Back to Smallville season 5
I last posted about Smallville in May. I’ve found it’s best to leave a good long while between watching each episode, but I have finished disc 2.
Season 5, episodes 5 'Thirst' to 8 'Solitude'. I feel so sorry for the actors, both the good ones and the rest, wondering why whoever gave the notes for them believed that bad girls, bikinis, flashy cars and the Daily Planet logo would distract from the nonsense going on.
I spent a lot of ‘Thirst’ going ‘WHAT IS THIS?’, I think that’s the best response. The show decided to celebrate James Marsters joining them by going all ‘Lesbian’ Killer Vampires. Lana decided to go to Metropolis University at the last minute without telling Clark, her boyfriend, but their relationship is FINE!!! So, she had to try to get into a sorority so that she had somewhere to sleep. Yes, this was one of those Lana turns evil episodes. Sexy evil, while virginial Chloe gets short shrift as ‘Lana’s best friend’ and ‘Clark’s sidekick’ despite being the narrator of the episode, which was meant to be a story she wrote. But how would Chloe know about the Lex-Fine-Henchmen part of the episode, for one thing? Fine, have a framing device, but use it properly.
This episode featured terrible fake fangs, the usual level of anvils, although the Buffy ones were particularly dire, but I called Clark dressing up as Zorro.
However, ‘Exposed’ was even worse, and my distressed question of the episode was ‘Why is this so bad?’ Clark and Lois were busy telling us how much they hated each other, while Lana and Martha were AWOL in an episode were they could have added something. This ep featured the introduction of the political plot (terrible) in that Jonathan’s good friend and Clark’s hero Jack - whom we’ve never heard of before, and the show is in its fifth year - turned up for a Dukes of Hazard reunion which I could tell by popculture osmosis, not memory, so the anvils had no nostalgia factor for me. And then there was even more objectification of women.
Lois was forced to pretend to be a stripper for the most tenuous of ‘Chloe is investigating a story’ reasons. Durance tried to give Lois agency and the show tried to make the most of the character’s awkwardness and discomfort (you think?) in the situation, as well as Clark’s in witnessing it, but it was egregious, and having Lois punch her way out of trouble didn’t make up for it. Also Lex’s behaviour is baffling when you stop to think about it.
‘Splinter’ was less exploitative, but it was still very, very stupid. It never resolved the most pertinent point - who sent Clark the fake text and Lana the silver meteorite to kick start all this? I would presume it was Professor Kryptonian if this show made any sense. He was lying to Clark about as much as Lana was over being in cahoots with Lex over the space ship - although this makes more sense as an obsession for her than season 4’s gubbins.
Silver Kryptonite made Clark paranoid and made much of what we see unreliable. Trouble is, the show’s relationship with logic is always flimsy so the effect was weakened. Really, why would Chloe, the Kents and Lana trust the Luthors at this point? Lex having a thing for Lana is official now, but they had little chemistry in this episode. And making Clark’s paranoia revolve around Lexana when his parents and Chloe knew more about his alien origins seemed a waste. (I wished they’d allowed Chloe a moment to process the information about red Kryptonite and that time with inhibitionless Clark.)
Jonathan decided to run against Lex, Lana and Martha didn’t decide to run away from all of this nonsense which any sane woman would have done and Lois didn’t appear, but was mentioned in a song lyric.
‘Solitude’ was the best of the quartet, which is not saying much. Many characters were stupid - why didn’t Chloe immediately talk to Clark about the other man on his campus who was meant to have the same powers as him? Why did Lois give her boss that much lip and not get fired for it? Also, Lex’s security for the warehouse containing the spaceship was hilariously bad. Even before things got way stressful with Martha’s health, both Clark and Jonathan lacked control of their tempers.
One second a scene would be interestingly shot, the next it would run on and on (because the episode was running short) and some poor actor would be left to smell the fart instead of the character doing the rational thing and asking questions like ‘Why?’ after a dramatic declaration. I think they’d spent a lot of the budget on showing us more of the Daily Planet and the fight in the Fortress of Solitude etc.
But in the midst of all this wondering ‘is it Jor-El finally killing someone Clark loves?’ Annette O’Toole genuinely tugged at the heartstrings as Martha, thinking she was dying, said goodbye to Clark. When they’re given emotional material like this she and Welling are utterly compelling as mother and son. And really, dangling a dead Martha before us was just mean, because we all know Uncle Ben and the Waynes die.
Lois got to play Chloe’s sidekick, although Chloe was the most loyal sidekick of them all and helped save the day (yay!) There was no Lana at all, and the episode didn’t suffer a jot.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/291551.html.
