Sunday, September 21, 2008

Smallville and Supernatural

Spoilers follow, so if you've still got either unwatched on TiVo (or, if you're a Neanderthal like myself, on tape), you might want to give this entry a miss. And if you're not a fan of either show, this is a Bad Place for you to be, hombre.

So there was much doing of the Happy Dance in the Undercity household this week, thanks to the CW bringing back our two favorite shows a month earlier than usual (for some reason, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, there seemed to be a preference for rolling these genre shows out in October, for whatever reason).

Anyway, because it's my blog and I can inflict any subject matter upon you that I feel like with no discernable consequences (look for my upcoming thirty-part series on kicking puppies!), here are my thoughts:

Smallville: My, my. So many changes being made. First off, thank God they gave Chloe a superpower more in keeping with her nature than the empathetic healing thing. I mean, if she was going to have a power at all (apart from the ability to fall off of Clark's radar at the drop of a hat), making her more of a genius than she already was seems more believable, not to mention better for plot development. Michael Rosenbaum leaving the show spared us yet another bout of Lex Luthor amnesia (can his future level of extreme evil be attributed to brain damage brought about by repeated head trauma?). His proxy, Ms. Mercer, looks promising as a five-star bitch-on-wheels villainess. I expect her and Lois to throw down hand-to-hand during sweeps. Call it a hunch. Speaking of Lois, with Kristin Kreuk's Lana Lang gone, I'm glad to see that they decided to dispense with the "Lana as a brunette, Lois as a redhead" in-joke. But now that Clark is off the farm and seated in the desk across from her, how the hell is she not going to recognize Superman when he finally makes his debut? Especially when Clark still isn't wearing glasses? The return of Oliver Queen's nascent Justice League seemed like an extra bit of crowding in an episode already stuffed to bursting. Were these guest stars really necessary?

All in all, I enjoyed the show, and most of the changes had an "it's about time!" air to them, but I think it would have been better had they spread them all out over two, or even three episodes.

Supernatural: Probably the last words I ever expected to hear on an episode of Supernatural: "I am an Angel of the Lord!" I looked up the name in Gustav Davidson's A Dictionary of Angels and found the following entry: "Castiel--a Thursday angel mentioned in occult lore". Heavy. With dominion over the show's timeslot, apparently, too. I got a good laugh out of Bobby and Sam both reacting the same way to Dean's resurrection, by taking a silver knife to him, thinking him a revenant. So Sam's been developing his psychic mojo, while an angel pulled his brother out of Hell for an unknown reason. Methinks a collision course is in the future. Can't wait to see it.

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