This week on Smallville, a mysterious stranger threatens Clark's secret. Again.
FADE IN: Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan at Smallville High.
CLARK: You think the new journalism teacher will be an evil meteor-rock-infested villain?
CHLOE: I hope so, I've gotten used to running the school newspaper without any sort of supervision whatsoever. Hey, shouldn't we have graduated by now?
CLARK: We're making up time missed for student funerals. Wow, what's that smell?
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posted
Hee Hee, I will still watch though! They forgot the part about the Kent family farm not making money, Sorry but if it is the family farm, (paid for) then they probably make about 50 G's a year with Clark doing all the work. Of course they seem to go through Trucks and Tractors a lot!
posted
If I hadn't already been 100 words over my usual column length, the villain would have had some pretty bitter things to say about Teri Hatcher's "Desperate Housewives" Golden Globes nomination. But, c'est le vie.
I still watch Smallville, although not as dependably as the first three seasons. I'm starting to try and train myself to stop thinking of this as having anything to do with any version of Superman that I've ever heard of. If I think of it as being, basically, Dawson's Creek with superpowers, I'm OK.
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posted
Yeah, the last one I caught was Mxzptlx or however you spell that. Every time I see one of these things where he meets a villain too soon, I wonder where they're going with this. Is this all an alternate universe where he dies at the age of 22, and so everything happens to him earlier?
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posted
Chris Bridges = the best thing about Wednesdays!
Really- every Wednesday morning whenever it hits my slowly awakening consciousness that it is, indeed, Wednesday (usually around 10 am or the second cup of coffee), the next thought is inevitably, "Yay! Chris Bridges Day!"
posted
By the way, the "passing Clark's powers around like a T-shirt" really, really bugs me. It would be like a show about Michael Jordan where people can sneak up and use a crystal to steal his jumping ability.
Personally, I think Smallville should have been planned from the start as a three season show. All three years of high school, with story arcs for each season and a sweeping arc that covered all three. And then stop. If the show merited a sequel, move them to college and call it "Metropolis."
As it is they're ploughing in everything they can think of to keep it interesting and challenging and it just keeps pushing me farther and farther away, no matter how close to naked the actors get. This wouldn't bug me nearly as much if I hadn't really liked the show. I still think Michael Rosenbaum (Lex) and John Glover (Lionel) are the most underrated actors in television.
[ December 15, 2004, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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I know the article had only so much space, but another thing to poke fun at: how does a high school student have time to run a coffee shop?
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posted
My roommate was really bothered by the one episode where the three witches take away Clark's powers, and went off on it the entire show.
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quote: Personally, I think Smallville should have been planned from the start as a three season show. All three years of high school, with story arcs for each season and a sweeping arc that covered all three.
Many of us went to high school for 4 years. In my home town: 9th grade == freshman 10th grade == sophomore 11th grade == junior 12th grade == senior
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posted
Fair enough. I keep getting caught by that - no middle schools around here when I was a student. Elementary, junior high, high school.
Still, I wold have liked to have seen a closed story planned from the start. I really don't see how they're going to even pretend to reconcile the plot of Smallville with the Superman mythos unless everyone in Smallville gets amnesia. Come to think of it, I wouldn't put it past them...
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posted
We didn't have K built in. Elementary was 1-6, junior high was 7,8,9, and high school was 10, 11, and 12.
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posted
in my old school district there is currently: K-3 (Elementary), 4-6 (Intermediate), 7-8 (Junior High), 9 (Freshman academy, yes there is an ENTIRE CAMPUS just for teh freshmen!), and 10-12 (Sr. High).
posted
Three cheers for three year junior high (7-9) and three year high school (10-12) - the way God intended it to be. Seriously. I went to a three-year high school in 10th and 11th grades, then transfered to a school that was 9-12 for my senior year, and I seriously question the wisdom of sending 14 year-olds to school with 17 and 18 year-olds. That's a huge difference, even though most 14 year-olds don't think so.
Oh, and back to the actual topic of the thread - that was great, Chris. I don't watch "Smallville" on a regular basis, but I've seen it enough to know exactly what you're getting at. Actually, I knew the show was seriously skewed when I realized (about fifteen minutes into the first time I saw it) that I liked Lex better than Clark.
Ahem! Edited to insert a word that plainly should have been there in the first place.
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That was hilarious -- summed up all my thoughts about how silly the show is. I sometimes wonder why I still watch -- especially since it's the only thing I watch. Television Without Pity is great in ripping it to pieces too, yet it's done with such fondness. . . .
And where I grew up is was K-6 (Elementary), 7-8 (Jr. High), and 9-12 (High).
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posted
I love Television Without Pity. Their versions are usually infinitely better than the actual shows...
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posted
Where I grew up, it was Elementary K (optional)-6, a very crowded Jr. High (one for the entire area, with 8 or 9 feeder schools) for 7-8, and HS 9-12. I was so glad to get to HS. They were horrid to me in Jr. High; when I got to HS, I was finally able to find some friends (mostly 11th and 12th graders). Here, though, they have the same system except that 9th graders, although technically in HS, take classes at the separate "Freshmen Center" (unless they have really advanced classes, in which case they take their English, history, elective, and PE at the Freshmen Center and the science, math, or whatever is advanced at the HS adjacent).
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I do still like the show, but the stupidity is starting to wear thin. Spell (lana the witch) was, I think, the lowest point.
