[Smallville in the Media: Get Your News From Other Sources Besides The Torch Here!]

I was wondering...if TPTB over at Flash would ever consider asking Tom Welling to appear as Supes?

 

I could see them bringing TW on sort of the way SV did with Christopher Reeve and Dean Cain. But I doubt it would be as Superman.

[Season Five: Don't Fear the Reaper]

I hated that bitterness and almost hatred from Lana and Clark's jealousy towards her and Lex. Actually makes all three look petty.

 

I think the writers saw the triangle as a way to work some juicy conflict and drama into the show, with all the intense emotions flying around and such. But, yep, it did just make everyone look bad. And dumbed down Clark and Lex's once complex and interesting relationship into two guys squabbling over a girl.

 

Given that the lack of Lois makes miss her rather than cheer

 

You know, when Lois wasn't actively around, I tended to totally forget she was on the show. If there was an episode with no Lois, it wouldn't even dawn on me that Lois wasn't in it until maybe someone mentioned it.

 

I really do think that, for a long while, the writers had no idea what to do with her, but kept her around because she was Lois Lane.

 

I guess they really are trying to redeem Lionel in earnest this time? I don't know, seems like a cheap trick at this point,

 

I don't think the PTB themselves knew where they wanted to go with Lionel. Or it was more that they seemed to want to be able to write Lionel being whatever way they needed him to be in a given episode. Sometime, they needed him to be sincere. Sometimes, it seemed like he was just playing everyone. In the end, it just made his character a mess. 

 

John Glover actually said that even he didn't know what was going on with Lionel during that time. At some point he stopped trying to figure it out, and just played Lionel in whatever way each script called for. So, basically, the actor playing the character was as lost as the viewers.

[Season Four: The Stones of Suck]

Ok, so I'll admit. I have no idea what the stones arc was all about. I really, truly can't make sense of it.

 

The stones arc makes a little more sense on repeated viewings but not a lot more, lol.

 

I eventually just gave up on trying to understand that whole storyline. Usually, I can make sense of a story arc. Even if a lot of it feels contrived, or not put together well (like there are plot holes, or things that don't totally make sense), I still get what the arc was about.

 

With season 4 of SV, I have no clue. And no amount of fanwanking helped, so I stopped trying to figure it out. Which was kind of a relief, because trying to make sense of that season made my head hurt.

 

And I think that, by the end of season four, the writers stopped trying to make sense of the season too. They'd thrown all of this stuff on screen but didn't know how to tie it together or make sense of it. So they didn't really try. They just ended the plot lines they had going on that season (lamely, for the most part), and kept on like a lot of that stuff never happened.

[Season Two: Puberty Hits Clark]

I would have thought considering Clark has chemistry with both of them they would have stretched the triangle out a bit more and made everyones feelings a bit more ambiguous. But I guess not.

 

I think the Powers That Be set up the Chloe/Clark/Lana triangle because triangles are a pretty easy way to add conflict and drama to a show. However, I think they really wanted viewers to be pulling for Clark/Lana, and to see Clark/Chloe as an obstacle.

 

The problem was that, by the end of season one, a whole lot of viewers saw Clana as the obstacle, and were pulling for Chlark to end up together. Which isn't what the show-runners wanted.

 

To "fix" this, they very abruptly dropped the idea of Clark having real feelings for both girls early in season two. (He pretty much became all about Lana.) I think they believed that if they took Chlark off the table as an actual possibility, and really started to push the Clark/Lana romance, more viewers would love and embrace Clana like they were supposed to.

 

Of course, this didn't happen. If anything, season two was when more viewers started to really dislike Clana.

 

I really hated Chloe gleefully going off to Lionel in the end. Really? Over something as stupid as a supposed betrayal?

 

Like I said before, season 2 was when they tried to "fix" things. In this case, the "problem" was that Lana (one of their leads) wasn't as popular as they wanted her to be, while Chloe (a supporting character) was way more popular than they expected. So they tried to fix this imbalance by making Lana more likeable, and making Chloe less likable.

