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  1. #46
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    I thought that was cool too. It makes more sense for Cyborg to appear fully human, as much as he can. It also helps with the storytelling--since one of the good things in a story is to slowly reveal the truth about a character. It's more dramatic that way.

  2. #47
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    Since I spent a good deal of my life on the UBC campus, SMALLVILLE's outdoor scenes on the university campus are interesting to watch, in season 4 and 5 (still waiting on season 6 from the library).

    In season 4--most of the scenes at the football stadium are actually at BC Place Stadium, downtown--not at either of our university stadia (University of British Columbia's Thunderbird Stadium; Simon Fraser University's Swangard Stadium or Terry Fox Field).

    Most outdoor scenes for season 5 are at UBC--whether it's Clark's university (where is it supposed to be? Kansas City?) or Lana and Chloe's university (Met U) in Metropolis. Sometimes the exact same location doubles as both universities.

    A stock establishing shot for scenes with Lana and Chloe at Met U shows the Koerner Library, with the Marine Building in the backdrop (the Marine Building fills in for the Daily Planet). Koerner is on the UBC campus which is way out at the western most point of Vancouver (actually outside Vancouver proper), while the Marine Building is downtown close to the waterfront. So this establishing shot is not something that exists in reality, since it pastes two different locations together. I guess this is so we can imagine Chloe has an easy jaunt from Met U to the Daily Planet.

  3. #48
    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    It's funny how quickly Met U disappears from the show. They sort of get around it for Clark by saying he had to quit classes to take up more responsibility around the farm after Jonathan dies,but what about Chloe and Lana? There is no more mention of them going to school and before we know it Lana is dating Lex and Chloe is an actual reporter for the Daily Planet. It's like they literally skipped at least two or three years of school.

    I still think to this day that if they didn't want to deal with Clark and Co in college, they could have easily jumped things forward a couple years between seasons 5 and 6 or even between seasons 7 and 8. In fact with season 7 ending with the exit of Lex and with season 8 the stories being set more in Metropolis that would have been the prime opportunity to fix some other logic issues. They could have jumped forward a couple years and say that Clark traveled the world ,finishing his education and started to wear Glasses and build a true secret identity before returning to Metropolis to join the Daily Planet. They still could have basically told the story of the season premiere that year (Tess searching for Lex in the wreckage of the Fortress, Oliver finding a powerless Clark in Russia, as a flashback episode later in season 8 to fill in some of the gaps.
    Last edited by manofsteel1979; 02-06-2020 at 04:34 AM.
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  4. #49
    Savior of the Universe Flash Gordon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Venus View Post
    I know it was for budgetary reasons but I like how this Cyborg could 'hide' his cybernetic enhancements. With advanced technology why wouldn't Vic have access to prosthetic make up that would allow him to pass as a regular person on the streets?
    I love Smallville's Cyborg. So great.

  5. #50
    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Flash Gordon View Post
    I love Smallville's Cyborg. So great.
    Yeah agreed. It's sad what happened to the actor that portrayed him.
    When it comes to comics,one person's "fan-service" is another persons personal cannon. So by definition it's ALL fan service. Aren't we ALL fans?
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  6. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by manofsteel1979 View Post
    It's funny how quickly Met U disappears from the show. They sort of get around it for Clark by saying he had to quit classes to take up more responsibility around the farm after Jonathan dies,but what about Chloe and Lana? There is no more mention of them going to school and before we know it Lana is dating Lex and Chloe is an actual reporter for the Daily Planet. It's like they literally skipped at least two or three years of school.
    The campus was shut down after the events of Dark Thursday. Different authorities from Met U continue to appear or are referred to on the show, so I guess the campus eventually did re-open. Early in season 7, Grant Gabriel says that Chloe has been doing journalism classes at night while working for the Planet in the day. But we never see her going to a journalism class and she becomes so busy (in Metropolis and Smallville, burning the candle at both ends) that it seems unlikely she could also be at Met U--but that doesn't rule out the possibility that she was finishing her degree remotely.

    However, it seems like a journalism degree at the Planet is superfluous. Chloe is the only one that bothered--maybe Jimmy, too. But even Lex Luthor functions as the editor-in-chief and assignment editor, without any training, in addition to being the publisher and owner.

