This week’s Smallville was a rerun, but rather than taking the week off from Deep Hurting, Uzi and I decided to break out some Smallvillains Classic with a look at a previous episode! We went back and forth on which episode to talk about — Uzi wanted to do the pilot and we thought about doing the oh-my-god-that-sounds-terrible Mr. Mxyzptlk episode — but in the end, as so often happen on Smallville, the male gaze won out and we watched the show’s first appearance of everyone’s favorite leggy sorceress, Zatanna!
We’ll be going back through previous episodes whenever the show takes a week off, so if you’ve got suggestions, let us know!
The episode where Lana is transformed into a vampire by Kryptonite is life-affirmingly terrible.
“Hex” was horrible. Basically, it craps on fans of Chloe by reminding them that Lois has the status quo that Smallville High Chloe would have killed for, and that Lois lives a far better life than her. Also, anybody who’s seen “Truth” will know that Chloe has an impressive “pair” of her own. It’s just an awful, awful episode.
Also, the Lana-as-vampire ep was “Thrist” (505). Dopey but funny.
Well, it’s going back to a similar well, but “Warrior”, which is the Season 9 episode where Zatanna comes back because of an enchanted comic book, was just outstanding. Although you’ve already seen the costumes Lois gets into in that one.
A good Lionel Luthor one wouldn’t be a bad idea, although I can’t think of anything specific – maybe the one where John Schneider dies.
How about the one where Lionel and Martha wind up in a Saw movie? That’s gotta be good for a few laughs.
Wait, there are fans of Chloe?
I hope you’re just baiting me, Chris. Yes, there are Chloe fans, because even when the producers and writers mangled her status quo, Allison Mack was the best constant on the show. Watch the older episodes sometime.
I’m pretty sure the Chloe fans on the Television Without Pity boards came up with an insane theory that Lois would die and then Chloe would take her identity because, clearly, she is Clark’s ~*~twue wuv~*~.
That said, you should definitely find a mid-series episode that focuses on Chloe, because you’re being gyped out of watching Allison Mack be totes adorbs and say terrible one-liners that you just can’t stay mad at her for. Season 3’s “Truth” or Season 4’s “Devoted” maybe.
For the record, I am a regular on the TWoP boards. The whole “Chloe-as-Lois” thing stemmed from stuff like how awful Lana was in general in the beginning (and middle and end), and how you couldn’t spell “Chloe Sullivan” without “Lois Lane.” Then Lois came along in the fourth season, and the idea of Clark ending up with Chloe looking even better, because Lois wasn’t anywhere near canon. Chloe had some good episodes, but then there was shit like “Spirit” (S4) that just dumped on her relentlessly.
I would stay away from the fourth season in general if I were you, Chris. Lots of crap about Lana having a witch as an ancestor and other shit. I am honestly surprised that Jensen Ackles — who played Lana’s older boyfriend that season — was able to get any work at all afterward, let alone starring on Supernatural. “Devoted” is a Chloe-dumping episode, albeit a funny one with Clark becoming Smallville High’s quarterback, Lex giving a speech to the team (which makes the Gaydar ping something fierce), and cheerleaders using Kryptonite in Gatorade to get the players around their fingers. And you might be interested in “Transference,” which is a proper body swap episode, where Clark gets trapped in Lionel Luthor’s body, while Lionel finds out about Clark’s powers. Also: a very inappropriate moment with heat vision.
My brain just now grasped the perspective in the picture. For two days I kept seeing either a 20-foot Zatanna or a tiny shrunken dude. But it turns out he’s just in the background. Now it’s not nearly as fun.
“which makes the Gaydar ping something fierce”
Girl, please: the speech of which you speak is barely a footnote to seven years of of intense stare-offs between the two male leads as the audience kept tuning in and tried to understand why they don’t just kiss already. His dad’s stern disapproval of Clark/Lex’s ‘friendship’ and best bud Pete Ross’ irrational jealousy arguably did not help dispel the notion that it was a possibility.
How about the 4th season episode “Jinx”, which reduces Mr. Mxyzptlk from a godlike trickster to some guy from the Balkins using luck powers to cheat at gambling?
I hope you’re just baiting me, Chris. Yes, there are Chloe fans
Oh, I wasn’t really surprised. I mean, Gambit, Wonder Man and Nickelback have fans too.
I’m sure there are people who hate Texas teenage girls punching out Soviet bears and robots carrying gorillas holding guns in all four hands as well.
And if I find these people, I will kick them in the shins.
“Hex” always struck me as a more light hearted version of “Transference” from season 4. It has Tom Welling playing Lionel Luthor and John Glover playing Clark Kent. Surprisingly, I think Welling is more successful than Glover. It’s also hilarious and awesome, with the stupidest prison riot ever.
If you’re interested in seeing the beginning of the show’s current DC guest star trend there’s the season 3 premiere “Exile” featuring Rutger Hauer as Morgan Edge.
Season 2’s “Rosetta” is one of the show’s best episodes and has the first Christopher Reeve guest spot.
The vampire episode is season 5’s “Thirst.” It was probably the show’s worst episode until season 8. The show runners actually recorded a commentary for the dvd that
basically amounts to them apologizing for the awfulness and trying to figure out what went wrong.
There’s a Dukes of Hazard reunion in season 5’s “Exposed,” which unless I’m mistaken, also features Lois’s first disguise.
Chris’ reaction to Chloe & her fans isn’t really surprising, considering the fact that these last seasons, the character has been nothing but a shell of what it once was.
Up until season 6, she was indeed a constant in terms of quality acting, and she was everything a great Lois should be : a faithful sidekick to Clark, she was curious, investigative, smart, dedicated, talented, and so on. Meanwhile, Lois’ investigative skills were limited to her sexy costumes, and her one-note snarky comments towards Clark whom she couldn’t stand.
Problem was, the showrunners didn’t know what to do with Chloe, which is why they gave her powers, took them back, hooked her up with the fake Olsen, and generally gave the character loads of bullcrap storylines that Allison Mack acted the hell out of, despite her character being turned into the Butt Monkey of the show.
And when the showrunners left the show (s8), the new writing team decided to quickly phase Chloe out, by virtually transfering all her skills and her screentime to Lois. Which brought us to this last season of Smallville, with Lois everywhere, and Chloe offscreen.
So yeah, to get the Chloe love, the Chloe/Lois fandoms feuds, or even why s9 of the show lost 1.3M viewers from s8 (hint: it’s mostly NOT because of the new timeslot), it’s better to have a few older seasons of Smallville under your belt.
Which may cost your some brain cells, sadly.
I’m trying to imagine a situation in which I would possibly want to learn more about “the Chloe/Lois fandoms feud,” and the only thing I can come up with is that it’s either that or being murdered. And I don’t mean, like, regular murdered, I mean “I dug up Frank Castle’s family’s bodies and re-enacted Weekend at Bernies 2” murdered.