 

They failed on making Lana more likeable. (Like Clana, season two seemed to be when people really start to dislike Lana.) And, while they managed to make a lot of people dislike Chloe in season two, they also discovered Chloe had a lot of fans, and they were pissed with how she was being written, especially in the finale.

 

Really, the way she's written in season three is such an abrupt change from where they seemed to be going with her in season two, it's almost hard to accept that season two Chloe is even the same person. Her season 2 behavior seems so out of character compared to how she is characterized later.

[Past Seasons Discussion : Tales From The Crypt]

In the latter Seasons, absolutely, In Seasons 1 and 2, I was pretty impressed by the execution of the plot and how well it all flowed together. Even at the time stupid "oh geez, the sun and the moon curse" turned out to be a clever misdirection that nevertheless fit. 

 

I liked the way the sun/moon curse thing turned. Of course, I think they pulled that clever twist out of their hind parts, but a lot of good shows do stuff like that, and the twist, however they came up with it, was still good.

 

However, so many things happened in seasons one and two that felt like rookie mistakes. Or just bad writing.

 

Like Bonnie had this huge problem with Stefan after what happened in season one. And I really wanted to see how that would play out. Only, suddenly, she's sitting around chatting with him like their issues never existed.

 

Then there was Luka, the guy that showed an interest in Bonnie, only the audience knew he had ulterior motives. I couldn't wait to see Bonnie's reaction when she found out. Only she finds out offscreen, so that great build up lead to nothing.

 

But if I look at it only as plot compared to the slow-burn set-up to ultimately introduce Klaus over Season 2 of TVD, I`d have to give the point to TVD. Easily.

 

And that was one of the things that I think didn't work. The build-up to this dangerous, powerful dude showing up was pretty good. But the "payoff" was a big disappointment, both in terms of the actual "show down," and what the Big Bad turned out to be like. (They kept telling me how scary and dangerous Klaus was, but I never felt it.) Which, in hindsight, makes the build up lose a lot of its power. Which happens when a big build up doesn't have a great payoff.

 

Compare to season three of Buffy. While they revealed the Big Bad early on, the build up to him becoming this thing they were afraid they wouldn't be able to deal with was great, and so was the showdown at the end of the season.

 

But when it was actually good, I did consider TVD the best plot-show out of everything else I watched on TV during that time. Which is why I would award it higher than guilty pleasure for those Seasons 1.5 - 2.

 

And I thought TVD's plots moved so fast that I didn't have time to really invest in them. At first, after watching lots of shows where things moved at a snail's pace, I loved that TVD moved at such a fast clip. But, by the end of season one, and on into season two, I was starting to see the downsides.

 

I don't like it when a show is too slow. (Like Smallville.) But, on the flip side, if a show moves too fast, like TVD sometimes does, things don't really have a chance to sink in or make much of an impression on me. So I guess I prefer a pace somewhere in the middle.

 

[Past Seasons Discussion : Tales From The Crypt]

I agree, it never reached the highs of Buffy. Though I think they were fundamentally different concepts, Whedon pretty much set out to do various metaphors for growing up via genre plots whereas TVD was primarily based upon a romantic love triangle. The latter is already a more simplistic concept. And I don`t think TVD ever really went for more than that. Sure, there were lots of supernatural plots as the backdrop of the romance but fundamentally, it wasn`t an allegory for or commentary on something. Which is okay, not every show has to do that. 

 

But it makes me judge both shows by different standards in a way.

 

Which is what I do. I used BtVS as an example of what I consider a "great" show, and to explain why I don't think TVD is on that level. But a show doesn't have to be on that level in order for me to consider it good in its own right.

 

That being said, even with guilty pleasure shows, you have some that have better execution than others. So I can enjoy a show that's kind of shallow and simplistic if they do what they do well. 

 

A lot of my problem with TVD is that, while they tried to be a little more ambitious than a lot of guilty pleasure shows, they often didn't do it all that well. Or they took shortcuts. Or they were just downright sloppy, like they couldn't be bothered to actually deal with some plot point they introduced. And that kind of thing annoys me more than when a show doesn't quite pull something off, but it feels like they were really trying.