    Having finished the seventh season now, there are several things that bother me. Many actors are written off the show with great haste. The season is only 20 episodes (not 22 or 23), so I wonder if there was some behind the scenes drama. Storylines are quickly resolved or dropped.

    Martha Kent never shows up at all. I understand that she's in Washington most of the time, but senators are expected to spend some of the year in their home state. In "Apocalypse," when we see a world where Kal-El never came to Earth, they couldn't even get Annette O'Toole and John Schneider to reprise their roles. I think the Kara story would have played much better if both Kents were still alive and on the farm, dispensing their wisdom to her as they did to Clark.

    The seventh season is the darkest so far. It's impressive from an artistic standpoint, but the depressing nature of the stories doesn't fit with the kind of Superman I prefer. In "Fracture," when Clark goes inside Lex's mind, it's so grim--it's almost as horrifying as Cliff's entry into Crazy Jane's interior reality on DOOM PATROL.

    Everything about Krypton continues to drive me bonkers. It's like if Mort Weisinger and Geoff Johns collaborated on a Superboy comic in the 2000s--one where travel between Earth and Krypton is no problem, barely an inconvenience. Zor-El speaks with an American accent, despite his own brother having a British accent (yet when Jor-El was on Earth, he also spoke American--maybe his accent is just an affectation). And it always bugs me that every other Kryptonian can fly, yet Clark can't.

    Ideally, they would have done two series, each of five seasons. The first series, SMALLVILLE, would have had Jonathan and Martha teaching their son to be a good person, Lana and Clark's romance and Lex's slow fall into villainy. The second series, METROPOLIS, would have been about Clark moving to the big city, becoming a reporter, meeting Lois Lane, putting on the red cape and hanging out with all his super-friends.

  7. #52

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Kelly View Post
    Having finished the seventh season now, there are several things that bother me. Many actors are written off the show with great haste. The season is only 20 episodes (not 22 or 23), so I wonder if there was some behind the scenes drama. Storylines are quickly resolved or dropped.
    The Writers Guild went on strike during that season, 2007-2008. This affected all scripted shows, not just Smallville. According to Wikipedia link below, the strike happened when 15 scripts were written for Smallville season 7. The strike lasted a few months, and after it ended they were able to produce 5 more episodes for Smallville season 7.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallville_(season_7)
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  8. #53
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    Imagine what Power Girl fans feel like with Mack. The only animated appearance she's ever made, and she's voiced by....Mack.

  9. #54
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    It's strange that Allison Mack ended up as the only other actor from the first season other than Welling still on the show by season 8 and she gets second billing after him in the season 8 opening credits.

    An interesting thing I noticed about Martha Kent's senatorial career--she never got her state or federal seat by standing in an election. Her state seat was won by Jonathan and she got in after he died, her federal seat was appointed by the governor of Kansas after the senator holding that seat died. Pretty odd, for someone who seems to represent all good American values, yet never got into power through democratic means.

    Another thing about Martha is she has red hair, which Lillian and Lex Luthor also had--maybe Lionel was attracted to Martha for that reason. Alexander the Great is also supposed to have had red hair. Hm.

  10. #55
    Astonishing Member phantom1592's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kevink31593 View Post
    The Writers Guild went on strike during that season, 2007-2008. This affected all scripted shows, not just Smallville. According to Wikipedia link below, the strike happened when 15 scripts were written for Smallville season 7. The strike lasted a few months, and after it ended they were able to produce 5 more episodes for Smallville season 7.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallville_(season_7)
    yep, that strike screwed over a few shows that I watched. Smallville and Supernatural were hit... but nowhere near as hard as Heroes was. That show was destroyed by the writers strike in season 2 and it never actually recovered.

  11. #56
    Savior of the Universe Flash Gordon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by phantom1592 View Post
    yep, that strike screwed over a few shows that I watched. Smallville and Supernatural were hit... but nowhere near as hard as Heroes was. That show was destroyed by the writers strike in season 2 and it never actually recovered.
    HEROES got slaughtered by the strike. Shows how silly the studio was to not just delay the series until the creators came back.

  12. #57
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    At the end of season 8, what I like the most in these later seasons is the Lois & Clark scenes. I love to watch them spar. I'm relieved that season 7 saw the end of the Lionel-Lex-Lana angst (with a caveat) and season 8 is the better for it. If they were going to leave Smallville behind, and they already junked Martha and Jonathan, then I'm glad they could finally turn the page and focus on Metropolis.

