A lot of this comes back to “What is Smallville”?

• It’s a show with an outdated, once catchy and clever theme song
• It’s a show that has been on the air since most of us were in high school, a beaming nostalgia for the days of The WB.
• It’s a show that provides us with that weekly dose of fantasy, the unrealistic, the unbelievable and the campy
• It fills it’s episodes and great moments with puny 4th busting wall cameos and references
• It’s Tom Welling,  Justin Hartley without a shirt on and Erica Durance in skimpy costumes.

If you’re looking for much more than that, I think you’re in the wrong place.  For years we here at JerkDoublebitch have held the opinion that Smallville is really good, really bad TV. You can’t expect the same things from Smallville that you’d expect from well.. pretty much any other show on TV.  Question it’s values but it’s still on the air 10 years later and is going to be remembered for a long long time.

This week’s episode was weak and, in my opinion, this hasn’t been an unreasonable response to most of the season.  I was so glad to see Martha again, if only to watch Clark bend way down and almost lift her off her feet in a hug and see Lois returned to her former glory of surrogate daughter to Martha Kent.  We can grumble about the believability of Martha and Perry White a once alcoholic bad guy of the week (which is the shows own fault for doing that back in the days where they didn’t worry about season 10), but we have to measure out the good-funny bad-4th wall punny factor of having real life couple Annette O’Toole and Michael McKean (who was on Jeopardy the same night btw winning a million dollars for charity) together on screen.   We also have to recognize that this was a necessary evil of getting things straightened out at the Daily Planet to a line with the rest of the lore.

I guess it’s that lore busting that makes the whole Red Queen bit a problem.  From the point of “In the Comic’s Martha’s supposed to be a frail old lady..”  I have to say suck it up, it’s never been like that on Smaillville.  She sure as hell wasn’t a senator either.  Looking at it strategically from a plot standpoint it clearly wasn’t in the overall plan but it does fit.  I believe that Martha could do more to protect her son from Washington and I believe that she would.  Does she have the power?  I’m not sure but after her Russian roulette of powers I don’t really believe that Chloe’s the world’s best hacker either.

Smallville requires us to suspend our bullshit meters for a few minutes and I know as sci-fi fans that’s really hard to do, considering we’ve built a culture of being party wrecking fact machines, but sometimes it’s necessary.  When do we say enough’s enough?  Apparently somewhere around season 3 of Heroes but I’m not sure.  Smallville is a show that strings me on week after week, year after year and I’m still enjoying at least parts of the journey.  I think we all need to remember we’re here for the destination. Maybe that’s wrong but it’s the fact behind all 1.9 million of us that tune in live.

See ya in season 10,
-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. Does Smallville Have 2 More Years? The beautiful Allison Mack has been running around spreading the...
2. Thursday TV Takes Planning It’s Wednesday night and for me that usually means making...
3. Smallville gets Small Numbers This week’s Smallville debuted back after their long hiatus to...

All that considered, I’ve always thought of her as a tough bitch and a smart one at that.  She figured out Clark’s secret.  Something it took even Lionel and Lex years to do.  She’s sleepin with Zod and a member of a major spy-ish agency.  Tess Mercer is not dumb.  Why then are we expected to believe she never once guessed that Oliver Queen is Green Arrow?

Lois knows, hell, pretty much everybody knows.  He doesn’t hide it all that well.  Also, let’s not forget the fact that she dated him, loved him and spent all that time on that island with him where he taught himself to be a fricken sweet arrow..er.  I just don’t believe she was ever that stupid.

I don’t believe any of what she’s come up with, sort of like how I don’t believe that Olive and Chloe are all awesome about being together or not being together.  Somebody should have a problem with this.  Somebody other than me.