[Past Seasons Discussion : Tales From The Crypt]

I gotta say for the second half of Season 1 and Season 2, I do consider the show genuinely good. Not just guilty pleasure but actual A-list.

 

And, for me, season one was when I thought the show had the potential to be a really good show. But, by the end of season one, I was starting to get that feeling that it wasn't going to reach that potential. I was starting to see the lazines and lack of depth, and how things (characters, plots, etc) weren't really getting much chance to develop. Not that it became a bad show then. But I just don't think it ever reached "great" or "A-list" quality.

 

Couple of shows that are considered great just don`t appeal to me thematically so personally I could never see them as great even though I can acknowledge that technically they are well-written or well-acted.

 

I'm talking about great genre shows, shows that dealt with the same sorts of issues and themes as TVD but truly were A-list. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example (which was mentioned above). That was a great show. Not flawless. (It had some bad seasons, for example.) But when it was awesome it was awesome. And I don't think TVD has ever been as good as BtVS (or some other shows in that genre) are at their best.

 

Still I can name some shows I think TVD is better than technically, but I just personally like those other shows more. So I agree that a show being technically great won't automatically make me like it more than something else. 

[Past Seasons Discussion : Tales From The Crypt]

I shy away from calling things guilty pleasures, but this podcast I like has this category of shows they call "B Movie TV." Super enjoyable, competently produced, lots of drama and action...but maybe light on the social commentary, deeper meaning type stuff

 

Exactly. For me to consider TVD a truly "great," it would have have the same great character development, writing, story arcs, and so on as shows I do consider truly "great." But I just don't think it ever did.

 

But a lot of my favorite, guilty-pleasure shows aren't in that category either, and don't need to be in order for me to love them. 

 

That being said, TVD has never been high on my list of guilty pleasure shows either. It just never really grabbed me for some reason, even when I was mostly enjoying it. But that's just a matter of personal taste.

 

I think my standards are lower...as long as I enjoy watching something, I'll watch, even if nothing about it makes sense. 

 

Me to. If I'm really enjoying a show, I'll handwave (sometimes consciously) all kinds of stuff, like plot holes, bad continuity, etc. I think it's when I'm not enjoying a show overall that those mistakes get harder and harder to brush aside. Which is probably what happened with me with TVD. Because the show didn't really grab me early on, the flaws really stood out to me.

[Past Seasons Discussion : Tales From The Crypt]

I think that TVD was a great show from about the last third of Season 1 through the end of Season 3. For just over two years, I would openly tell people I watched this show and even convinced some of them to watch it with me.

 

TVD has different goals from BtVS, and it's possible to say that they are both great on their own terms, while also saying that BtVS is important and meaningful in a way that TVD is not and did not aspire to be.

 

I've watched plenty of "guilty pleasure" shows that, as you say, were never BtVS and never aspired to be. They are just fun shows that aren't trying to be "great television," and I wouldn't claim they were the greatest shows ever. But they were good at what they were and what they did, and I love them.

 

So this isn't about me unfairly comparing TVD to great shows that are out of its league. This is me comparing it to other guilty pleasure shows that, while not aspiring to win Emmies, still didn't do some of the kinds of sloppy and lazy things I was noticing with TVD in its first few seasons. (Like resolving what should've been major storylines offscreen.)

 

I'm not saying I haven't enjoyed TVD sometimes. But, for me, it just never really clicked the way a great guilty pleasure usually does with me.

[Beach Flip - General Discussion]

Watching this show and other shows where people are purchasing vacation homes, I wonder how it came to be that people went from spending a week at a great place packed into a house, sleeping in bunk beds and having fun outdoors, to having to live in relative luxury with "space" and decor? It's sad how people's values have gone so upscale for no good reason. 

 

They are incapable of truly down-sizing. They have to be able to do everything they normally do in their own home, only in a different location.