    However, they can't completely let go (that's the caveat). They find ways to make Lex still a big piece of the drama--even using other actors to sub for Michael Rosenbaum. And just when it seems like Clark is ready to move on from Lana, and the relationship heats up with Lois, back comes Lana to steal all the focus, once again. And then there's Tess Mercer, who inherits all the baggage from these characters, for no reason.

    I hate how the Lana story ends, because it isn't about Clark growing as a character and realizing that Lana is not the one. Instead, after totally falling right back into the Lana obsession, he's forced to give her up because he can't physically be with her (although that's debatable). And this short-changes Lois--if Clark chooses her, she'll always be the booby-prize, the woman he settled for because he couldn't have Lana.

    The lack of Erica Durance is so bothersome. I don't know if she had some episode limit on her contract, but every season (thusfar), she's missing for a lot of the time--and we don't get to see her interacting with Clark. Chloe eats up most of the story time. Erica Durance even uses up one of the episodes she has playing Chloe (but that was pretty funny). Many of the episodes, I'm just wondering where the heck Lois Lane is at.

    And poor Jimmy, he deserved better.

    So now I've seen Sam Witwer as Agent Liberty (on SUPERGIRL) and as Doomsday--and both could be the same character, the way they're played on these two shows. I put up with the David Bloom stuff, because I thought that it was all heading toward something. I expected a season finale where Bloomsday and Red-Blue-Blur face off to the death and a super-cliffhanger (Lois crying over the dead body of Clark). But instead of a bang, it ends with a whimper.

    I got a Ralph Dibny twitch thinking about this outcome. Was there some behind the scenes drama that short-circuited the story?

    Retroactively, that failure to launch puts the Bloomsday-Chloesen arc in an even worse light. The parallels between Allison Mack in real life and Chloe Sullivan on the show are hard to miss in this story arc (did the writers know something?). One thing I did appreciate was the flashback to young Chloe and young Clark. The young Chloe actress had an uncanny resemblance to older Chloe.

    Tess Mercer started out as an intriguing character, but I soon loathed her. It's this thing the writers do, where they keep the viewers guessing as to the ethics of any character. Are they good or bad? Tess is a substitute Lex or Lana, but with none of their back story. I got so annoyed with her and I see on IMDb that she remains for the duration of the series.

  13. #58
    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Kelly View Post
    At the end of season 8, what I like the most in these later seasons is the Lois & Clark scenes. I love to watch them spar. I'm relieved that season 7 saw the end of the Lionel-Lex-Lana angst (with a caveat) and season 8 is the better for it. If they were going to leave Smallville behind, and they already junked Martha and Jonathan, then I'm glad they could finally turn the page and focus on Metropolis.

    However, they can't completely let go (that's the caveat). They find ways to make Lex still a big piece of the drama--even using other actors to sub for Michael Rosenbaum. And just when it seems like Clark is ready to move on from Lana, and the relationship heats up with Lois, back comes Lana to steal all the focus, once again. And then there's Tess Mercer, who inherits all the baggage from these characters, for no reason.

    I hate how the Lana story ends, because it isn't about Clark growing as a character and realizing that Lana is not the one. Instead, after totally falling right back into the Lana obsession, he's forced to give her up because he can't physically be with her (although that's debatable). And this short-changes Lois--if Clark chooses her, she'll always be the booby-prize, the woman he settled for because he couldn't have Lana.

    The lack of Erica Durance is so bothersome. I don't know if she had some episode limit on her contract, but every season (thusfar), she's missing for a lot of the time--and we don't get to see her interacting with Clark. Chloe eats up most of the story time. Erica Durance even uses up one of the episodes she has playing Chloe (but that was pretty funny). Many of the episodes, I'm just wondering where the heck Lois Lane is at.

    And poor Jimmy, he deserved better.

    So now I've seen Sam Witwer as Agent Liberty (on SUPERGIRL) and as Doomsday--and both could be the same character, the way they're played on these two shows. I put up with the David Bloom stuff, because I thought that it was all heading toward something. I expected a season finale where Bloomsday and Red-Blue-Blur face off to the death and a super-cliffhanger (Lois crying over the dead body of Clark). But instead of a bang, it ends with a whimper.

