Smallville S9 Hotter than ever. - Page 2

It was a pretty enjoyable episode.

I've been around this place long enough to know what many folks think of Smallville, and I agree that the 2nd half of last season was quite crappy to borderline unwatchable - especially that dogshit of a finale. However, I do have to say that I have really been enjoying this season. It feels like they really changed things up in the creative department somehow. I'm not claiming that it is now great quality television, but for people like me that stuck with the show over the years, it is nice to see them at least act like they are caring about making the show as good as possible. I actually didn't mind the Wonder Twins tonight. However, as happy as I am that this season seems to be really clicking, I'm sure that it won't be enough to change the minds of most of those who were turned off of the show by the many dumb creative decisions of seasons past. Also, I think the lady playing Lois is really lifting this show. Just my opinion, though.

So, someone had the Dark Knight on while writing this episode.

It shocks me to say it, but they really knocked that one out of the park. Between the deaths and what knowing the future caused Clark to do, this was one of the better episodes they've ever done.

All kidding aside, I've really been enjoying this season. The Lois & Clark scenes are really really working and I especially liked how even in the future she never figured out Clark was the blur and she still fell for Clark (unless I missed a few spots, I was black friday browsing while watching it)

They're really getting a lot right, really glad they canned Gough & Millar and picked up whomever is running this season. Let's hope they don't choke on the finale again.

Just took advantage of Amazon.com Black Friday Smallville specials, picked up seasons 1-8 for $9.99 each..

The show took a small winter hiatus, so I just caught up on the episodes to this point.

Pretty damn entertaining, but only when they are seen as a standalone unit. Start inserting the baggage and then its just amusing.

After last seasons terrible ending with Doomsday, the show brought in Zod played awesome by Callum Blue. He arrives on Earth, powerless and begins his quest to figure out why he doesn't have them along with a group of Kandorian mercenaries that came with him. He is a scene chewer, and while not the Zod we know from the movies, he is just a major and his evil nature is in full force. He is the first real threat since Lex that can actually act.

Now we compliment him with constipation face Tom Welling. After forsaking his Clark Kent persona, he immerses himself in training and dons the shield in a homage to The Matrix and Jor-Els black uniform. Well at least its not blue jeans and a red jacket, and its a start, but it needs to get a little better stat. The show can't keep putting off him getting into the tights for any longer, so hopefully he will modify the suit over time. I do like though he is in dual full hero mode, but he is now wondering is this enough?


Erica Durance is probably the best acting version of Lois right now. She actually can act, and pairing her with Clark has helped relieve his lack of charisma. In fact after returning from the future ruled by Zod, she is on a fast track on a relationship with Clark. By the end of the run, she has hooked up with Clark in a slow maturing relationship. Now I'm a little cautious that things have started early, and she has seen Clark without the glasses (although in a pretty cool scene he does admit he is near sighted and puts the glasses on and has been avoiding them). Obviously something has to be in the works for this situation because when she sees him with the glasses, she tells him to wear contacts. This is probably what weighs down the series the most, tons of people have seen Clark without the glasses.

The extras make Tom look bad, because they can act. I'm not saying Tom hasn't improved a little bit. His Blur is starting to show the workaholic boy scout mannerisms of Superman, and his CK is getting a little more clumsy (usually around Lois). I just wish I kind of knew where they were going with his character and the mistakes of the show.

I'd like to make special notice to the episode of Kandor. Julian Sands just knocks out the role of Jor-El. I haven't seen as much accurate heavy mythology in this particular episode than maybe since when Chris Reeves showed up in 2nd season. When the Krypton council showed up, you couldn't help but smile. The ending of this episode is rather spoilery, but Clark does learn and change his viewpoint to his biologic father. It also reveals how Zod is here, why he doesn't have his powers, and how he may possibly get them.

I was pretty entertained this season. The budget is more, you don't always see the same sets, and Zod is pure badass. In the context of just these episodes, its a great run. Although after 9 years, its getting time for something a little more Super.


In a similar scene to Clark stopping the bullets from Superman Returns. The scene was actually done very well and probably better. Just see it.


Enhanced visuals and set extensions made this show feel brand new.

*I only have these images since they were my phone's background for a little bit.

I hate this show pretty passionately, but I caught the preview for the next episode, and I kind of have to watch it. It's the JSA, after all. How they're going to make that work in the show's continuity baffles, slightly, but whatever.

From Entertainment Weekly...

Is it me, or does Stargirl look like the dude who played Palpatine in Empire?




Oh, and Hawkman looks badass.

Holy Hell. I haven't watched this show in years, but they're really letting their freak flags fly now, huh? It's kind of admirable, in it's way.

Real superhero costumes? No more flappy coats? Every time I think I'm out they pull me back in...

