have to resort to random storylines like her being a descendant of a witch named Isobel...

And I’d probably add season 6 to my list my favourites as well actually, although it definitely does get a bit rockier in the second half. Season 9 I didn’t really care for though because I wasn’t a big fan of the storyline with Zod quite honestly. I thought it started off interestingly when you’re wondering about the flashes to the future, but I just didn’t care for how Zod was portrayed. I found him a really one note bad guy with all of the clenched jaw shouting, and I had been so much more into the arc the previous season with Davis where he’s really struggling and fighting against his darker nature.

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I thought the whole set up of season 4 was wrong with Lana separated from the group. Like yes, it may have been to early for Lexana but her coming back to Smallville it would have been interesting to see what she made of her Paris experience - as in did that inspire her to new choices as to what career options to explore, maybe a new venture with Lex or expanding on the Talon? Something of the sort... instead we got Jason. I also deplored the fact that it started off rather well in the cemetery when Lana basically saved Lois by wacking that guy over the head with a shovel and I was like, hey - they could be friends, it would really be nice to see a female friendship on the show because in all honesty I felt Lana's and Chloe's friendship was mostly only lipservice.

I wasn't crazy about the Zod storyline either in season 9, I think what I liked about the season though were that Lois and Clark finally worked at the Planet together. I think my joy was more in these non-Zod episodes tbh. And as for the Zod episodes I guess it wasn't so much about him, more about Tess putting the pieces together etc.

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I completely agree with you though I so miss the fannish discussions on LJ - I feel like it is the idea platform to have these things given the comment thread structure and all.

Definitely :( With both tumblr and Twitter I feel like I mostly only ever reblog other people’s content, it’s hard to get any sense of your own personality across at all when there’s less room for comments and discussions

And it was a little bit odd how season 7 did almost seem to be setting up a much darker Lana at first, and then they backtracked on that and just had her and Clark getting cosy on the farm together and told us that Isis was all about helping people only, but idk it felt like it should have at least been a bigger deal that she was holding a man hostage at one point? You even had Lionel backhandedly complimenting her as being darker than he had ever realised, and then it never really went anywhere

Lexana was VERY unpopular sadly, but yes I totally agree that it never made much sense to me how fast she switched to loving and trusting Clark again. She must have already at least suspected that there was something different about Clark, so I don’t get why seeing his super speed and strength would have been the dealbreaker there in her wanting to get back together, even though he was actually still lying to her about everything. It wasn’t like his reveal in Reckoning which really was incredibly romantic when he takes her to the fortress with that super jump, and so I get why she would be swept up in that moment, but her season 6 discovery was literally just lying a trap for Clark to find out what secrets he’s hiding

I also didn’t feel like they properly developed why she no longer seemed to love Lex halfway through season 6. I totally get it after finding out about the faked pregnancy of course, but during the wedding and after she was already acting miserable and almost repulsed by Lex’s touch, it was like she lost all feeling for him as soon as she found out that Clark had powers?

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Sorry for all my typos last night by the way, I can't guarantee it won't happen again, just putting it out there. I'm always horrified when I see them in the bright light of morning.

I never had a Twitter - because how much can you really say in so few words? I mean sure you can but not when you're not trying to be polarizing or it's something that only calls for a concise comment. And with tumblr, maybe things have changed now but yes - it was just this reblogging other people's entries and maybe putting your own thoughts under it.. made me uncomfortable that there wasn't a real comment structure. At least when I was on.

A bit of a darker Lana - that wouldn't have been anything I would have hated. Funnily both Lionel and Lex complimented her on it - Lex on stealing the money from him and setting him up, Lionel even on his own abudction. At the end of the day we never saw Lana help anyone really with her ISIS Foundation (I guess Chloe later tried), we were just told. What we saw were her obsession with spying on Lex - I mean she left the cozy Kent farm in the middle of the night to do what? Check that Lex was really in is study having a glass of brandy and going to bed? And then she had a secret lab (much like Lex and Lionel though I guess they have many). I also remember this one scene very vividly where I thought... what are these directors doing? Kara has amnesia and Lex - basically thinking she is the key to Clark and his secret - offers her to get her help at Summerholt. Lana tells Clark and Chloe she knows a secret way into her old home through the tunnels. They get in and surprise Kara in her room. But only Kara and Chloe leave the mansion. What did Lana do? Stay for some snuggles with Lex and her old Egyptian cotton sheets? Unclear. But that's my interpretation because everything else in the episode took so long for Kara and Chloe to accomplish, until Lex found out that he was duped, which should have been much earlier. It was such disjunction writing. So yes all that and I mean also like you said the fact that in season 7 Lana gets cosy on the Kent farm with Clark but lies to her about the purpose of her foundation. So... I don't understand how fans of the couple could have been in favour of that because that was clearly not the same Lana. And when they tried to make her the same docile Lana again, she was discontent and mostly felt judged by Clark... hence her feeling a bit better with the Bizarro version but that wasn't ideal either. I don't think.

So since I'm an SV fandom baby, perhaps you can explain to me what made Lexana so unpopular with fans. Was it the shipper thing with Clana? Obviously, I really enjoyed the Lana/Lex relationship - my issues came with all the poor writing in say the middle of season 6 but even then there were glimpses where I though okay... salvagable if it hadn't been for the stupid fake!baby and I was majorly irritated at when he hit her. I felt that was so gratuitous also... in a way... to show what? That he was like Lionel? (I'm trying to remember the flashbacks but while he was grabbing her uncomfortably at one point, Lionel never hit Lillian from what I remember. Of course he hit Lex... anyway.) I'm struggling with - do I just not want this to be in character or is it really out of character. But in my thought system I do not see Lex Luthor hitting Lana Lang.

why she no longer seemed to love Lex halfway through season 6

Yeah there was no development and I don't think they said that she didn't love him only the whole gibberish that she loved both Lex and Clark. It was such a cop out.

but during the wedding and after she was already acting miserable and almost repulsed by Lex’s touch, it was like she lost all feeling for him as soon as she found out that Clark had powers

Which again I found nonsensical because it's not like Clark suddenly trusted her with anything. Meanwhile (of course with hindsight we know now about the stupid fake pregnancy and have to hate Lex for it) she thought she was pregnant with another man's child, one she actually had feelings for - as in we saw these feelings progress for six seasons? Why would knowing about Clark's superspeed and heatvision change any of that. It was just infuriating to watch.