It’s kinda like a small town.  Eventually everybody ends up related because you run out of people.  Time + few people/characters = incest  – in a ..non-Supernatural kinda way.  Speaking of Ye Ole SPN, I see Smallville pulling a lot of trademark SPN moves in the past few years.  Like perhaps the network is pushing them to work their fandom in the same way, and it’s just not working.  For example, the fanservice which Smallville continuously falls on its face while doing.  On Supernatural, the fans at the convention help save the day and or hook up with the prophet Chuck.  On Smallville the fans pose in costumes with Lois and then are never really seen from again unless to be mocked for their forum love and shipping.  This week we saw them try to pull off the Heart to Heart that we see at the end of pretty much every ep of SPN.  It just falls flat the same way Lana did – and I’m not talking about her chest.

Linking all this back to Tess, the big “I’m so sorry, forgive me” theme of tonight’s episode “Checkmate” doesn’t work on me anymore and to be honest it’s starting to wear on me on SPN too.  It’s time somebody mans up and grabs their destiny by the balls.  I wanna see some saving that doesn’t include a hero in danger.

-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. Tess Mercer – The Unluckiest Bitch Alive Tess ‘Mercy’ Mercer (stupid nickname by the way) walked onto...
2. Smallville Season Nine: From a Geek’s Perspective After the seventh season I was convinced that Smallville was...
3. Ollie is the New Lana It’s official.  Oliver Queen is the new Lana Lang.  Somewhere...

Stay at home Lois was just plain fun and boy does that girl look good in a costume.  I also like that we’re learning that Clark’s kinda into that.  They’ve really let him grow up.  It was even nice to hear him use his man voice when he was confronting Zod.  Forget Ollie and his vocoder, lets let the man of steel use his real voice a little more often. Speaking of Oliver, it was refreshing to not see his naked torso in this ep in lieu of some awesome Dr Gaeta.

Seeing Tess again, finally, after the recent revelations about her leaves me unsure of her character.  I feel like she’s being bounced around too much and that’s clouding her having clear badguy motives.  Speaking of Bad Guys I think I’ve finally figured out why Zod sucks.  Aside from the writing, (which I thought was pretty good this ep.  Written by producer Anne Cofell Saunders who’s got writing credits for Chuck, 24, Eureka and 20 eps of BSG under her belt. Woo!)  I really think the problem is Callum Blue.  Not only does his name remind me of a dandruff shampoo, he just plain isn’t scary enough.  He’s too young and somewhere between too pretty and not pretty enough by Smallville’s standards.   Normally I give Smallville’s casting kudos but this one just doesn’t fit.  I almost wish it was Marsters again or could you imagine Mark Sheppard?  We’d be talking a whole different show.

I liked Clark’s progression.  I liked seeing him do some things a little out of the ordinary and really own the show.  Sometimes Smallville’s graphics can look lame but there were some amazing shots tonight – and I’m not talking about Durance’s dancing.  This sends another round of Kudos to Christopher Petry, considering this was his first shot at directing TV.  I’d say that man has a knack.  The ring of fire looked great, the Kandorian funeral was breathtaking and utilized one of Smallville’s greatest strengths – the musical montage.  It was great to see some old favourites like the Kent Farm and the Barn Loft.  I also loved the shot at the end while the towers burned.

Maybe I’m a sucker for the campy episodes – Red, Exploding baby, Lois the cage fighter and Sneeze being some of my favourite Episodes – but I really thought this was Smallville at what it does best.

-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. A Quick Smallville Question How exactly did Lois manage to get across town from...
2. Smallville The New Class While the plot last week’s episode of Smallville “Escape” could...
3. Smallville Fans get a Halloween Treat The night before Halloween is known as devils night, I’m...

The look aside I came off the episode feeling like it was good, I enjoyed it but it wasn’t Smallville’s best.  Maybe it was because it was trying to be good and was visually really interesting but the show itself had nothing to offer it as far as back story or hype went.  What I may have called ‘great’ Smallville in the past either included amazing actors or really really cheesy plots like Sneeze or Exploding babies.  Two other types of good Smallville episodes are ones with great movement within the mythology and ones that were just really pretty.  Maybe this one fit into the last two a little more.