Meh, I've always liked Dr. Fate, but his costume is a touch more superhero than I would have liked. Play up the magic angle like with Dr. Strange a little.

I would have thought they'd play up Stargirl's sexuality more. A domino mask and a smaller shirt or something.

Hawkman's fine, it was always going to look ridiculous, but the armor generally looks okay.

Still, like Justice, it grabs me with the usage of superheroes and action.

I will hate this show even more if they don't reference S.T.R.I.P.E. in some way.

And Stargirl looks REALLY sullen and angry in that picture.

No ridiculous hoodies, even (other than Green Arrow's). I'm kind of amazed.

So many things have changed on this show, particularly this season, that the only thing that ties it to Smallville besides the actors (and being subpar television) is the "no tights, no flights" rules for Clark set out at inception. While slightly better than a lot of what's come before, it's still a testament to how slipshod this show has been since the beginning.

Ha! This was exactly what I was thinking when I first saw Stargirl.

So, I know I wasn't the only one who watched Absolute Justice tonight? God I am easy to hook in. Little sad they didn't bring the whole JL together at the end. Also: so no one had ever heard of the JSA or even heard rumors of them? All these billionaires running around and there is nothing on them?

Hahah, yeah I completely avoided last weeks ep but couldn't help but watch this one. 2 hours of Smallville in one night is a bit much, but the rampant cheese factor helped. Hawkman's super over-the-top gruffness made for a lot of entertainment. Plus, Foxy Brown!

While it was kinda neat to see the JSA in tv form, particularly a well done Doctor Fate, it got a bit tedious when they just sat there and showed off each and every one of them in the little evidence film. Great to see Ma Hunkel, though.

It was pretty hilarious that by throwing the JSA into this they have to kinda talk around the fact that this amazing super team who was so great was apparently never heard of by anyone ever. But that's Smallville for ya

Dear God, Michael Shanks' Hawkman voice is worse than Bale's Batman voice.

I guess Dr. Fate was easier to do than some of the others, but it would have been nice to have more than five seconds of Sandman.

Hawkman is just ridiculous though.

It was fun for Smallville. That is about the best I can say for it.

It was lame that we didn't get to spend any time with Green Lantern, Jay Garrick, or the rest of the JSA OR the junior JLA they had going, but I totally dug the Watchmen (well technically Minutemen) vibe.

I never gave a shit about Doctor Fate in the comics, but this iteration was really great. I would've liked a few more episodes with him. Also Shanks' Hawkman really seemed like it was intentionally cheesy since he's a Golden Age superhero and wears a ridiculous HAWK costume. But I loved how much of an asshole he was the whole episode and how he spent at least 10 minutes just making fun of Green Arrow. "You know why you're alone? Because you act like a jackass!"

I also like how Fate sort of acknowledged how Chloe's not even supposed to be here. Yep, we gonna kill you off someday.

This was pure greatness man. Loved every second of it.

Shanks pretty much makes everything just a little bit better and it was good to see Brent Stait get a meatier role, missed him since Andromeda went all show runner crazy.

I have to say, the scene where Clark is pulling back the dust covers on the old JSA museum really put some tears of joy in my eye. Loved everything about it, the little nic' knacks, the lingering moments. Really did justice to fans of comic books. Say what you want about cheese, these guys are never ever going to get moments in a movie. Alan Scott? not gonna be in the GL movie, fact. Jay Garrick? never mentioned in the Flash TV show, which pretty much solidified he'll never be in the upcoming (limbo) movie. Kudos to the new showrunners at Smallville for hitting this season out of the park so far.. let's hope they don't drop the ball like last seasons finale (which was really the only misstep).

Checkmate!? Awesome.
Lex Luthor LIVES!!!!?. AWESOME.
Martian Manhunter got his powers back!?!?!?!?

THEY SHOWED THE FUCKING CAPE IN PURE CGI GLORY!!!!

Fuck the haters, this shit delivered the goods and then some.

I'm not a regular watcher (though I tend to have a general idea of what's going on on the show), but I checked out the Legion episode last season so I figured I'd take a peek at this one, too. Overall, I found it enjoyable. Enough Easter Eggs to make the Easter Bunny jealous, that's for sure.

PROS:
It was cheesy as heck, but well...I thought that worked well enough for the vibe of the show.

Loved the pure geekery on display pretty much throughout the whole thing. The museum sequence, the glimpse of J'Onn's true form (have they done that before?), The foreshadowing of Clark's eventual Superman-ness, and the surprisingly accurate JSA.

Fate was pretty cool, but overall the episode provided a darn good illustration of why Hollywood usually tries to tweak superhero costumes once they go to the big screen: Because they really DO look silly in a lot of cases. Still, in keeping with the Cheese factor mentioned above, it worked within the context of the show and a TV budget.

