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I thought there was a rule that Buffy and Smallville couldn't both be good on the same night. I'm glad I was wrong.
Buffy continues to be able to make cardboard characters three-dimensional. Even the X-COPS setup couldn't ruin it, though I got the "tears" part really quickly and it might have been better edited at that point. Also, it was great to have Andrew voicing some common fan complaints about Buffy's hideous speechifying. I almost can't believe that I now understand Tucker's brother, even though I don't like him.
I was telling my friend Steve that I think I like SV because its mythic characters balance out my Buffy love, because there's no Hero with a Thousand Faces on Buffy at all, just people. Myth is, at most, pretext and background on Buffy -- ME makes up most of their own myths by this point, too -- and the show works.
Still, it's good to have a sharp contrast in SV. I love SV when it asks whether biology is destiny, though I think the show itself is quite confused on the matter. Yes: Clark's powers give him a special role, so he can't be an ordinary guy; Lex and Lucas are Luthors, and that will always define them. No: Clark is Jonathan's son (and Martha's, Jon!), not just Jor-el's; if Clark had been raised by Lionel, he'd be rich and miserable and Lex would be wearing flannel. Karl Marx said it well, and it's still true: men make their own history, but they do it under conditions not of their own choosing. When SV is getting things right, it knows this. (And is it just me, or did Bo look just terrible through most of this? Maybe it was poor editing, but I kept thinking he'd had an ill-done haircut. And the various crane shots? Sometimes I wonder what show the cinematographer thinks s/he's filming, because I wonder if I would like it too.)
But mostly, I love that Clark's biological dad is Space Lionel. It makes the inevitable Lex/Clark conflict even more tragic, somehow.
And just to get it gone, here's a chunk of a story I'll never write:
“This isn’t possible!” he snapped, pressing up against Clark as the cat thudded past the bushes. Branches poked at his face and arms, and he didn’t want to think about what was happening to his shoes.
“Uh, Lex, I don’t mean to go all Princess Bride on you, but –“
“I know the laws of physics are less respected than the speed limit in this town, but this is ridiculous. Look, the strength of bone increases with the square of its dimensions, but the load on the bone increases with the cube. You can’t just supersize a housecat; it would fall over. Not to mention the heat transfer problems that should be baking that furry monster from the inside out.”
“As sexy as that lecture is, I don’t think Hello Kitty out there is paying much attention.” Indeed, the hedges were shaking as the cat tore at them like catnip; he could see more daylight with each swipe of a paw the size of a ten-year-old child.
“Fuck! Okay, assume you can just inflate the cat. It should overheat and tire itself out quickly unless its internal structure’s substantially revamped. And the rose wasn’t – it was just bigger.”
“Rose?” Clark’s voice now contained suspicion along with fear.
“Later. Look, I can’t run. I’ll distract it, you get out of here.”
There was only one more layer of bushes between them and gory death. The clawed and upturned earth made the air heavy with the smell he associated with new planting and spring, the return of life to the earth. Irony was more of a bitch goddess than Hera.
“Like hell!”
“Clark –“ he said, thinking of the cat he’d seen once in England, trifling with its mouse. Repeatedly letting the tiny, bleeding thing run as if it might escape, then grabbing it back to continue skinning it by millimeters. If Clark got help quickly, he might even survive, assuming he could maintain sufficient play value.
“Shit,” Clark said in a tone of deep disgust, and disappeared.
Lex swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. If a rabbit hole had suddenly opened up under Clark’s feet, he couldn’t say he would have been all that surprised.
Clark’s bellow from across the garden disabused him of that notion.
Buffy continues to be able to make cardboard characters three-dimensional. Even the X-COPS setup couldn't ruin it, though I got the "tears" part really quickly and it might have been better edited at that point. Also, it was great to have Andrew voicing some common fan complaints about Buffy's hideous speechifying. I almost can't believe that I now understand Tucker's brother, even though I don't like him.
I was telling my friend Steve that I think I like SV because its mythic characters balance out my Buffy love, because there's no Hero with a Thousand Faces on Buffy at all, just people. Myth is, at most, pretext and background on Buffy -- ME makes up most of their own myths by this point, too -- and the show works.
Still, it's good to have a sharp contrast in SV. I love SV when it asks whether biology is destiny, though I think the show itself is quite confused on the matter. Yes: Clark's powers give him a special role, so he can't be an ordinary guy; Lex and Lucas are Luthors, and that will always define them. No: Clark is Jonathan's son (and Martha's, Jon!), not just Jor-el's; if Clark had been raised by Lionel, he'd be rich and miserable and Lex would be wearing flannel. Karl Marx said it well, and it's still true: men make their own history, but they do it under conditions not of their own choosing. When SV is getting things right, it knows this. (And is it just me, or did Bo look just terrible through most of this? Maybe it was poor editing, but I kept thinking he'd had an ill-done haircut. And the various crane shots? Sometimes I wonder what show the cinematographer thinks s/he's filming, because I wonder if I would like it too.)
But mostly, I love that Clark's biological dad is Space Lionel. It makes the inevitable Lex/Clark conflict even more tragic, somehow.
And just to get it gone, here's a chunk of a story I'll never write:
“This isn’t possible!” he snapped, pressing up against Clark as the cat thudded past the bushes. Branches poked at his face and arms, and he didn’t want to think about what was happening to his shoes.
“Uh, Lex, I don’t mean to go all Princess Bride on you, but –“
“I know the laws of physics are less respected than the speed limit in this town, but this is ridiculous. Look, the strength of bone increases with the square of its dimensions, but the load on the bone increases with the cube. You can’t just supersize a housecat; it would fall over. Not to mention the heat transfer problems that should be baking that furry monster from the inside out.”
“As sexy as that lecture is, I don’t think Hello Kitty out there is paying much attention.” Indeed, the hedges were shaking as the cat tore at them like catnip; he could see more daylight with each swipe of a paw the size of a ten-year-old child.
“Fuck! Okay, assume you can just inflate the cat. It should overheat and tire itself out quickly unless its internal structure’s substantially revamped. And the rose wasn’t – it was just bigger.”
“Rose?” Clark’s voice now contained suspicion along with fear.
“Later. Look, I can’t run. I’ll distract it, you get out of here.”
There was only one more layer of bushes between them and gory death. The clawed and upturned earth made the air heavy with the smell he associated with new planting and spring, the return of life to the earth. Irony was more of a bitch goddess than Hera.
“Like hell!”
“Clark –“ he said, thinking of the cat he’d seen once in England, trifling with its mouse. Repeatedly letting the tiny, bleeding thing run as if it might escape, then grabbing it back to continue skinning it by millimeters. If Clark got help quickly, he might even survive, assuming he could maintain sufficient play value.
“Shit,” Clark said in a tone of deep disgust, and disappeared.
Lex swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. If a rabbit hole had suddenly opened up under Clark’s feet, he couldn’t say he would have been all that surprised.
Clark’s bellow from across the garden disabused him of that notion.
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If Clark got help quickly, he might even survive, assuming he could maintain sufficient play value.
Loved that line. And I'm sure Lex has more than sufficient playvalue.