One thing Smallville has to get down on its knees and grovel to Johns over is the fact that he so clearly walked in the door and set them up for the entirety of season 10.  We’ve seen such a warble lately.  The show was missing the big bad or they had great big bads and then they kill them in like two episodes.  Then we’re left with Ollie’s past and that one where Lois gets knocked out and does some stuff.   I think they’ve majorly failed with Zod this year.  They’ve done so much better with him in the past.  There were some great episodes this season giving some background on Krypton but he doesn’t scare me.  I’m glad to see checkmate and maybe they’ll do something good with Tess Mercer again.  Still proud of her.

A couple tag on comments – Star Girl sucked and she was way too much like first episode Kara Zor-El.  The character didnt suck, the casting and the acting sucked.  Dr Fate and Hawkman were epicly awesome and Icicle was rather meh but good enough for the purpose.

I’ve seen some people complaining about the costumes.  I liked them.  Thought they were fine.  The painting was epic, amazing one liners and I totally think that the JLA or JSA could hold their own live action series.  The final fight may have been a little underwhelming and total overkill of powers but I was entertained.

-DB

Related posts:

1. Smallville gets Small Numbers This week’s Smallville debuted back after their long hiatus to...
2. Smallville The New Class While the plot last week’s episode of Smallville “Escape” could...
3. Smallville’s Persuasion is Just How I Like it. Is it just me or was this week’s Smallville better...

1.) Our first resolution was not to be too upset if Dollhouse get’s the axe. I think we held our own with this one, considering we didn’t even blog about it.  DB didn’t even make it through the whole season watching the show even with the help of almost the entire BSG cast.  We’ll probably pick this one up on dvd, eventually

2.) We resolved to try and post about Heroes less.   I think we’ve managed to do that somewhere between the massive suck and the good-but-not-really-noteworthy-ness of the show over the past year there’s been a whole lot less to say, especially since it’s come back this fall.  Heroes is still on my must watch list but it’s another one I wouldn’t be too sad to see it go in 2010.

3.) We resolved to pimp Leverage more.  In 2008 we posted about leverage 8 times, and of the total 41 posts that means we’ve devoted 33 posts to our love of the bad guys turned good.  You can expect even more of this to come as the second season returns in less than two weeks and season 3 will begin filming in Feb for us to hopefully see at least half of in 2010.

4.) We resolve to try and not have too many BSG spoilers on our front page.   Considering we outed some cylons and some deaths on our frontpage just last week, maybe we’re not so great at holding this promise but you should get off your ass and watch one of the greatest pieces of television our generation will see, already. Kapiche?

5.) MORE JENSEN!  Who doesn’t need more Jensen?  I maybe forgot about this one as the year dragged on but I never really forget about Jensen.  I say we push this one over into next year too.  MORE JENSEN! I guess the question for next year will be:  will we see more of Jensen and Supernatural come fall?

6.) We resolved to not be too caught up in The Welling Effect which is all the hype surrounding the future of Smallville.  Honestly, I’m to the point that I don’t really care.  I’m pretty sure the show will see season 10 and we all know the ending is going to fade off into the distance.  There’s no real shocker to be found here.  Nobody watching Smallville is wondering what will happen in the end but I’m pretty happy with what they’re up to in the mean time.  Question for 2010: will they kill off Chloe by the end of this season or let her ride off into the sunset?

7.) Lastly we resolved to make JDB better and easier to navigate which I hope we’ve done.  We moved to the dot-com, added a Twitter and more ways to contact us.   If you’ve got questions or suggestions hit us up at jerk or db @jerkdoublebitch.com, in comments or via our twitter @jerkdoublebitch

Here’s to another year of good predictions and MORE JENSEN!

-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. Resolutions! We here at J/DB love themes, so this seemed like...
2. A Problem With Quality I’ve had an interesting problem with blogging this year, and...
3. Random Question #2 Everyone knows how Jensen was originally cast as Sam, but...

