Smallville - the Downward Spiral Begineth

[ladymirth]

Okay, so inspite of all my griping, I did enjoy Season Six of SV. At least, I learned to enjoy it once I hypnotized myself into ignoring the entire disastrous Clana arc entirely. I was surprised as usual - I thought I'd hate "Promise" but I ended up really loving that episode. It was so cinematically shot and kept us guessing till the last second and the music, was as usual, awesome. Plus, once you get past that fact that Justin Hartley can't act to save his life, and having got that point settled, simply sat back and enjoyed what pretty blond boy he is instead, I decided I liked the Oliver Queen/ Lois Lane sub plot well enough. A thumbs up point was that the directors seemed to have finally dispensed trying to make the series into Wonder Years meets X-Files (and failing, oh, so badly) and come to terms with the fact that this is about a series of comic book characters. And so they thrived. 

Still, the season would have been so much better without Clana bloody Clana. I'm not going to get into this, but I honestly don't see the attraction of old Dopey once you get past his pretty green eyes. (And phenomenal pecs.) I mean, here you have a guy who would willingly let the girl he loves (for he does love Lana, as Miles Millar has been hammering that fact into our heads for the past six years) marry the man he knows to be a monster - for absolutely no good reason. The writers don't even pretend they can come up with one for him now. I mean, any fool can see that Lana genuinely loves him and wouldn't betray him. Plus, that his secret is screwing with her entire life. I don't know, but if I were Clark, I wouldn't even need to be in love with Lana to stop her being hurt in this way. By the end of it, I didn't know who was getting on my nerves more - Dopey for being such an asshole or Lana for her ceaseless, never-ending whining to be let in on the secret. Jesus, girl, have some self-respect and accept that the love of your life is a prize wuss-face dope who doesn't deserve you! I was actually cheering at her little scheme in Promise, when she finally decided to get a clue and find out Clark’s secret for herself by locking Chloe in the wine cellar. I almost began to like her again. And then she ruined it all by running back to him the moment she figured it out. WHY, Lord?! This woman is setting back the feminist movement by decades! Now if it were my girl Lois, she would confront him and break a barn door over Clark's unbelievably thick head. 

And we FoLCs thought that the Lois and Clark Season Three development where Clark let the prison escapee Lex drive off with his freaking fiancée was bad! 

Anyway, apart from the Clana-rama-drama-llama, I quite liked the sixth season. However, Season seven seems to be an entirely different kettle of fish, so far. 

First, there was the completely lack lustre pilot. I had nothing BUT quibbles and annoyances with this episode. First, Lex, who in season six had seemingly dispensed with his cloak of moral ambiguity and finally, definitively signed up to bat for the Dark Side, sees Laura Vandervoot half-naked underwater and automatically reassumes Redemptive Position A - Make Penance For Thy Sins and Thou Mayest Get Laid By Angels. 

The entire Lex arc: 

Lex: Help! I'm drowning in a police car! 
Lex: Angels! Is that you, Mum?
Lex: Whoo, I'm in heaven. Shucks, am dead, aren't I? Whoa, Jesus never said angels were scantily clad nubile blond chicks between the ages of sixteen and nineteen and a half! Wait a second, do dead guys barf? Oh, am alive. Sans hot angel chick, just my luck. 
Lex: When I die, I must get back to Heaven. I must make amends for my misdeeds by sitting in this jail cell without an alibi for my wife's murder. A hot blond angel chick rescued me - 'twas surely a message that I still have a reservation up there!
Bizzaro: Hey, Lexy, baby! *kills legal advisor by yanking out his liver* How you doin'? 
Lex: OMG, the alien! I forgot about you what with obsessing about hot blond chicks. You killed Clark, didn't you?
Bizzaro: Nope. He's fine and kickin' up in a tree somewhere. I just duplicated him. Now, where's that seemingly inexhaustible pile of meteor rocks that everyone and their grandmother's lap dog knows you're hiding? 
Lex: Not sayin'! You're a BAD man! I'm not gonna be a bad boy anymore! When a heavenly superhuman chick swoops in and saves you from sleepin' with the fishes, you got obligations, man!
Bizzaro: C'mon, Lex. Clark did the whole "wham, bam, thank ye, ma'am" routine on you. He said he didn't want to be bestest friends with you anymore. The guy dregged up all your prepubescent abandonment issues again! Years of therapy down the drain, right there!  Now, if you git with me, boy, I'm never gonna say goodbye. 'Cos I never wanna see you cry. Plus, I'll tell you Clark's secret. You know, apart from the one where he's a super-powered alien, as you should've caught that by now, what with the fact that I duplicated him and got oddly-familiar super powers formerly used to throw you across the room and attempt to kill you in season five.  And if you don’t agree, I’m gonna eat your liver with fava bans and a nice Chianti. What would Gene Hackman say? 
Lex: Uh... You're right. What do I care? Here's the green stuff. 
Bizzaro: Oh, Lexy baby, you are so getting some tonight!
Lex: *picks up a random stick* Aha! Observe my grand back-stabbing plan. I lured you to this here vault and will now attempt to conk you one with this weensy baton-thingy, despite the fact that I have seen you wrench out human livers and smash through steel bars. Now tell me, how did you get to become a Sexy Super-powered Stud without killing Sexy Super-powered Stud the First? 
Bizzaro: You threaten me with your little stick, stupid human? *throws across room*
Lex: Jesus, Miles, would you quit the full-body assault schitck? My stunt double’s asking for a raise! *blacks out and misses the rest of the episode*

