Smallville Season 8

I really think theyneed to just switch it to Justice League. Let's go full bore and have some fun with multiple heroes.

That episode was all sorts of stupid.

"Ow, your arrow went right through my hollow mortal body. Why'd my dad take my powers AGAIN!?"

"Oops."

"It's okay. I'm that alien dude. I know I haven't shown up in a while, and left you stranded for a month in hell, but I'll fly your mortal body into space at superspeed towards the son."

"So, even though my dad like totally took my powers, you can just fly me to the sun, my mortal body mind you, and I'll get better?"

"Yes, but my powers will be gone. I'll still look like Jackie Chiles, even though I'm supposedly this alien dude, and somehow I'll manage to get your unconscious ass back to Earth, even with the no powers thing."

"Sweet. My friend Chloe can read super fast you know? Isn't that awesome? Now I'm gonna go get a job at a newspaper, even though I'm a college dropout with barely any experience. The newspaper industry is just desperate for young cheap writers."

"Nice! High five."

You forgot Aquaman. He can talk to fish and everything.

But seriously, just get them back and call the show Justice or something. It'd be better than Smallville.

Then again, it probably wouldn't be better than Justice League Unlimited.

The show suffers from the void left in Rosenbaums wake, but the Tess character seems to be at least a TOUCH decent. I never noticed how bad Welling was until last night. I don't know if it's the dialogue (Chloe's in DANGER!), or direction, or if it's the fact he's pretty bad, but they hid that a lot better in the previous seasons.

The Sam Witwer as Doomsday still reeks of lamesauce though. What the FUCK were they thinking?

I don't get why they didn't just name her Tess Macher. I guess it is supposed to be some lame combo of Tessmacher and Mercy, but Tess Macher would have been funnier.

This show continues to make something like Heroes look like utter brilliance.

Wait, what?

I was happy to actually see the show move forward. It may of done quite a bit in 40 min, but thank god it finally did.

Doomsday might be interesting, as his past was never fully explored, still it can get extremely corny, but I expect some dues ex machina to wipe the memory clean of everyone.

Huh? His whole origin was shown in Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey. Scientists from Krypton kept throwing a baby to a pack of horrible monsters, then would clone that baby from leftover genetics, then do it over and over until it evolved into Doomsday and went on a slaughter rampage.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_(comics)

In an episode where many inexplicable things happened this is the one I thought was most amusing. Chloe can barely manage to get a job writing obituaries and turns out to be some kind of super genius but Clark with like one semester of college(with the only class they ever show him in being world history as taught by Brainiac) and no news experience gets a job above her to work with Lois who has also been in journalism for maybe two years. Also, isnt the paper still run by Luthercorp who basically all hate him and know he has powers?

Thank god the premiere of Supernatural washed the bad taste of this crap right out of my mouth. There's a reason I haven't watched it in years and you know what? It's even worse than I remember.

Hopefully this show will be canceled out of its' (and ours) misery.

heh thanks for the info. Still they'll probably blame it on the fortress collapse and his DNA is probably mixxed in with Lex.

One thing that is bugging me, where are the glasses CK?

Chloe wasn't a genius till only recently. I probably think Brainiac did something.

Clark getting the job? Well maybe he showed them how fast he could type.

I love how no one mentions, remembers, or even seems to care about Kara. So much for Supergirl huh.

Well what could Clark do when he was powerless? he has no fortress (yet), and has no practical way to bring her back. Its a mute point right now.

Still, since he just got his powers back and once the fortress returns, he'll have no excuse. Does he even know where she is?

What he has had no excuse for a while is the glasses. Watch them be an object he gets, with a special crystal that he can use to confuse people so they can't tell the difference between him with and without the glasses. Far fetched? Yeah, but I'm trying to get into the writer's mindset.

No, no, there's going to be one big massive retcon at the end of the season so that no one will remember him.

Well this was the setup episode for the entire season. David looks like a young Bruce Wayne, but the ending gave away Doomsday is on the way.

They did do some vague references for him, but the always convenient amnesia seems to be playing a part. At least the actor seems decent, and I'll give it a few more episodes before deciding if this was all a mistake.

Clark at the Daily Planet, finally.

Legion of Doom is coming. That's my call.

how is this show still on?

Battered wife syndrome?

Because good people do nothing.

Because some INCREDIBLY STUPID FUCKING NETWORK EXECS decided that cancelling Angel and replacing it with this shit was RATINGS GOLD.

Supernatural is the only good show they have left.

I fail to see how it's a stupid executive decision to cancel a show with lower ratings, and keep one with higher ratings. That seems pretty sensible, frankly. If you want to blame someone, blame the viewers.

Then again, I don't think either show is very good.

So, it's worth to see this week episode?

If you don't see it, you'll miss some nearly irrelevant but convoluted retcon. Spoiler: Tess Mercer knows Oliver from the time he spent two years stranded on an island, he got held captive at the tail end of it with Mercer (who is a marine biologist and they went out). And it is where Oliver decides to become a hero by first leaving a man to die on that very island. Baby steps.

That island looked alot like the one where Lex crash landed a few seasons back and killed his imaginary friend. Must be some special stuff going down on that island like a smaller version of lost with the same bizarre plot twists.

I actually kinda like the Oliver character, he certainly seems to have alot more personality than Clark does so it would have been nice to see a more fleshed out back story for him instead of mixing it with the improbable (invisotext)Mercer connection.

But, the show's called Smallville. They can't focus it on an infinitely cooler side character and his gang of superpowered heroes that actually use their abilities to help the world at large.

