SMALLVILLE: "Bizarro"

"Bizarro" marks the season premiere of SMALLVILLE's seventh season. It was... OK. It clipped along nicely and had some nice action sequences. But I have my list of gripes. This show always falls short in the strangest ways.

They ruined Bizarro. Last year they ruined the Phantom Zone villains and this year they squandered Bizarro. Really, Smallville Producers, this isn't hard. I woulda much preferred "Three Evil Teen Krypto-Criminals" coming to earth rather than "Body Possessing Wraiths." Can you imagine Zod as a 20-year old smarty schemer, Ursa as a gorgeous uber-bitch with design on Clark and Non as a muscle-headed football jock? Man, that coulda been a whole season of teh awesome. Instead, they go with the Krypto-Mystical-blah-dee-blah.

So, Bizarro. Yeah. It would have been cool if Lionel tried to clone Clark and failed (thus, Bizarro). Instead, he's evil wraith that's not quite Bizarro at all. And, he's pretty much Red K Clark, which, y'know, we've seen. That's as bad as making Mister Mxyzptlk a foreign exchange student that runs a gambling ring. Oh, wait...

Then there's Lexie. Every time he edges closer to becoming evil dude, he goes emo on us. I don't want to see Boo-Hoo Prison Lex in the 7th season. I want scheming, evil, murdering Lex. And kill Lionel please. Lionel should have died in that explosion. Things I Learned Watching Smallville #28. "Head trauma is not nearly as serious as I believed it to be." I love all the explosions on SMALLVILLE that leave people slightly bruised and wincing slightly.

And, oh, I need to "call" Jor-El on his surpreme superdickery. All this "tough love" parenting was to prepare Kal-El for this fight we are seeing now? Call Galactic Child Services! He is sooo not getting father of the year.

I always enjoy the SMALLVILLE hospital scenes for their unintentional comedy. Things I Learned Watching Smallville #27. "Listening to doctors is highly optional. People like to leave hospitals without doctor's consent, and often enter rooms when they are told they are restricted." I love how Clark just busts into the room! And I love how Chloe is declared dead and just burns her own death certificate, as if that solves everything. Nah, hospitals don't care about missing dead bodies that have been toe-tagged.

The whole Clark-Bizarro showdown was kewl-fight, but introduced "magic sun rays" previously unseen on SMALLVILLE. They magically heal now? Since when? Oh, since we need it for this scene and then never again? OK! Oh, SMALLVILLE!

I did chuckle (in a good way) at Chloe's line, "He can fly? Clark, you gotta get on that." Chloe has actually become my favorite character on the show. She's usually calling everyone on their smallvilledickery. But then she has a graoner when she calls Bizarro Clark's "Bobbsey Twin." Yes, all the college kids are referencing obscure turn-of-the-century comic strips these days. I blame the schools.

But then I chuckled, in a bad way, at Lana's Shanghai Surprise. Really, we all knew she was alive even though we all wished her dead. And I love how halfway around the world, she find security in a bad Britney Spears wig. Hilarious! Like, Ed Wood level hilarious. She is truly Clark's greatest enemy on the whole show. Just when we think she's gone... It's a slow painful torture, this Lana Lang.

Supergirl looks kinda cool.

30 Things I Learned Watching Smallville

I wrote these up as they occurred to me watching SMALLVILLE:

1. Lying to your best friends is more noble than just trusting them with the truth.

2. Evil rich people like classical music.

3. Sixteen year old kids can run coffeeshops as a small business while attending high school.

4. Science labs and newsrooms have fantastic ambient lighting.

5. Evil rich people like to hammer a point with a historical metaphor.

6. Never use a simple phrase when a pop-culture metaphor can be used. Bonus points if you can utilize the word "pulled." "He pulled a Harry Houdini" vs. "He disappeared."

7. People often use computer passwords that are not only sentimental, but easily guessable.

8. Kids in high school and college have an uncanny knowledge of 1970s and 1980s pop culture. [Or, you know, their writers do.]

9. A lot of street thugs wear skull caps and brand-new leather jackets.

10. Teenagers have favorite classical authors and poets.

11. Male best friends talk an awful lot about their feelings for each other.

12. Police officers like toothpicks.

13. Major metropolitan newspapers allow teenagers to write headlines and articles.

14. If you have an incriminating object in your possession, you should regularly take it out of hiding and stare at it.

15. You can download architectual schematics of any building right off the internet, regardless of the year it was built.

16. Ancient alien technology is Mac/PC compatible.

17. If you are concealing a secret, dart your eyes wildly.

18. People who live in mansions have super-high-tech security, but tend to leave their front doors wide open.

19. When you see a farm from a distance, you will hear a cow moo. It reinforces you are looking at a farm.

20. Millionaires in huge mansions prefer to spend all their time in a single room.

21. Friends with money will always fly in the "best doctors" and "best lawyers" in the world - at a moment's notice - to help another friend in need.

22. High School and college students can afford a brand new car at least 3 times a school year.

23. It's surprisingly easy to sneak into restricted government and civic areas. Also, Crime scenes with police tape are unspoken invitations to disrupt evidence.

24. Small towns are surprisingly unalarmed by a high volume of mysterious deaths.

25. Life DOES have a reset button! If you find yourself in an impossible situation: find a cave with alien scrawls, wait for the flashing lights, and everything will be made right again. Repeat as necessary.

26. Saving a girl's life countless times will not gain you any "trust points."

27. Listening to doctors is highly optional. People like to leave hospitals without doctor's consent, and often enter rooms when they are told they are restricted.

28. Head trauma is not nearly as serious as I believed it to be.

29. Farming largely consists of moving bales of hay from one side of the barn to the other side of the barn.

30. Never trust Lana Lang to do anything important. It never ends well.