Right off the bat you’ve got engaging characters.  How great is Matthew Bomer?  (also seen recently on Chuck)  He’s charismatic, witty and really pretty to look at.  He reminds me of what Tom Welling could be doing if they’d ever let him grow up.   Head FBI agent is played by Tim DeKay whom you might remember from Carnivale or I would if I ever watched more than the second episode – ooh holiday goal!  Other familiar faces are Tiffany Thiessen who as apparently dropped the “Amber” from her name to be less stripper like.  It’s worked!  Also, the lady who played Burke’s horrific mother on Greys appears.  Oh oh and can’t forget a stellar guest spot by Mark Sheppard.

The show catches you with the characters then throws an interesting, although not entirely original concept on them.  We’ve got the bad guy helping the good guy but there’s also a love story involved with our bad guy brokenhearted after his true love left him.  Mystery! intrigue!

They’ve set up a show I want to see again, stories I care to find out where they go and from what I’ve heard across the twitterverse the first half of the first season was stellar.

Did you watch it?  What did you think?  Anyone want to catch up with me?

-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. White Collar Welcomes some Characters Yes, yes, it’s time for another White Collar post. Hey,...
2. Random Question #11 And now, a bit of a HIMYM rant disguised as...
3. Raising the Bar returns to TV Raising the Bar premiered with the perfect second season premiere. ...

I’m just sayin’, if this was on Heroes that woundy-blood spatter thing would have been in the shape of the Helix Symbol.  It’s the small things.

-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. Dear Heroes Fans/Bloggers Heroes isn’t cancelled. Or on the bubble. NBC has confirmed...
2. Resolutions! We here at J/DB love themes, so this seemed like...
3. DB’s Heroes Wish List As my mother just reminded me, Heroes is back in...

This Thursday especially I’ve actually been almost more excited about than Friday. This week has a solid double feature going on.  Just the kind of treat we need after a cold week in January. Thursday night (the 15th) brings back two things I love dearly – Tom Welling and Jensen Ackles.  I mean.. Smallville and Supernatural. And let me tell you both episodes look stacked.

Fans from all over have been anticipating the return of Smallville with it’s comic-y goodness bringing in both the legion of extraordinary superteens from the future and mastermind scribe Geoff Johns. Buckle in for some really great plot and a lot of super cheesy hero puns oh and did I mention Evil!Chloe?  Yeah, Evil!Chloe.

Supernatural doesn’t usually scare me.  Most of the time I’m too busy with the funny the pretty and the bromance to get scared. A few exceptions might be teeth pulling and that guy who got the saw through the chest. They do a great job of bringing gore to TV screens under a censor but tomorrow nights episode actually looks scary.  The boys are in deep with a ghost and it looks like they might not make it out alive, again. Or dead, again.

Now that we’ve gone through the usual suspects I’ll tell you what else you should be watching tomorrow night.  Grissom makes his last appearance on CSI:the original.  I really thought this happened months if not years ago. I haven’t actively followed this show since they locked my precious Nicky in a coffin. Tears. Seriously. But I do enjoy the show and feel like I should see the monumental moment of his adieu. While I don’t support the watching of Ugly Betty, it will be new followed by a new episode of Grey’s Anatomy in which Denny might actually die and if he doesn’t they better start putting his name in the credits.

You think I’m done? not a chance. Earl, The Office, 30 Rock and ER are all new as well over on NBC. And for the elderly, This Old House and Antiques Roadshow are also new.  Just a tip for any of you American types or those of us forced to watch your stations, the presidential address may shift but not cancel any of the must see TV. Thankfully, I’ll be watching the CW and they don’t care.

Oh and don’t forget next week Bones will make it’s move to it’s new day and time Thursdays at 8, because clearly you had nothing else to watch then.

Happy viewing!

