And Now For The Crappy Summer Shows
Just finished watching the season finale of Heroes. It took me most of the afternoon to download it, which means I really need to invest in a TiVo or some other kind of DVR. Anyway, I don't know if I could have asked for a better way to end this season. It wrapped up pretty much everything (except for the whole "Hiro fights a dinosaur" deal from earlier in the season, which I was - and still am - really looking forward to seeing), it set things up for season two, and it was a good episode in general. I am really hoping that Heroes doesn't come down with the sophomore jinx and fall off its mountain next season, because I've got high hopes for it.
And it seems like every show is either having finales lately. Take, for example, Smallville. It just ended its sixth season, and I can't believe I gave up on watching the second season of My Name Is Earl just to watch this crap. (I know I could have downloaded My Name Is Earl like I do with Heroes, but I just never did. Can't say that I have a reason why.) I mean, really, are Smallville's writing staff even trying? Okay, let's set this whole thing up. Lana Lang is apparently dead via car bombing because she tried to leave her husband, Lex Luthor. The whole marriage thing is stupid to begin with, and the show has also decided to insult our intelligence by insinuating Lana is dead. They're never gonna kill her off because everyone involved with this show is obviously madly in love with Kristin Kreuk, but even an idiot could recognize that the whole thing was just Lana faking her death so the Luthors wouldn't hassle her. And this leads to Lex getting arrested for organizing the car bombing, despite having the flimsiest motive ever, along with the fact that as far as I know, the police have nothing that even remotely resembles evidence.
Then there's Chloe. Poor, unloved Chloe. Somebody must have incriminating photographs of Allison Mack, because if I were her, I'd be telling the writers to treat the character with some friggin' respect before I walked off of Smallville and never looked back. (The same goes for John Glover and Annette O'Toole too, because both of them are way too awesome for this show.) Here's what happened to Chloe: A few episodes ago, it was revealed that due to all the times Chloe has been exposed to Kryptonite over the years, she's developed mutant powers just like pretty much everybody else that's been on this show. Anyway, Lois Lane breaks into this laboratory located in a dam, gets into a fight with a guard, and is promptly stabbed to death. Instead of calling 911 with her dying breath like any sane person, she calls Chloe instead. Chloe somehow tracks her cell phone down and arrives on the scene, stumbling upon Lois's corpse. Now after seeing her beloved cousin dead, Chloe's a big ol' ball of emotion. She starts crying, one of the tears lands on Lois's forehead, and boom! There's a big flash of bright light. Next thing we the viewer know, Lois is alive and perfectly healthy, and Chloe's curled up in the corner, apparently dead. Yep, Chloe's superpower was tears that revive the dead at the cost of her own life. I'll admit that Smallville is already pretty out there, but that is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever seen. Sure, they'll probably come back next season and say that there was some kind of shock to her system that just knocked her out, but she looked pretty dead to me.
And then there's the show's usage of the Martian Manhunter. Get this: the Manhunter is apparently trying to hunt down all these evil wraiths that escaped from the Phantom Zone at the beginning of the season. I can deal with that. But in Smallville's season finale, the Manhunter reveals that the final wraith was a weird Kryptonian science experiment. This is where it starts getting really stupid. Turns out that the Manhunter was also an assistant to Jor-El, and that he'd been sent to Earth to be Clark's guardian until he began "training" to accept his greater glory as Superman. See? That's stupid. If he's supposed to be a guardian, where has he been the last few seasons? Why didn't he show up when Clark had to fight General Zod and Brainiac all by himself? Why didn't he show up to straighten Clark out after he'd been infected by silver Kryptonite? Why didn't he show up any of the bajillion times Clark was in mortal danger? If they said the Manhunter took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and just now got to Earth, I'd almost believe that. But the idea that he's Jor-El's assistant and Clark's guardian? Come on now. If he's really supposed to be Martian, what's he doing cavorting around a zillion light years away on Krypton? Once again, I reiterate my belief that Smallville's writers are just throwing crap at the wall to see what'll stick. I mean, this is the same show that expected us to accept that Jor-El once took a vacation to Earth and became friends with Grandpa Kent, which led to Clark being sent to the Kent family on purpose.
And then there's the big moment of the whole episode: Clark finally tells Lana that he's an alien, and they didn't go back on it. And she was all, "Okay, no big deal. Let's make out." Six seasons of build-up, and the results are kinda lame. Sigh... nobody in the show's writing staff is trying at all. At least they finally got it out there without screwing the audience over, only it's about two seasons or so later than they should have.
The only halfway decent thing to come out of the entire episode is the introduction of Bizarro. He's not the traditional half-retarded "me am Bizarro" Bizarro that we all know. He just comes across as just being an extremely angry and violent Clark doppelganger. Bizarro has the ugly face, wears a different color scheme, and is made stronger by green Kryptonite as opposed to vice versa, but from what I can tell so far, that's the only resemblances I can see.
And the best thing as a whole I can say about Smallville right now is that the show that at least the end of each episode means that Supernatural will be starting. I'm surprised I never really got into Supernatural during it's first season, because it's a fantastic show. If Supernatural's writers and Heroes's writers could team up and do Smallville, right there would be the three best shows on television. A close contender would be Veronica Mars, but the geniuses at the CW Network, in their infinite wisdom, decided to cancel it. If it weren't for Supernatural and my favorite cape-wearing guilty pleasure, the CW Network could go screw itself for all I care.
I think now I'm going to have to start downloading My Name Is Earl episodes to make up for the lost time. Either that, or just wait for the DVD to come out in a couple of months and stick it on my Netflix list. I'm ashamed of myself for watching Smallville instead of it. And I'm really hoping for reruns, because I don't know if I've seen one new show this summer that looks like it'll be any good at all. Can't Fox just start a 24-hour Simpsons channel to keep me satisfied until all my other favorite shows return in the fall?