    I got a Ralph Dibny twitch thinking about this outcome. Was there some behind the scenes drama that short-circuited the story?

    Retroactively, that failure to launch puts the Bloomsday-Chloesen arc in an even worse light. The parallels between Allison Mack in real life and Chloe Sullivan on the show are hard to miss in this story arc (did the writers know something?). One thing I did appreciate was the flashback to young Chloe and young Clark. The young Chloe actress had an uncanny resemblance to older Chloe.

    Tess Mercer started out as an intriguing character, but I soon loathed her. It's this thing the writers do, where they keep the viewers guessing as to the ethics of any character. Are they good or bad? Tess is a substitute Lex or Lana, but with none of their back story. I got so annoyed with her and I see on IMDb that she remains for the duration of the series.
    I think personally Tess gets a bit better, especially circa Season 10. I won't spoil things for you but there are a couple twists coming with her.


    Completely agreed on the whole Lana ending. It was terrible on every level. In order for the later Lois and Clark relationship to work,you almost have to ignore this plotline and dump it from your mind.

    Knowing what we know now about how badly they botched Lana as a character and the off screen Shenanigans with Allison Mack , If I could make one major change to the series,it would be eliminating the character of Chloe Sullivan from the start and applying her backstory and characteristics to Lana Lang and essentially combine the two characters into one,and perhaps have Kristen Kruek play Lana still. She still lost her parents in the meteor shower,but instead of making her this tragic waif cheerleader she was early on,have that fuel her facination with the weird stuff that happens in the town and fuel her reporters path. I always felt Chloe was a bit closer to classic Lana Lang anyway. After all,Lana was a reporter in her later Pre-crisis incarnation,so it's not at all a lore stretch.
    Last edited by manofsteel1979; 03-19-2020 at 09:04 AM.
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  14. #59
    Astonishing Member David Walton's Avatar
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    Re-watched the first four episodes yesterday. A few thoughts.

    --Jim Kelly, you are not wrong about the explosions. Also, Clark saves someone from a wrecked or exploded vehicle in every episode. Lex even jokes about it!

    --The Smallville scarecrow tradition is...pretty twisted. They basically crucify some poor schmuck in spite of the fact that a guy actually went brain-dead for twelve years because of this practical joke. I love Lex's retort when Clark calls it a prank. "Even the Romans saved this kind of thing for special occasions."

    --Speaking of which, Lex always has the best dialogue. Always.

    --Whitney putting Lana's kryptonite necklace on Clark is bizarre. I mean, if he knew what it did to Clark, sure. But he doesn't. It's basically him being a jealous jerk, and saying "If you like this necklace that has great emotional significance to my girlfriend so much, why don't you wear it?" Oooooookay. But I do like what they do with the plot point later, with Lex figuring out what happened and working to undermine Lex and Whitney to prove his friendship to Clark. And probably because he just enjoys doing that sort of thing.

    --The dad from "The Wonder Years" makes for a great villain.

    --The rules of how kryptonite affect Clark are sort of bizarre, if necessarily so. There is so much kryptonite in Smallville he should be...dead. Like really, really dead. And I'm not sure Lana covering up her kryptonite necklace with her shirt protects him but somehow he's able to get close to her without getting sick when she does.

    --I wonder if Lana working at a coffee shop and getting orders wrong is an homage to Rachel on FRIENDS.

    --Lana's mom was really hard on herself, feeling crushed about having not changed the world from high school. There's still time, Laura! Barring any unforeseen meteor showers.

    --One of my favorite moments is in the fourth episode when Lex turns the tables on the tabloid reporter threatening to publish his sealed juvenile conviction records. It's smart writing the way Lex constantly gets to build his villainous tactics on people who generally deserve some kind of comeuppance. Especially as this turns into him and Lionel in a constant duel of wits.

    --The show is really good, even when its finding its footing. The dialogue is fun and the main characters are (mostly) likeable. And this is before things get really good, when heavier focus moves to the Lex/Lionel relationship.
    Last edited by David Walton; 05-12-2020 at 06:54 AM.

  15. #60
    Astonishing Member David Walton's Avatar
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    So re-watching the sixth episode, the one with Cassandra, and I could swear that it originally included a vision of Clark flying as Superman (showing just his extended arms in blue suit). But it's not there. Am I crazy? Remembering a different episode?

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