In Which She Cheerfully Eats Dirt...
Mar. 2nd, 2007 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladymirthY'all remember that bout of Smallville bashing I indulged in a while ago, wherein I proclaimed that all shows turn into a soap after the fourth season? Well, I have a confession to make. I hadn't actually watched the fifth season then, only read the episode transcripts. I went out and bought the complete Season 5, the other day and had another binge-watching session.
Conclusion: Season Five is the best Smallville Season to date.
Conclusion: Season Five is the best Smallville Season to date.
I have no idea how that happened. None. Even more shocking is that my favourite episode of this season turned out to be "Reckoning" where Jonathan dies. And while I don't like that plot development any more than I ever did, if the writers had to kill off Jonathan, I maintain they couldn't have done it more beautifully. I suspect this has a lot to do with Peter Gabriel's song "I grieve" which is featured in the funeral scene. This is the first time I've ever heard that song, and I am hopelessly in love with it. Along with the wonderfully shot funeral scene, with the swirling snow and graveyard, that whole sequence is one of the best shot in the entire series.
I'm somewhat placated. Plus, "Lexmas" and "Void" were awesome.
Kristin Kreuk was even more irritating than I had perceived from the transcripts, though. S5 is a definite Chlark Season for me, the newly minted co-conspirator dynamic between them, now that Chloe is in the know, is hilarious and appealing. The writers had somehow felt the need to include a DVD commentary for "Thirst", apologizing for the whole episode. They had dubbed it the "what-were-we-thinking" episode. They pleaded everything from budget cuts to temporary insanity trying to jusify it. I had no idea what they were on about. I found "thirst" to be hilarious, being one of the rare times when the show gets to kick back and laugh at themselves for a change. "There's no such thing as vampires" says former Buffy-star-turned-Milton Fine with conviction.
The crowning moment for the Cloisers came when the President of the College Sorority who are actually a sorority of vampires, tells Lana, "Lana, come on! You're amazing! Of course we want you to be one of us!"
I'm guessing that Cloisers would translate that as "We're so sick of you being sicced in our faces as the Smallville poster girl every fifteen minutes that we really want to you to turn into an undead bloodsucker for a change!"
Tee hee.
Anywho, Season 5 sure beats Season 4 where they turned the whole B-plot on its face halfway through the season just so they could villify Jason Teague. Which didn't sit well with me as I'm a confirmed Jenson Ackles fan, him being very, very yummy, and the whole plot twist was wholly unnecessary not to mention unconvincing and contradictory to the earlier episodes. Plus, it would've been nice to see Lana have at least one decent, non-psycho boyfried who wasn't Clark.
Real low point of the season: "Aquaman". Mr. Bobby Baywatch is about the cheesiest DC character they've introduced so far, and the lurid orange and green ensemble, combined with the surfer-dude lingo made me choke on my own bile. The fact that they made him into a love interest for Lois on top of it all nearly put me off the rest of the show.
But other than that, I refuse to withdraw anything I've said about the character evolvements. The whole thing with Lionel Luthor just makes me barf.
It makes you wonder really. Smallville is definitely superior to Lois and Clark in its production values, plots and storylines and has an integrity in its making that Lois and Clark lost mid-way through their third season (In my opinion anyway). The sheer number of chart-topping soundtracks that get featured in throughout the series would be enough to earn them cult status. (They had "My Immortal" in the third season, for crying out loud!) And yet, it's Lois and Clark I will always love and cherish and find excuses for, even through it's godawful fourth season where the only thing that kept me watching was their marriage.
Why is that?
I suppose I do feel rather resentful that Lois and Clark got brought up short and ignominously after just four seasons while Smallville has a sixth season and still going strong.
Anyway....Jensen Ackles rules!!
I'm somewhat placated. Plus, "Lexmas" and "Void" were awesome.