Season 5, episodes 5 'Thirst' to 8 'Solitude'. I feel so sorry for the actors, both the good ones and the rest, wondering why whoever gave the notes for them believed that bad girls, bikinis, flashy cars and the Daily Planet logo would distract from the nonsense going on.
I spent a lot of ‘Thirst’ going ‘WHAT IS THIS?’, I think that’s the best response. The show decided to celebrate James Marsters joining them by going all ‘Lesbian’ Killer Vampires. Lana decided to go to Metropolis University at the last minute without telling Clark, her boyfriend, but their relationship is FINE!!! So, she had to try to get into a sorority so that she had somewhere to sleep. Yes, this was one of those Lana turns evil episodes. Sexy evil, while virginial Chloe gets short shrift as ‘Lana’s best friend’ and ‘Clark’s sidekick’ despite being the narrator of the episode, which was meant to be a story she wrote. But how would Chloe know about the Lex-Fine-Henchmen part of the episode, for one thing? Fine, have a framing device, but use it properly.
This episode featured terrible fake fangs, the usual level of anvils, although the Buffy ones were particularly dire, but I called Clark dressing up as Zorro.
However, ‘Exposed’ was even worse, and my distressed question of the episode was ‘Why is this so bad?’ Clark and Lois were busy telling us how much they hated each other, while Lana and Martha were AWOL in an episode were they could have added something. This ep featured the introduction of the political plot (terrible) in that Jonathan’s good friend and Clark’s hero Jack - whom we’ve never heard of before, and the show is in its fifth year - turned up for a Dukes of Hazard reunion which I could tell by popculture osmosis, not memory, so the anvils had no nostalgia factor for me. And then there was even more objectification of women.
Lois was forced to pretend to be a stripper for the most tenuous of ‘Chloe is investigating a story’ reasons. Durance tried to give Lois agency and the show tried to make the most of the character’s awkwardness and discomfort (you think?) in the situation, as well as Clark’s in witnessing it, but it was egregious, and having Lois punch her way out of trouble didn’t make up for it. Also Lex’s behaviour is baffling when you stop to think about it.
‘Splinter’ was less exploitative, but it was still very, very stupid. It never resolved the most pertinent point - who sent Clark the fake text and Lana the silver meteorite to kick start all this? I would presume it was Professor Kryptonian if this show made any sense. He was lying to Clark about as much as Lana was over being in cahoots with Lex over the space ship - although this makes more sense as an obsession for her than season 4’s gubbins.
Silver Kryptonite made Clark paranoid and made much of what we see unreliable. Trouble is, the show’s relationship with logic is always flimsy so the effect was weakened. Really, why would Chloe, the Kents and Lana trust the Luthors at this point? Lex having a thing for Lana is official now, but they had little chemistry in this episode. And making Clark’s paranoia revolve around Lexana when his parents and Chloe knew more about his alien origins seemed a waste. (I wished they’d allowed Chloe a moment to process the information about red Kryptonite and that time with inhibitionless Clark.)
Jonathan decided to run against Lex, Lana and Martha didn’t decide to run away from all of this nonsense which any sane woman would have done and Lois didn’t appear, but was mentioned in a song lyric.
‘Solitude’ was the best of the quartet, which is not saying much. Many characters were stupid - why didn’t Chloe immediately talk to Clark about the other man on his campus who was meant to have the same powers as him? Why did Lois give her boss that much lip and not get fired for it? Also, Lex’s security for the warehouse containing the spaceship was hilariously bad. Even before things got way stressful with Martha’s health, both Clark and Jonathan lacked control of their tempers.
One second a scene would be interestingly shot, the next it would run on and on (because the episode was running short) and some poor actor would be left to smell the fart instead of the character doing the rational thing and asking questions like ‘Why?’ after a dramatic declaration. I think they’d spent a lot of the budget on showing us more of the Daily Planet and the fight in the Fortress of Solitude etc.
But in the midst of all this wondering ‘is it Jor-El finally killing someone Clark loves?’ Annette O’Toole genuinely tugged at the heartstrings as Martha, thinking she was dying, said goodbye to Clark. When they’re given emotional material like this she and Welling are utterly compelling as mother and son. And really, dangling a dead Martha before us was just mean, because we all know Uncle Ben and the Waynes die.
Lois got to play Chloe’s sidekick, although Chloe was the most loyal sidekick of them all and helped save the day (yay!) There was no Lana at all, and the episode didn’t suffer a jot.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/291551.html.