As much as I defend this show, last night was a waste. Maybe 10 minutes of actual needed material. Still lots of really really subtle hints in this episode.

decent episode, but who is X?

Wow. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the Doomsday/Davis Bloome thing. After last nights revelation, I'm anticipating Smallville again, and I haven't done that in years.

My question is, if they're trying so hard to stick to the Donner/Singer vision, why Faeora over Ursa?

new producers, besides the Donner vision was lost a long time ago.

Yeah Doomsday is getting really interesting, hell the show has been awesome the last couple of episodes and Lois is just amazing to watch.

FUCK, Durance was incredible last night. I'm genuinely impressed by her. She is the new Rosenbaum of the show, IMO.

Hmm well I think it falls on the new Tess and Doomsday. Actually the actor who plays Doomsday is pretty good too. Actually at times, the only weak actor on the show is Tom Welling.

I have been a fan of Smallville for several years now, but have always recognized the things that many others dislike about the show; though those things have never bothered me too much. I have been really impressed with the last few episodes, especially last night's. Durance was particularly hot last night. I like some of the directions they are taking. I've never actually minded Tom Welling. He plays the part well enough.

Problem with Welling is that his voice will always an forever be Superboy. I used to be a pretty big fan, but now the guy is just embarrassing. Then again, I liked Brandon Routh, so my op may be a little inutile.

Nothing wrong with Routh, just no one holds a candle to chris reeves. In fact Routh just got some bad direction.

Welling's fine - the character is just a blank. In the rare situations where they actually give him something interesting to do (red kryptonite episodes, Bizarro, etc), he does okay. The problem is that he's mainly there to deliver exposition and to react to other people's emotional outbursts - it's like playing a robot, only without the interesting parts.

So, our jury's out (being generous) on Welling, but can we all agree that the TV Lois Lane is waaaay better casting than the big-budget movie managed?

So while HEROES has been a hit and crashed and burned, SMALLVILLE has plodded along, secure in its mediocrity. It's the LAW & ORDER of superhero shows!

I think Welling's problem is that he's saddled with the most boring character on the show by far. What makes Clark Kent interesting is his duality with Superman. Robbed of Superman, Clark is just as dull as he appears. The dullness is no longer a facade that hides his secret; it's just him. There are few actors on earth who could do anything with that for eight years.

At this point I just take Welling's acting as a concious choice to portray an alien without the normal emotional chemistry of a human. It's on purpose. He's like a sociopath that hasn't yet learned to credibly fake emotions; he hasn't yet honed his Clark Kent mask. You could even tie it into the progression of the overall arc, Clark hasn't decided to assume dual identities yet, so at the point he actually does he'll make a much more concerted effort to make Clark human.

Well I think what really ran its course is Clark's journey, which I believed was to serve as a substitute for his duality. Yeah he has to hide his secret, but with everyone on the show practically knowing something is up, let alone 8 years of doing it, it wore thin. You also have a few plotholes that we really need to see addressed like the lack of glasses which is key to the duality, let alone the costume.

What I love about this season is they seem to be pushing pretty hard and fast about trying to undo a lot of mistakes. Clark got the Daily Planet fast. Yeah I don't care it was rushed, because he should of been there a long time ago.

Still there are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up, and I just hope they don't try to wrap all of them in one episode. There shouldn't be a season 9 unless we have Tom Welling in some sort of suit. Right now he needs to start flying asap, and the leaping building in a single bound is a great start, but it shouldn't be only a tease.

On a fanboy rant, we need the Superman theme in full effect in the series finale.

Hmm, sounds like they may use Doomsday to "out" Clark as a full costumed superhero or something.

Been a long time coming I have to say.

Crap, you guys are tempting me back to this thing.

You should. It's gaining some momentum with David's Doomsday. And Erica is at her best. Less Chloe and Olsen wouldn't hurt. I demand more Ice Princess Mercer too.
What do you guys think of the Martian as a detective?

Well Tess is an awesome character, but in the end she is no Lex. The fine balance between her, Doomsday and random freak characters seems to be going good without Lex, but hopefully it won't run out of stream. Hopefully Lex can get back in the show some way.

I heard he is. Or read that he is. I think it was at Kryptonsite.com

I have to admit that I was a huge un-fan of Erica Durance and her version of Lois until this season, but that was because the character seemed like it was forced into the show just because her original guest appearance was such a huge hit. And with nothing for her to really do in Smallville except constantly wear next-to-nothing and repeatedly get shoehorned into completely retarded plot scenarios, I spent the past couple of seasons wishing she would leave the show and take Lana with her.

This season, however, the Lois character finally makes sense and has a proper place to fit. And with that, Durance is now given a character she can work with and she's finally starting to act like the Lois we all know and love.

I'm still puzzled, though, as to how the whole lack-of-glasses thing is gonna work. Since Lois and Jimmy have already seen Clark sans glasses, the "disguise" is pretty much useless. My only guess is that the writers may take this version of the mythos and go in the other direction - have Jimmy and Lois be in on his secret from the moment he dons the tights.

So overall - this season has been stronger, especially when compared to the last couple of seasons. I had pretty mch written the show off at the end of last season, with no intention of coming back to watch season 8. But, with the cliffhanger at the end of last season, I at least wanted to see how it all wrapped up. I ended up being impressed with how the show had already seemed improved from the 8th premiere.

There are still some weak moments (plenty, actually), and I really miss what I thought was the strongest aspect of the show - the political/power struggle between Lex and Lionel, but the other elements have improved enough for me to continue watching for at least the rest of this season.

It's better without him. There was no particular menace after all those episodes devoted to the lighter Lex. Her should have been played as a bastard since day one.