-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. A Letter to a Local Station Dear CityTV, I have grown up watching great American television...
2. Smallville's on the Move. Sometimes, part of being a tv blogger and fan is...
3. What it Takes to Still Watch Smallville I wasn’t going to write about this week’s season 9...

10. He doesn’t like to peel his own oranges.
9. Before acting, he modeled internationally and was a video vixen.  If you look you can find pictures of him with Ashton Kutcher in their underwear.  Back then he had long hair.
8. He has three dogs.  A pug named Cook, A Burmese mountain/Akita mix and some little ugly black thing that is apparently a Boston terrier.
7. The no tights no flights rule was his, not the producers.
6. IMDB once claimed that he had two daughters.  Another site named one Lisa.  If he does have two daughters he hides them in the basement.
5. He and his wife like to dress alike when they go out in public.
4. He loves to play basketball but doesn’t because he’s afraid he might hurt himself.  He was the third string goalie on his soccer team.
3. Tom enjoys looking like bigfoot in the off season and watching his favorite team the Red Sox.
2. He quite possibly pays people to say what a great guy he is, while his shy and removed nature supports claims that he is closed off and kicks over water coolers when provoked.
1. He is actually a good actor. – His concept for Clark Kent just happens to be the same as what is globally recognized as bad acting.

-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. Why Tom Welling is the Smartest Man on TV Yes, the man with one expression – confused, is the...
2. Holy Crap Tom Welling: A SDCC Post I figured we couldn’t let SDCC go past without postness,...
3. Smallville's on the Move. Sometimes, part of being a tv blogger and fan is...

We’ve been hearing whispers down the wire from the new producers (PS3) that season 9 was being talked about, even being planned for. Four new people on top of the CW’s most successful scripted show wont be satisfied at one season and with the way things are going, I’m not sure the fans will be either. The producing team has said that they are ready for a series finale but always leave it open that they’d like to do more, even talking about spin-offs which I do not believe will be able to find the same success. The network is telling us that they are also preparing to keep Smallville on the air and to keep the Thursday night Smallville – Supernatural pair up going another year, which is all we are to expect of Supernatural as well.

Welling has placed himself in a fantastic place to ask for whatever he wants seeing as all the higher ups are giving green light signals.  Rumors saying he’s making over $150k per episode at this point which is not high in comparison at all.  Though he’s got a pretty sweet deal.  He doesn’t do any press for the show.  The man has made one public appearance since the ‘06 upfronts and other than the Vogue shoot has done nothing outside of promo photos.  The question will be how badly do they want to see season 9?  and how ready is Welling to move on?

For an actor who turned down the show’s request to audition twice it’s not a stretch to think Tom might be ready to move on.  Especially with Rosenbaum and Kreuk’s recent departures, though he may have noticed that neither are exceptionally busy these days either.   I fully expect Welling to fade into the background and seek more directing work after the show ends.  I don’t see him really pushing for a film career.  He’s had no qualms taking most of his hiatus’ off, while other actors like Ackles and Padalecki fill their summers with B film work.  [Can you believe The Fog pulled $11 Million opening weekend?]

If he does decide to stay he should be asking for a pay hike. The question then will be can the fading CW aford him?  I wouldn’t be surprised to see him ask for two or three more episodes to direct in season 9 and they better make them good ones, not the throw aways he has been getting (150 excepted). On top of that I’d like to see him ask for producing credit a la Kiefer Sutherland on 24 so he gets more say and a better cut of the cake after all things are said and done.  This show is already in syndication and it will be for a long long time.  Welling is in the perfect position to call the shots and the ball is in his court.

-DoubleBitch

Related posts:

1. Holy Crap Tom Welling: A SDCC Post I figured we couldn’t let SDCC go past without postness,...
2. 10 Things You Didn't Know About Tom Welling It’s the end of the year and that means it’s...
3. Does Smallville Have 2 More Years? The beautiful Allison Mack has been running around spreading the...