 

I've watched quite a few "vacation home hunter" shows on HGTV. And it often seems like the buyers would be happy getting something a little less than ideal if it was just about them. But a lot of them have an eye on renting the place out when they aren't there, so they're also thinking about what might appeal to potential renters. But I've actually seen quite a few buyers picking a place that probably won't bring them as much in rent but was close to the beach, or right on the lake, or whatever. I remember an ep of one show where the three teen-aged kids, male and female, were willing to squeeze into one pretty small room because one house was in a great location.

 

So I think there are plenty of people still willing to "rough it," and not everyone wants all the luxuries in a vacation house. Although the latter are probably more likely to sign up for one of these shows.

[Beach Flip - General Discussion]

I agree with everything previously said.  I do believe they had to pick the long distance couple because I don't think they had enough money left for the rest of the projects. 

 

Nick & Sarah were next-to-last in money left. I think the week that Nick & Sarah won was only only week where there wasn't a monetary prize for first place. Am I remembering wrong? That seems unfair.

 

Well David said he picked M&M in large part because their room was the one that really stood out in his mind. While watching the episode, I heard the comment but didn't really give much thought to it. But, today, I find myself agreeing with him because, while I can clearly remember, in detail, what M&M's room looked like, I can barely recall what N&S's room looked like. I remember thinking it was well-done, and I liked it, but I don't really remember many details, or what it looked like overall.

 

I've been feeling like M&M were out of their league since the show started. This last episode was the first time I actually thought they had a shot at winning.

[Past Seasons Discussion : Tales From The Crypt]

I don't think TVD has ever been a really great show, or that it has had any really great seasons. It has had some good episodes and some good moments. And some seasons are better than others. But I just don't think the show ever came together enough to be really good.

 

While watching the first season of TVD, I thought the show had potential, and I was looking forward to it reaching that potential and getting really good. Only, by the end of season one, I felt the show was already starting to lose it. And the feeling just grew into season two and beyond.

 

So, for me, TVD is just one of those shows that could've been great but never really was. (Kind of like Smallville.) And I don't think any of the seasons were truly great either.

[S02.E07: Lie to Me]

The way I understood the vampire process of the show (which was kinda hinted at once or twice) the vampire was the darkest part of what you were capable of being.

 

You just managed to sum up something I've tried to explain more times than I can count, but I never managed to do it as clearly as you just did it.

 

Speaking of the episode, what I love most about it is that it introduces Chanterelle. And, from this episode, you'd never guess that she'd show up again, let alone how. And I ended up really liking her character.

[S02.E07: Lie to Me]

Except you're kind of making my point for me, because Liam did have a conscience. A selective one, most likely, but there's still a big gap between, say, stealing money from his father or portions of the family silver to pay for his drinking binges and slaughtering the entire household. Without his conscience, without his soul, he was free of the moral constraints against murder, and while the issues from his human life may have fueled his actions as a vampire, I don't think he'd have ever acted on them. Being capable of terrible things isn't the same thing as doing those terrible things.

 

I agree with you that of course human Liam would never have acted on the hard feelings he had towards his father. But the question was about why Angel would feel guilty about stuff he did when he didn't have a soul, and I think a lot of the guilt came from the fact that a lot of Angelus's action were driven by Liam's feelings and issues. Whether or not Angel should feel guilty about Angelus's actions is another story. But guilt isn't always rational. 

 

Conversely, Human!William was a mama's boy and probably a bit of a coward, unlike Liam, who drank and brawled and screwed, but when he became a vampire, the end result was the same.

 

Well, similar. (They went about things in different ways.) But we saw that not all vamps became "over achievers" like Angel, Spike, Darla, etc. Some vamps were downright slackers. Give them a TV, a place to crash, and easy access to victims (like people walking home at night or something) and they were happy. Others just wanted to live their lives in peace (and quietly take victims without anyone noticing). Making names for themselves as "Big Bads" didn't seem to matter to them.