And it seems like every show is either having finales lately. Take, for example, Smallville. It just ended its sixth season, and I can't believe I gave up on watching the second season of My Name Is Earl just to watch this crap. (I know I could have downloaded My Name Is Earl like I do with Heroes, but I just never did. Can't say that I have a reason why.) I mean, really, are Smallville's writing staff even trying? Okay, let's set this whole thing up. Lana Lang is apparently dead via car bombing because she tried to leave her husband, Lex Luthor. The whole marriage thing is stupid to begin with, and the show has also decided to insult our intelligence by insinuating Lana is dead. They're never gonna kill her off because everyone involved with this show is obviously madly in love with Kristin Kreuk, but even an idiot could recognize that the whole thing was just Lana faking her death so the Luthors wouldn't hassle her. And this leads to Lex getting arrested for organizing the car bombing, despite having the flimsiest motive ever, along with the fact that as far as I know, the police have nothing that even remotely resembles evidence.
Then there's Chloe. Poor, unloved Chloe. Somebody must have incriminating photographs of Allison Mack, because if I were her, I'd be telling the writers to treat the character with some friggin' respect before I walked off of Smallville and never looked back. (The same goes for John Glover and Annette O'Toole too, because both of them are way too awesome for this show.) Here's what happened to Chloe: A few episodes ago, it was revealed that due to all the times Chloe has been exposed to Kryptonite over the years, she's developed mutant powers just like pretty much everybody else that's been on this show. Anyway, Lois Lane breaks into this laboratory located in a dam, gets into a fight with a guard, and is promptly stabbed to death. Instead of calling 911 with her dying breath like any sane person, she calls Chloe instead. Chloe somehow tracks her cell phone down and arrives on the scene, stumbling upon Lois's corpse. Now after seeing her beloved cousin dead, Chloe's a big ol' ball of emotion. She starts crying, one of the tears lands on Lois's forehead, and boom! There's a big flash of bright light. Next thing we the viewer know, Lois is alive and perfectly healthy, and Chloe's curled up in the corner, apparently dead. Yep, Chloe's superpower was tears that revive the dead at the cost of her own life. I'll admit that Smallville is already pretty out there, but that is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever seen. Sure, they'll probably come back next season and say that there was some kind of shock to her system that just knocked her out, but she looked pretty dead to me.
And then there's the show's usage of the Martian Manhunter. Get this: the Manhunter is apparently trying to hunt down all these evil wraiths that escaped from the Phantom Zone at the beginning of the season. I can deal with that. But in Smallville's season finale, the Manhunter reveals that the final wraith was a weird Kryptonian science experiment. This is where it starts getting really stupid. Turns out that the Manhunter was also an assistant to Jor-El, and that he'd been sent to Earth to be Clark's guardian until he began "training" to accept his greater glory as Superman. See? That's stupid. If he's supposed to be a guardian, where has he been the last few seasons? Why didn't he show up when Clark had to fight General Zod and Brainiac all by himself? Why didn't he show up to straighten Clark out after he'd been infected by silver Kryptonite? Why didn't he show up any of the bajillion times Clark was in mortal danger? If they said the Manhunter took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and just now got to Earth, I'd almost believe that. But the idea that he's Jor-El's assistant and Clark's guardian? Come on now. If he's really supposed to be Martian, what's he doing cavorting around a zillion light years away on Krypton? Once again, I reiterate my belief that Smallville's writers are just throwing crap at the wall to see what'll stick. I mean, this is the same show that expected us to accept that Jor-El once took a vacation to Earth and became friends with Grandpa Kent, which led to Clark being sent to the Kent family on purpose.
And then there's the big moment of the whole episode: Clark finally tells Lana that he's an alien, and they didn't go back on it. And she was all, "Okay, no big deal. Let's make out." Six seasons of build-up, and the results are kinda lame. Sigh... nobody in the show's writing staff is trying at all. At least they finally got it out there without screwing the audience over, only it's about two seasons or so later than they should have.
The only halfway decent thing to come out of the entire episode is the introduction of Bizarro. He's not the traditional half-retarded "me am Bizarro" Bizarro that we all know. He just comes across as just being an extremely angry and violent Clark doppelganger. Bizarro has the ugly face, wears a different color scheme, and is made stronger by green Kryptonite as opposed to vice versa, but from what I can tell so far, that's the only resemblances I can see.
And the best thing as a whole I can say about Smallville right now is that the show that at least the end of each episode means that Supernatural will be starting. I'm surprised I never really got into Supernatural during it's first season, because it's a fantastic show. If Supernatural's writers and Heroes's writers could team up and do Smallville, right there would be the three best shows on television. A close contender would be Veronica Mars, but the geniuses at the CW Network, in their infinite wisdom, decided to cancel it. If it weren't for Supernatural and my favorite cape-wearing guilty pleasure, the CW Network could go screw itself for all I care.
I think now I'm going to have to start downloading My Name Is Earl episodes to make up for the lost time. Either that, or just wait for the DVD to come out in a couple of months and stick it on my Netflix list. I'm ashamed of myself for watching Smallville instead of it. And I'm really hoping for reruns, because I don't know if I've seen one new show this summer that looks like it'll be any good at all. Can't Fox just start a 24-hour Simpsons channel to keep me satisfied until all my other favorite shows return in the fall?
posted by Matt Sutton at
12:33 AM
1 Comments:
Heroes was great! We must discuss it asap.
Your Smallville rant/review was like the greatest thing ever. I haven't been watching, but it sounds like you tore apart all of the things that would have been bugging me. Tremendous.
I still like Kristen Kreuk, though. Can't help it.
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