Lex: Huh. Now, what happened to the flying Hannibal? Shame he didn’t tell me Clark’s secret. *obsesses over flying blond chicks*

 

I’m serious about the stunt guy though. Micheal Rosenbaum has been thrown across rooms and knocked out more times than a crash test dummy over the last six years. The writers must have something deep and personal against him. Which I wouldn’t mind, only they are so insultingly uncreative about it. In fact, they are just plain uncreative, period. The scene where Chloe dies despite attempts to resuscitate her was pulled straight out of Season Five’s recycle bin! (“Hidden”, anyone?)  Same camera angles and even the same freaking music! Dude, that’s not even funny! That was a moment of major peevage for me – sort of like going to a fancy hotel and being served warmed up leftovers as though we wouldn’t know the difference. Absolutely no originality left in this show whatsoever.

 

Between that and the fact that Tom Welling seems to suffered an even steeper regression of whatever acting ability he had left over the summer, I would well come to the conclusion that they are actively trying to axe plans for season eight by embarrassing the viewers as early on in this season as possible. However, considering that we are talking about a demographic loyal enough to have manfully stuck out the entire fourth season, killing the show might prove a bit more of a challenge. I mean, it’s going to take some genuine creativity to surpass the godawfulness of the fourth season.

 

I haven’t watched the second episode, “Kara” yet. (It’s still downloading) But I have read all the spoilers, and if what I read is any indication, they don’t actually need any creativity after all. They’ve simply read the “Lois and Clark Guide to Killing A TV Series in Five Easy, Infuriating Episodes”.

 

Clones, people.

 

Lana faked her own death by blowing up a clone of herself created by Lexcorp. Somebody in the writing team has been watching “The Prestige”. God help us.

 

Can it be that Miles is finally making his adored fair one into a homicidal maniac? Who let Robert Singer in the house?

 

Here come the Four Horsemen of The Entertainment Apocalypse, harbingers of TV series’ death and ratings destruction.  First one is clones (of the frog-eating variety or otherwise). Second one is amnesia in conjunction with megalomaniac criminals. (Been there, done that. Of course, they seem to be in the mood to recycle their own sub-plots, so you never know.) Third one is sleazy opportunistic psychiatrists.  And if all else fails, there’s always long-lost extra-terrestrial relatives heralding alien invasions and raving about One True Intergalactic Destinies…

 

Oh. Right. They already have Supergirl.

 

Yep. We’re doomed.

 

Psychotic frog-eating wedding crashers, ahoy!

 

Comments

[mrsmosley.livejournal.com]

Redemptive Position A - Make Penance For Thy Sins and Thou Mayest Get Laid By Angels.

/me struggles to stay upright while laughing

When a heavenly superhuman chick swoops in and saves you from sleepin' with the fishes, you got obligations, man!

*me struggles to breathe*

I haven’t watched the second episode, “Kara” yet. (It’s still downloading)

I missed it the other night - was reading fic and clean forgot about it. But I want to see it and I'm not very internet savvy, so what is this "downloading" you speak of? How do I find this goodness?

Clones I can handle; I could even do the frog thing again. But the second I see a Dr. Deter, I'm bailing.

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed that. =D. Aw gods, yes. Frogs, clones, alien invasions I weathered. Dr. Deter? Please! No more!

The message boards of www.devotedtosmallville.com has a whole forum for downloading missed episodes. I found "Kara" here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AUPBQZLS

And if that doesn't work for you, you can find a whole host of other links here. http://www.devotedfansnetwork.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45843&page=10&pp=25
Megaupload is a little slow compared to torrent and all, but pretty convenient, once you've downloaded their Mega Manager and Tool bar, which only takes a few minutes. I should be able to watch the episode in a few minutes myself. Apparently, it's a bit of an improvement on the Season premiere.

I didn't know you followed Smallville, Lisa. =)

[muses-circle.livejournal.com]

Word, girl. I loathe this season. I've stopped watching most of it, to be honest.