I don't know what it is. Why is it that shows like Smallville or Roswell, which start off so great and with such promise (I mean, *I* think Roswell had the best and tightest first season I've ever seen a show have) and then crap it all away on stupid plots, inane inconsistancies, and ridiculous gimmicks. I don't understand why producers who can create shows like "Rosetta" or "Memoria" or "Run" or "Transference" (come on- Tom Welling was channeling John Glover and was incredibly evil) will greenlight crap like "Spell" or "Magnetic" or "Gone" or "Dichotic".
I just don't get it, but I'm disappointed, too.
That said, I don't mind changes to the mythology. It's not like it was all that consistant anyway. I actually like the caves/artifacts arch. I just wish they'd elaborate on THAT instead of making Lana a witch or any of the other Lana-centric episodes we are forced to stomach.
And please just let Chloe have Clark for a while. Lois is not ready to be in the picture, romantically, yet. They don't even like each other. But Chloe has been his friend and she knows his secret (that's what they've been hinting, anyway.) And they have chemistry up the wazoo.
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posted
As someone who watched the first two seasons -- loved the first, got less and less happy the second -- and now refuses to watch it at all, I laughed hysterically. Perfectly skewered, Chris!
One other comment, in response to
quote: I really don't see how they're going to even pretend to reconcile the plot of Smallville with the Superman mythos unless everyone in Smallville gets amnesia. Come to think of it, I wouldn't put it past them...
posted
*grin* If you like the fic, drop Shayne an email. I'm sure he'd love the feedback.
If you like good Superman fanfic, specifically Lois&Clark fanfic, the archive where I linked to that one from has 2506 others. (And about 75% are at least "pretty good." )
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: I don't know what it is. Why is it that shows like Smallville or Roswell, which start off so great and with such promise (I mean, *I* think Roswell had the best and tightest first season I've ever seen a show have) and then crap it all away on stupid plots, inane inconsistancies, and ridiculous gimmicks.
Simple answer, IanO, America still hasn't learned that story arcs with a set end planned from the beginning are the way to go. Instead we get the lovely "jumping the shark" feature when they try to drag things out foooooreeeevvvveeeerrrrrr.
Let shows die when it is their time! Please! Do not inflict these zombies on us any longer! End the agony!
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posted
Yeah, that's the most frustrating thing about shows that attempt to tell grand story archs. Many of them do not keep the arc in mind or they suddenly change it in middle.
The key is CONTINUITY and avoiding stupidity. The first is easy. Just watch the show, for crying out loud. Have someone in charge of keeping track of the major plots as well as any changes that have been made. Vett major changes with those in charge of the arc as well as those in charge of MAKING THE CHARACTERS CONSISTANT! Finally, realize what viewers love about the show and move in that direction.
I still love Smallville and will continue to watch it. And history of the show has taught me that there will be episodes that truly rock, like Run or Transferrence did this season and Shattered, Asylum and Memoria did last season. But the crap in between pisses me off because it is so unnecessary and below what they have proven they can do.
Roswell did the same. The writers' pacing and revealing of information regarding the Max and Company was so well done in the 1st season. The characters were real, the tension and fear real. It lead to a very satisfying conclusion. But season 2 and 3 just shot all of that. It blew the best series 1st season I had ever seen. Yeah, there were good moments after that. But for the most part, it just sucked. Especially when it moved to UPN. Plot twists and reveals were pulled out the air with no build up or hinting at by the actors (if you watched it, then the reveal about Tess and Alex at the end of season 2, is a major one I am talking about, without trying to spoil anything). It was so out of the blue.
I don't think Smallville has jumped the shark, yet. Everytime I am almost ready to admit it, they pull out a glorious episode that shows that there's still life in it. But the season is half-over. And it is average, at best. A few more stinkers, and it becomes mediocre. I pray "Krypto" is not when it jumps the shark. Please. But I'm not holding my breath.
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quote: I don't know what it is. Why is it that shows like Smallville or Roswell, which start off so great and with such promise (I mean, *I* think Roswell had the best and tightest first season I've ever seen a show have) and then crap it all away on stupid plots, inane inconsistancies, and ridiculous gimmicks.
Now you know how I feel about SeaQuest.
Now Mexico has it right. They have soap operas that last one season, and they are pretty cool and interesting. Nothing like American ones. Yay for Univision and Telemundo!
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posted
I'm not a fan of novellas (that's what they call them in Brazil), but I am a big fan of stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. I don't like the hyper-sexuality of Brazilian novellas, but I like the format of telling a single story with 70-125 TV episodes.
<-- big Babylon 5 fan
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posted
In my town, elementary school is K-6, junior high is 7-8, and high school is 9-12. Considering the junior high school I went to thought it was a prison, while my high school rocked, I'm glad I got to go to the latter for four years and had to endure no more than two years of the former. Junior high just shouldn't be as long as high school. It ain't natural!
Edit: Oh yeah, Smallville. Well, I thought the article was pretty amusing, but keep in mind I've never seen the show. So I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have. I still liked it, though.
posted
I tried to make it funny for non-viewers, but the person I felt sorry for is my editor, who once again had to edit a story about something utterly alien to him. Hee hee...
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priceless!![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Seriously. I went to a three-year high school in 10th and 11th grades, then transfered to a school that was 9-12 for my senior year, and I seriously question the wisdom of sending 14 year-olds to school with 17 and 18 year-olds. That's a huge difference, even though most 14 year-olds don't think so.![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
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I actually went to private schools, mostly, but that was how it worked in the public schools.
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