Smallville: Absolute Justice, and Supernatural, too.

[tenaya]

I admit it freely, I was/am a Lex fan. That bought a certain level of frustration to watching Smallville. That couple with not liking Lana, I was very happy to stop watching the show when MR left.

In the meantime, it seems that they've reworked the show quite a bit and truthfully, I was a bit lost about this and that. Not knowing the comics probably didn't help either but I did get a great sense of reverence about the material. Clark is very different from last I watched, as is Chloe.

I enjoyed the direction. It was sort of 1940s retro with modernistic flashes of images that was very dramatic, but unfortunately not that illuminating to me. They did a lot of advancing of the plot with montages. They found an old film reel and Clark and Chloe narrated over it to explain the Justice Society's downfall. The other scene used to supply the history of the JSA was Clark pulling away the dust cloths to revel a museum of the JSA's artifacts. Again, this was probably very meaningful for those in the know, but not so much for me.

The plot was very basic but that's okay. The dialogue, on the other hand, is too quippy and lame for me. It is very comic bookish, but hey, that's their source material. I didn't get why Hawkman and the Green Arrow were antagonistic but I liked the scene where Hawkman provided illumination to Green Arrow's personal issues. On the other hand, I didn't believe Star Girl at all. I just thought she was going to get offed every time there was a dust up.

Overall, I liked it. I'm burning a copy right now to keep.

As for Shanks, I thought he did a really good job. There was the sense of a man wounded and tired, yet very powerful. He had many regrets but was he wasn't incapacitated by them. I wanted to know more about him, but hey, that could just be me liking Shank's character. :) I was surprised by the gravelly voice when he was in costume, and wondered if he was channeling Clint Eastwood. Go ahead; say "make my day!" Overall I thought him imposing. And I think Clark and Green Arrow have the hots for Hawkman. *g* Oh those youngsters! So quick to appreciate a strong handsome man. *g*

I thought I'd heard that Smallville was renewed and found this about the ratings of this episode:
Via the CW:

“A 2-hr SMALLVILLE provided The CW with our best Friday night since Sept 2008 in all key categories, including adults 18-49 (1.2/4), men 18-49 (1.5/5), adults 18-34 (1.1/4), men 18-34 (1.3/5) and total viewers (2.8mil).

In terms of Smallville episodes, this is the highest rated Smallville of the season in total viewers, adults 18-49 (tie) and men 18-49.

Competitively, Smallville ranked #1 from 8-10pm in men 18-49.”

As for Supernatural, I liked it. I actually don't fancy flashback eps that much, but it was okay. I was in the mood for more Cas, but on the other hand, it was very good to have an ep where the brothers were together. I didn't mind that Anna was offed as that type of threat -- she was too powerful for the boys to continually avoid -- gets wearying after a bit. I liked that Cas called Sam his friend and was protecting him. Interesting that Michael saved Sam. So the boys are direct descendants from Cain and Abel. But isn't everyone descended from Cain and Abel according to the Bible? Please enlighten me.

BBCA is going to have Survivors soon. Is that any good?