 

Someone on the other board once commented that it seemed like the vampires who really seemed to want to make names for themselves were the ones who felt the most put down and powerless as humans. And, while that might not have applied in every case, there did seem to be a pattern.

[S02.E07: Lie to Me]

Except Human!Liam didn't seem to be all that bad. A drunken wastrel and a layabout who probably would have died of syphilis before he was thirty, sure, but that's a far cry from being a mass murderer who killed, according to Angel himself, with a song in his heart.

 

As a human, no. But imagine what most people would be like if you took their conscience away and threw in a heavy dose of bloodthirstiness. But they still have the same thoughts, memories and issues.

 

If nothing else, Liam seemed too damned lazy to do more than sit around on his whiskey-soaked butt. He may very well have hated his father, but without Darla's intervention, he'd have lived out his life and died young.

 

I saw Liam as someone who'd been put down and told he was nothing for so long that he believed it. He didn't think he could amount to anything, so why bother trying? Instead, he self-medicated (sleeping around, drinking, getting into fights, etc.), and even a lot of that seemed to be about having something to rub in his dad's face.

 

The fact that he wasn't trying to make anything of himself didn't mean he wasn't capable of it. Just that he felt powerless to do so.

 

But once he was turned, he suddenly did have power, and also didn't feel like nothing anymore. (Not on the surface anyway.) So he was free (for lack of a better word) to act on the potential he always had. But, as a vampire, he did it in evil ways.

 

I also think part of the reason Angelus was so bad was a desire to make a name for himself, and really prove that he wasn't nothing like his dad always said he was.

[S02.E07: Lie to Me]

On 7/24/2015 at 12:56 PM, Ubiquitous said:

When Ford revealed his plan to Buffy, she told him that in effect your soul is destroyed and is replaced by a demon that has access to all your memories. So how do you explain Angel, or was she lieing in an attempt to dissuade Ford from "going over"?

 

I don't really consider Buffy the big authority on vampires. It's not like she made a point of really studying up on all there was to know about them. I don't even think the Watchers knew as much as they liked to think they did. So I tend to take what Buffy says about this stuff with a grain of salt.

 

On 7/29/2015 at 2:31 PM, Dev F said:

Well, the question Angel raises is, "If demon you is a metaphysically different person from human you, why does a re-ensouled Angel hold himself responsible for demon Angelus's crimes?" But it's a question that can be answered a couple of ways, I think:

 

1. When Angel was cursed, his human soul didn't replace his demonic soul; it superimposed it. Angel possesses an aggregate consciousness that's as much Angelus as Angelus was, just with another bit mixed in. So it sort of makes sense that he would still be responsible for the actions of an entity that he still contains.

 

2. Even if that were no longer the case (say, if Angel became human again), he'd still remember being Angelus, taking pleasure in torture and murder and whatnot. So despite the fact that he couldn't be considered responsible from a metaphysical perspective, from a practical perspective he'd still need to own those feelings in order to keep them from leading him astray.

 

Not to get into my theories on souls, and how much of the person is still left when the soul is gone, but vampires seem to be completely informed by the kind of person they were as a human. So there were vampires who, because of what they were like as humans, were incapable of being "Scourge of Europe" level bad.

Spoiler

Harmony, for example. She was a ditz as a human and a ditz as a vampire.

 

So I don't think Angelus could've been as bad as he was unless Liam was capable of it to some degree. And I think that's a big part of what Angel felt guilty about.

[Season Five: Don't Fear the Reaper]

Back in the days when the show was on the air, I remember many people shifting blame on to Lana. It didn't make sense but Lana was a pretty hated character. 

 

Yeah, a lot of viewers had problems with the Lana character, and a lot of the complaints were totally valid. I was responding to your comment that Lana was somehow singled out as being to blame for the vampire episode, which I didn't see.

[Season Five: Don't Fear the Reaper]

Ah ok...although "Clans" is my new name for Clark fans. 