The "Watchmen" vibe they gave the JSA was interesting. Seeing them as these down-and-out has-beens as opposed to the revered figures they are in the comics was pretty interesting. Of course, by the end of the episode it seems clear the JSA was headed towards its' more "modern" reincarnation within the Smallville Universe. I didn't have a problem with the "wiping out" of the JSA (historically speaking) simply because they didn't seem to play them up like they'd really done -that- much, and Hawkman explained that they mostly tried to keep things secret (and I gathered that it was only the government that'd figured them out, not so much the public). Since they presumably didn't have the World War II connections where they were quite "public" I think it worked well enough.

Pam Grier as Amanda Waller? Utter Genius. Plus both the "Suicide Squad" easter egg and did anyone else translate "Coming Apocalypse" (that she's trying to prevent) as "Coming Apokolips?" (I can't imagine the show would go there, but hey, I never thought they'd attempt things like Doomsday or the JSA either.

CONS:
Kind of an odd thing to say, but I really felt like maybe there should be one or two more characters. Either toss in...I dunno, Wildcat on the JSA side, maybe, and judging from the fact that there looked to be a Black Canary on the JSA portrait, the lack of the "modern" Canary seemed kind of glaring to me. Great opportunity to play up a connection but apparently missed due to budget concerns (or more likely time concerns).

Most of the casting seemed pretty decent (Stargirl was about dead-on), but while Shanks was serviceable and clearly tried hard with the part, he wasn't quite making it there as Carter Hall. The bad "gruff" voice didn't help.

The villain was kinda lame, honestly.

The villain was the only serious misstep. It made the heroes look a bit inept that this dumb mewling brat could take down so many of them.

I don't have much knowledge of the comics, but the episode still worked on a period-piece level for me. They did an excellent job of quickly establishing a history for the old Society that flowed pretty nicely into a Justice League origin. I just wonder whether the budget will allow them to go anywhere with the idea. If the CW gets a boss that likes shows other than those geared for teen girls, I wonder if they'd ever consider a Heroes-esque Justice League spinoff.

With how rapidly the networks are running in fear from serial shows, Smallville has actually moved up my watch list... I'll watch Superman's somewhat goofy adventures before yet another procedural any day.

I liked the "Super Friends" gag near the begining.

I got a bit of a Darkseid vibe at that Apocalype line too.

I've always been hopeful for a Justice League spin off and figured they hired the 'unknowns' specifically for that purpose (I still think a JSA spin off is possible considering Shanks employment status, or lack there of)

That being said, the villian worked very well. Remember, he had Checkmates backing and it isn't like he went after A-listers of the JSA (Green Lantern, Jay Garrick, etc..), the only real shock was Fate but with his powers he probably saw what was coming and choose death to ignite rebirth (manhunter).

There's a reason heroes form teams and that's been forgotten thanks to the lackluster run of the JL and the X-Men books etc.. most heroes aren't capable of handling every kind of villian out there... The rogues gallery of the Flash or Batman or even GL would kill most any other superhero.

I only wish Geoff Johns would become a permanent consultant for smallville.. I've always loved anything he's done, including the current run of Blackest Night.

That was surprisingly not horrible. I've only watched episodes scattered here and there. Mostly from the earlier seasons, so my opinion on this show is pretty low. But this looked completely different.

I guess that episodes like this one are rare though.

io9 has a pretty good review of the episode. I wish this was a backdoor pilot for a JSA series run by Johns. Hell bring in several comics writers to write the series.

Still wish we could have seen the whole Justice League together at the end. This show should really start focusing on that.

I really liked it, as mentioned above I wasn't all that keen on Hawkman's gruff voice but they did a damn good job with the budget they had.

Actually, that was about on-par with how Smallville has been the last couple seasons. Since they moved to Metropolis, dropped the dead-end boyhood crush, dumped the show's original crappy showrunners and stopped being afraid to move forward, it's been a markedly better series. It probably doesn't hurt that each year could be the last, so there's no reason to hold anything back...

Erica Durance is the best Lois Lane that I've ever seen. She has a leg up on most of the competition since she's got a weekly tv show to expand her character as opposed to a two hour movie, but she is a kickass Lois. I don't know if there's a unanimous choice as the definitive Lois, but Durance makes a strong case for herself.

anyone but Margot Kidder.

That was a solid episode, but I hope the entire Superman suit doesn't come from a kid. Liked the Star Wars quote.

Great follow up to Absolute Justice! As said before, solid episode.

