Smallville: Devoted
If you listen very carefully in the fade-out, moment-of-silence for Christopher Reeve you can hear the reset button for this show being pushed. Face it--we're back to sesaon one. Clark and Lex are friends again, Chloe has the unrequited crush thing for Clark, Lana is dating an older guy who is involved with the football team and no one just Jonathan and Martha know that Clark has superpowers. Yep, the show is back to square one. I guess the producers really were looking to recapture those glorydays when Smallville basked in good ratings. But apparently instead of following through on the compelling, interesting premise they'd build up since season one, they've decided to go back to status quo. And this week's episode was really no exception. Kryptonite plus something equals town reisdents acting insanely until Clark can step in and save them all. Yes, I suppose that it was kind of fun to see Lois and Clark working together to solve the mystery, but that's all that really set this one apart from being lifted from season one and put down in season four. I guess I should count my blessings...at least we didn't get a ten minute scene with Lana and Clark lamenting they can't be together like we did to end nearly every episode from last season...
Lost: Walkabout
Former
Buffy and
Angel scribe David Fury offers up his first script for
Lost and shows he hasn't lost a step. As Jack is thrust into the role of leader for the group of survivors, we begin to see the story of Locke unfold. I guessed fairly early on that Locke had some type of ailment that impeded his mobility (I was thinking wooden leg for some reason), but I never saw the big reveal coming. Like last week's
Veronica Mars, the central reveal was perfectly set-up because all the clues are there--it's just that the writers are so busy distracting us with other plot threads that we don' t see them. After all, the wheelchair to be on the plane and near one of the survivors for some reason...but it's only here we see why. Also, the shots of Locke waking up and wiggling his toes--at first, you think it's about him making sure he's OK. But in looking back, you realize it's in disbelief that he is miraculously healed. It also makes you wonder how anxious Locke will be to get back to civilization....on the island he can walk and is taken seriously by the people around him, something that didn't happen back in his previous life. Just like Kate, he may not be in such a huge rush to go back to the life he had before the crash.
Also of interest was the show addressing the survivors basic needs--to find food and water. I liked Shannon's attempts to be "self-sufficient" by having Charlie catch fish for her. I also have to wonder about something-- did Locke really kills the boar by himself or did the not-yet-seen monster somehow help?
This show just gets better and better each week. And we're only four episodes into it. I like that, unlike
Alias in its first year, the show is taking time to build things up slowly and not reveal too much too soon. As much as I like
Alias, it had about three seasons of plotline in one season of actual show. And I also love how we find one answer only to gain four or five more than will go unanswered. But you can bet it'll keep me running back for more next week.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 10/20/2004 02:02:00 PM |
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