I always found it odd that people blamed KK/Lana for the vampire episode. It was totally just for James Marsters. The commercial even had him say "there's no such things as vampires" (also...there was a character named Buffy)

 

See I don't think there was anything wrong with SV doing a vampire episode, or them doing it because JM was on the show. As ideas go, vampires (especially ones created by a disease rather than something mystical) showing up on a show like SV isn't even particularly farfetched.

 

The problem was that SV did a bad vampire episode. And JM being on the show can't be blamed for their poor execution. Especially when I've seen ideas that actually were kind of silly handled brilliantly by other shows, so there was no reason SV couldn't have done a reasonably good vampire storyline. Well, except for the fact that it's SV, and handling storylines badly was kind of a regular thing with them.  

 

Also, I'm not sure how Lana gets blamed for the episode beyond the fact that a lot of people found the way she was written into that storyline kind of cringe-worthy, which added to its overall cringe-worthiness.

[Lois Lane: Future Star Reporter? Maybe for a Tabloid!]

Because me? I? Loathed, despised, hated this incarnation of Lois.

 

The thing about Lois was that, unless she was actively doing something obnoxious or annoying, I was usually okay with her. Of course, she was doing stuff I found obnoxious and annoying most of the time. But when she wasn't, I could usually tolerate her. And there were times when I found her really likeable. Of course, those moments were few and far between, but they did exist.

[Lois Lane: Future Star Reporter? Maybe for a Tabloid!]

The going too fast and landing in certain jobs or attaining a random skill set is not an exclusively SV!Lois Lane trait. As I mentioned above in my earlier comment. Chloe gaining the ability to suddenly be able to hack into government and millitary databases, before Brainiac, out of the blue or Lana being a jiu jitsu master all of a sudden). Clark even got a job at the DP (in the basement with Lois) after filling out an application and no previous work experience.

 

And I had problems with all of that. I've ranted plenty about how ridiculously easy it was for Clark to get a job as a reporter at the DP, how equally ridiculous Lana becoming a martial arts master in two lessons was (never mind the other, similar things they did with her), and so on. But since this is the Lois thread, I try to stick to my issues with her character when I'm in this thread.

 

And Lois did work her way up.

 

We'll agree to disagree on that one. The fact that Lois didn't immediately start at the DP and worked at other jobs isn't the same as "working her way up" in my books. Yeah, she worked at a tabloid, but she didn't seem to be struggling all that hard at it, or scraping tooth and nail to move up to a better paper. (At the time, she didn't really care what kind of paper she worked at.) And, when she started at the DP, like I said, she was getting plum assignments pretty much from the get go.

 

Later, after Grant was killed off, they did back off of that, and she wasn't having it as easy. But, after the retcon, the show tried to paint her "climb to the top" as being harder than what I actually saw.

 

 

Welcome to the world of superheros where things get switched around and retconned (it even happens in the comics).

 

Just because a retcon (which is different from a "reboot") happened elsewhere (with another character, in the comics, etc.) doesn't make Lois's retconning less annoying to me. And I don't like it in other places either. (I've complained plenty about the other retconning SV did.)

 

I just don't like it when a show/comic/etc. tries to tell me, "We know we told you something else, but forget that. What we're telling you now is how it's always been. And we're just too lazy to make things work without retconning." Or, even worse, "We bet you don't even remember what we told you before, so we're going to tell you something completely different and expect you not to notice." It's just lazy, and feels like an insult to my intelligence.

 

In Lois's case, rather than trying to let her grow and develop into the kind of character they wanted her to be, they simply made her into that kind of character, and threw in some retcons on top of that. And, as a result, I just did not buy her character change.

 

If you don't like Lois you don't like her and that's fine. Like i said, she's not for everyone (and she's not meant to be). But I liked her. And YMMV greatly, and that is o-kay. Different people see different things and cling to certain types of characters.

 

I actually don't dislike Lois all that strongly. She just wasn't a very well-done character. (And, yes, I can come up with a list of characters SV didn't do very well, including Clark.) And, like I said before, I actually found Lois likeable a few times. But there is just so much wrong with the way her character was handled, and it probably annoyed me so much because I am a fan of the Lois Lane character.