- Zatanna. Holy fuck I forgot how awesome it was to have her on the show... must. be. regular... (but not fully clothed like in last scene)
- Lois as a Storm Trooper = awesomness
- Lois as an Amazonian Warrior = beyond awesomeness!


Loved how Zatanna tried to whamey clark into making out. I don't buy that she was trying to 'help him'.

That being said, I really enjoyed how they made Lois angry and jealous about Zatanna. It reminded me of a comic I read a year or so ago which had a breakfast scene with Lois & Clark and you see panel flashbacks of what they were thinking over breakfast and Lois is FUMING over how Clark hangs out with such hot women in the JL like Zatanna and Wonder Woman.

Love the chemestry between this iteration of Lois & Clark. I really wanted them to follow up and show what costume she picked out for him!

I have a feeling something is going to happen where Clark is going to have to make a choice about erasing some memories (like his relationship with Lois) because while the show is having a great 2nd wind, it has a lot of mistakes to fix.

If he reverses time, it'll reset Lois knowing him and Lex will be alive. Just shows up at the Daily Planet with glasses.

Oh and loved it that he finally did the chest rip in this episode.

I forgot about the shirt rip! that was a cool geek out moment.

I kinda figured the natural progression of the show to get rid of the "Freak of the Week" was to have Jor-El eradicate all of the krytonite in the world (they had an episode early on where the spaceship that brought Clark to Earth removed the radiation of Lana's kryptonite necklace)

I could easily see Lex come back as a genetic clone(not an exact duplicate) a la what happened in the early 90's when the "son of luthor" came into the picture. This would enable them to go with a different actor if needed and they can have 'holes' in his memory to sort of 'reset' things.

That being said, I don't want the Lois & Clark dynamic to change, that's what's really keeping me interested in the show and the episodes that are missing Durance sure are lacking.

Early renewel might mean the writers have a good ending this season! w00t!

The 4th Superman movie came out 9 years after the first. Lois and Clark ran 4 years. Adventures of Superman ran 6 years. With ten seasons of Smallville, does this make Tom Welling the longest running actor to be Clark Kent?

Sounds like it.

This also marks the first time I'm happy to hear that Smallville was renewed. Usually my reaction is something akin to, "NO! I only kept watching because they promised it was ending!!!"

Well, one thing's for sure. He's the longest running actor to play Clark Kent and not Superman.

If you really ignore all the BS that came before, this has been an awesome season. That said, the show needs to fix quite a bit and hopefully season 10 is actually Superman Year One. Welling is right there, closer than ever to being the Man of Steel. Just do the mindwarp, and have him trying to adjust to the new world. Glasses and suit pronto.

I do like the Lois relationship, but with a mindwarp she can go on residual deja vu to have an unexplained attraction to Clark (which I guess since she saw him without his glasses, could explain why she would be attracted to Superman, and Clark would be different).

When Zod flew, I nearly spit out my drink. So obviously budget isn't an issue, just the producers are too tied to the no tights, no flights.

Superman's first flight seems destined to be the final shot of the series.

Since I'm not a stickler for 'canon', I hope they don't spend their time trying to retcon things to line up exactly with the established lore. It'll be tedious to watch, and ridiculous to think about. Better to just stick to their own interpretation of the story and leave it at that.

Man I gotta say, this has been one awesome season. Loved the breakfast scene.

Yeah, the character stuff was actually kind of fun. Silver Banshee was pretty ridiculous even for Smallville. Clark totally should have said he was "master of his domain."

Oh man, I was watching tonight and almost lost it when Clark was trying to explain how Jor-El has helped him train to bang human ladies.

Not going to lie: Erica Durance was wow in that little nightie. Other than that, the comedy was the most fun tonight for me.

I wonder if there is some sort of Fortress of Solitude app for that.

My thought was he would fly in the series or superheroic climax ... e.g. final episodes, probably DURING his final fight with brainiac, lex or whoever they deem his last and biggest opponent, maybe as dealing the death blow.

that's been my guess for years.

I think his first flight will be him saving Lois, or she dies, he feels he loses all ties to humanity and flies and spins the world backwards.

This episode was great. I agree with everything that was said, Banshee sucked but the couples really pulled this episode through. I dug the Zod \ Mercer stuff too. I think she slept with him because she wanted to see what it was like to be with a "super" man.

All I gotta say is this. After last night's episode, I really hope they don't kill off Chloe. I know she said this was her last season and all (back when she signed on for it before it was even filmed) but I hope that was a tactic to get more money because she really adds to the core of the show and I really hate mopey Smallville.

Watchmen much?

I assumed Tess already knew Oliver was Green Arrow for some reason. She sure is dumb.

I eagerly await Checkmate's mass culling of the Kandorians. That would also give Zod a nice revenge mission for next season. I assume the character is coming back. He's the best part of the show.