Kristin Kreuk was even more irritating than I had perceived from the transcripts, though. S5 is a definite Chlark Season for me, the newly minted co-conspirator dynamic between them, now that Chloe is in the know, is hilarious and appealing. The writers had somehow felt the need to include a DVD commentary for "Thirst", apologizing for the whole episode. They had dubbed it the "what-were-we-thinking" episode. They pleaded everything from budget cuts to temporary insanity trying to jusify it. I had no idea what they were on about. I found "thirst" to be hilarious, being one of the rare times when the show gets to kick back and laugh at themselves for a change. "There's no such thing as vampires" says former Buffy-star-turned-Milton Fine with conviction.
The crowning moment for the Cloisers came when the President of the College Sorority who are actually a sorority of vampires, tells Lana, "Lana, come on! You're amazing! Of course we want you to be one of us!"
I'm guessing that Cloisers would translate that as "We're so sick of you being sicced in our faces as the Smallville poster girl every fifteen minutes that we really want to you to turn into an undead bloodsucker for a change!"
Tee hee.
Anywho, Season 5 sure beats Season 4 where they turned the whole B-plot on its face halfway through the season just so they could villify Jason Teague. Which didn't sit well with me as I'm a confirmed Jenson Ackles fan, him being very, very yummy, and the whole plot twist was wholly unnecessary not to mention unconvincing and contradictory to the earlier episodes. Plus, it would've been nice to see Lana have at least one decent, non-psycho boyfried who wasn't Clark.
Real low point of the season: "Aquaman". Mr. Bobby Baywatch is about the cheesiest DC character they've introduced so far, and the lurid orange and green ensemble, combined with the surfer-dude lingo made me choke on my own bile. The fact that they made him into a love interest for Lois on top of it all nearly put me off the rest of the show.
But other than that, I refuse to withdraw anything I've said about the character evolvements. The whole thing with Lionel Luthor just makes me barf.
It makes you wonder really. Smallville is definitely superior to Lois and Clark in its production values, plots and storylines and has an integrity in its making that Lois and Clark lost mid-way through their third season (In my opinion anyway). The sheer number of chart-topping soundtracks that get featured in throughout the series would be enough to earn them cult status. (They had "My Immortal" in the third season, for crying out loud!) And yet, it's Lois and Clark I will always love and cherish and find excuses for, even through it's godawful fourth season where the only thing that kept me watching was their marriage.
Why is that?
I suppose I do feel rather resentful that Lois and Clark got brought up short and ignominously after just four seasons while Smallville has a sixth season and still going strong.
Anyway....Jensen Ackles rules!!
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-03 06:21 am (UTC)And you know what's interested? Season 5 is my LEAST favorite. With the exceptions of the following episodes: Exposed, Reckoning, and Mercy.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-13 08:20 am (UTC)Well, we have differing tastes. =) I just liked all the Chlark interaction and the fact that Lana was quite firmly chucked at the end. At least there wil no possibility of them getting back together again! I hope...
I actually enjoyed the fact that he got himself a sex life. I don't know whether I really liked the fact that Clark remained a virgin till he met Lois, in LnC. Virginity is waay overrated, in my opinion. It just seemed like a load of pro-abstinence propaganda to me.
LnC is my ideal, but Smallville promotes a very realistic view of love that I subscribe to. You will have many loves in your life, all of them very real, true and very intense and which will help shape the person you will become. But the love that matters is the one you know will be your last, for it will have the strength to endure for the rest of your life.
So Clana really doesn't bother me, as much as KK's overacting. =)
So you didn't like Lexmas? I LOVED it. Although they never did estalish whether or not Chloe and Clark were supposed to be a couple.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-13 04:06 pm (UTC)Oh how I wish you were right ... ;) But no, I do like the Chlark. I really really do. I liked it so much up to season 4 (and Lois) and there were even parts of season 5 I liked it. I don't like it anymore simply because I like to see Chloe as having grown up and grown into a more mature friendship-relationship with Clark :)
We do have differing tastes! I don't really have a problem with Clark and Lana having sex except for the fact it was, you know, Lana ;) Ha!
And I DID like Lexmas, for what it was. I was just saying I hate how episodes without Lois completely disregard her presence entirely. But I suppose we have DC comics to blame for that, not Smallville.
PS. Are you a role-player by any chance?