[Lois Lane: Future Star Reporter? Maybe for a Tabloid!]

Most of your problems with Lois' character seem to stem from the restrictions on her (as the previous poster was trying to say). She was stagnant mostly because she wasn't allowed to do much. She couldn't be a journalist (because DC Nay-nayed that), she couldn't work at the planet, etc etc.

 

For me, the restrictions had nothing to do with it. Restrictions or no, there were different ways they could've gone with the character. But they chose to go in a way that made it very hard for me to take Lois seriously, both when the show itself didn't take her seriously, and when they suddenly decided she wasn't comic relief and I was supposed to see her as a serious reporter who had worked her way up from the bottom (which so didn't happen), and was all filled with integrity, sharply honed reporter's instincts, etc. Which flies in the face of how she was portrayed the first four seasons she was on the show.

 

 

Aside: And I think thoughts like that, as well as poo-pooing on people who didn't go/don't go to college, are kind of off-putting in a way. Some people on these boards may not've had the opportunity to go to college or had to start all the way at the bottom and got as far up as they did through sheer luck and being in the right place at the right time, a la Lois in Smallville. Just a thought.

 

Lois didn't have to do much "working her way up" from what I recall. She fell into some pretty cushy jobs pretty fast. And pretty much the minute she set foot in the DP (thanks to Grant) she was getting the kinds of cushy assignments most reporters have to hustle for years to get.

 

It was only later, when they decided to make SV!Lois more "iconic" that they were suddenly telling us how hard she'd worked to get where she was, and how she had slaved away at the bottom for so long when she first got to the Planet. Which is definitely not how I remember it playing out.

 

I also want to throw in that Lois not going to college has nothing to do with how I saw her (thanks to the writing). I would've felt the same about her if she had four degrees but was still written the same way.

 

 

And same as they mentioned before, Lois is a very divisive character. But,  she was always seen as a feminist icon because she went against the status quo, even in her earliest incarnations ---a female working and thriving in a very male dominated world. SVLois wasn't nice, or cheery, or sweet, etc in the slightest.

 

I have been a Lois Lane fan for as long as I can remember. So SV!Lois being pushy or rude or even a little arrogant (traits commonly found in the Lois character) are definitely not why I had problems with her

 

 

A love interest that isn't sweet and caring, etc etc. She's rude, arrogant, prickly, and standoffish ---and to be honest, that's why I loved her.

 

And, again, Lois not being perfect and having flaws was not my issue with her. Some of my favorite female characters are way more flawed than Lois could ever dream of, so it's not about Lois not being all sweetness and light or whatever.

 

My problem was that SV treated Lois like a joke for too long. Then, when they decided we should take her seriously, they didn't built up to that in an organic way that I could actually believe. They just flipped some switches, pulled some retcons, and that was it. And that wasn't enough for me.

[Season Four: The Stones of Suck]

It might make you feel a little better that these vampires are not of the mythical kind but instead a disease (Chloe can show you the CDC reports)  involving bats and Kryptonite that then gave the affected their powers.  Yeah, it's a cold comfort.  

 

Oh, it wouldn't be Smallville if there wasn't meteor rock involved! ;) Now I'm somewhat looking forward to the episode; might be good for a laugh!

 

Well, one of the vampires was named Buffy. Which is either funny (in a cheesy way), or painful depending on how you look at it. Which is pretty much how I feel about the episode. Either a viewer will see it as so cheesy it's hilarious, or watching it will just be painful. For me, the episode was just painful in so many ways, but you might get a kick out of it. 

[Xander]

I do think Xander gets a lot of sometimes unfair blame. I can admit, as a huge fan of his, that he's pretty flawed, but no more so than any of the other characters.

 

The first time through the show, I wasn't exactly a huge Xander fan. But I never had a problem seeing his point of view, or getting where he was coming from. He was flawed, and didn't always go about things the best way, but what high school kid is going to handle every situation perfectly? And most kids his age don't find themselves in the types of intense, high pressure situations he was in on a regular basis.

 

Plus I often thought he had a good point. For example, I didn't necessarily want to see Angel get dusted in season two. But I could certainly see why Xander did. Whatever feelings he had for Buffy, I thought he was genuinely scared of the psycho who seemed to have no qualms about killing any of them at any time, and was running around making their lives hell. And, when Angel got his soul back, it was just common sense for Xander to think he could lose it again and try to kill them all. Because that's what I would've been afraid of in his shoes.

 

But, because Xander did have those feelings for Buffy, he often got written off as being "just jealous," even when what he said or did seemed totally justified to me.

[The Buffy Characters We Can't Stand]

Since nobody's mentioned them, The Watcher's Council. Were they ever ay use? They supposedly are there to keep an eye (or, well "Watch") on the Slayer but couldn't they occasionally be actually useful? All they do is try to sack Giles and get replaced by somebody either incompetent (Wesley) or insane (Gwen Post).

 

A bunch of guys watching "Masterpiece Theatre" sums up the WC pretty well.

 

I wish they hadn't made the Watchers seem so incompetent, hide-bound, closed-minded, and various other unflattering things. Really, it seemed like the show painted the WC in a worse and worse light so they just looked so bad that of course you'd side with Buffy and the gang against them.

 

I think it would've been better (but maybe harder to write) if the WC had been portrayed as perfectly competent, and having logical, even understandable reasons for the things they did (beyond "it's tradition"), but they just went about things in a way Buffy and the gang (and the viewers) couldn't agree with. That would have made them more interesting, and made Buffy going against them when she did seem more interesting too because things wouldn't have been as cut and dried all of the time.

 

Instead, the WC just seemed to act like a bunch of assholes for the sake of being assholes. And to make the audience cheer whenever Buffy defied them. Because they were just so stupid and mean, who wouldn't defy them?

[Season Four: The Stones of Suck]

BTW, Jason is finally becoming scary--in a good way! I assume the switch is due to Jensen getting Supernatural? Either that or it's the best long con I've seen in a very long time.

As someone else said, Jason suddenly being revealed as having been evil all along is a total retcon. In earlier episodes, they had him do things that made it clear that he wasn't involved in whatever his mother was doing. If anything, he was worried about what she was up to.

The fact that they then turned around and tried to say he'd been evil all along, no matter what had happened before, felt like an insult to my intelligence. And so unnecessary. I mean, I could've bought Jason snapping under the pressure of everything that was going on. But, then again, that would've been a little harder to write than them just saying, "Forget what we told you before. Jason's been evil from the start."

I have to admit that I do think that a major reason I love bad!Lex so much is that he really does seem to be basically the same Lex as ever, but fully come into himself, no longer so insecure.

Have to admit I didn't really care for "Onyx." I thought MR did a great job, and was really having fun with it, and I enjoy it on that level. But the Bad!Lex in that episode felt strangely out of character. All I kept thinking the whole time was that, no, this is not what I want or expect Lex to be like when he goes full dark side. Because Bad!Lex was just too two-dimensional and mustache twirly.

And I really don't think Bad!Lex was the "true" Lex, or anything like that. To me, it was more like that Star Trek episode where Kirk got split in half, and Bad!Kirk went around trying to murder and sexually assualt people. Now, since Bad!Kirk was a part of Kirk, you could say there's a dark part of Kirk that's capable of doing stuff like that. But was Bad!Kirk who Kirk truly was deep inside? Of course not! (It's Captain Kirk.) And I feel the same way with "Onyx." Bad!Lex was the darkness inside Lex let loose to run wild. But I didn't take that to mean that was who Lex "truly was" deep inside.

Although, given the wacky messages this show sometimes came up with, who knows what I was supposed to think. On most shows that do the "person's dark side got out and did bad things" storyline, the message was always that even truly good people have a dark side that's capable of some pretty terrible things. With SV, I could see them trying to say, "Lex has a dark side, which proves he's meant to be evil."