#What is up with the Kents cornfield that a spaceship with alien children has crashed there twice | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jupitermelichios · 6 years

Text

Smallville Recaps: S1 E1 “Pilot”

I realised I never actually reviewed the first 2 episodes of Season 1, so I’m going back to rewatch them and share my (mostly confused and angry) thoughts.

Hey Smallville, Goldeneye 007 called and it wants its CGI back. (Actually that's not fair. The PS1 had way better graphics than this. I think this may have been done on a ZX Spectrum.)

Huh, weird that our first non-CGI shot of the show is a teaser for Green Arrow that won't pay off for several seasons. Also Lionel trying to bully his son into not being afraid, because he really is the worst parent.

I love that Lana's aunt Nell clearly hates Martha and Jonathan exactly as much as they deserve.

“Where are her parents?!” Jesus Jonathan, take it down a notch. She's with her aunt, it's not like the kid's just been abandoned!

So apparently Lana has magic powers in the pilot?! She pretends to grant Martha's wish for a baby like 3 minutes before they find Clark.

Jesus fuck is this a horror show?! Why is there a naked teenager crucified in that Cornfield begging passing children to help him?! What the actual fuck Smallville?

Oh good, and now the kid is dead and probably so is Lex. What a way to start your show!

Remember kids, if you look up and see a large meteor flying towards you out of the sky, it's important to stay exactly where you are so that your 4 year old daughter can watch you die and be traumatised by it, and not, for example, take two steps to the left and survive.

They kid they chose to play baby Clark is a) about 7 and b) possibly Latino?! I mean, it's not the weirdest casting choice in this show, but it's still fucking weird.

I love that Martha's first thought upon finding Clark is 'yoink, this is my baby now!' and not 'oh shit, we'd better try and trace this kid's family.

To give the writers their due, having Lex loose his hair because he was present as a kid when Clark's spaceship crashed is actually a pretty genius idea.

Flashfoward to Clark being... 26? 15? I have no idea how old he's supposed to be. Wait he's in highschool. 18? Seriously, I have no idea.

Why do Teen shows all think “really wants to play sport but can't because of his special powers” is a super relatable plot, especially to the kind of teenagers who watch Superhero shows. Speaking as someone who has been in a teenager in their life, it's really not!

Okay so a) Smallville's population has gone up by 20,000 in ten years, which seems a lot, and b) Smallville's population is 45,0001. How?! There's 1 high school, apparently only 1 junior school since they've all known one another since they were 5, no theatre, no cinema, and a single factory employs like half the adult population of the town, and the population is 45,000?! The nearest town to me growing up had 1 high school, 2 primary schools and a cinema, and that had a population of 3,000!

“You can't play football, that's suicide.” The actor playing Clark is ten years older and two foot taller than everyone else at the school, but sure. Suicide.

Apparently the naked dude crucified in the cornfield thing is a Smallville tradition that Chloe has never heard of before this exact moment. Also what he fuck kind of high school tradition is that?! That's some fucking Cabin in the Woods ritual bullshit right there. The football team are probably all going to turn out to be demons in disguise or something.

Lana having a kryptonite necklace is actually a pretty good idea for the whole love triangle thing. If Lana's parents hadn't been killed by a kryptonite meteor hitting them. As it is, she's just coming off as really weird and super morbid.

“Which are you Clark, man or superman?” “I'm still figuring that out.” Good line if you know he's got powers. If you don't know, and you're just making a weird Neitzche joke (you know, like teenagers do) then it just makes Clark sound like an absolute nob. Which he is, of course.

You know I said Whitney is the best human being in the Dramatis Personae? The major exception is in this episode. But even here, his first line isn't asking Lana to do his homework, it's asking Lana to read over his homework because he was up super late finishing it. Because even in the pilot, Whitney is secretly a super-nice dude. (Apart from that whole naked crucifixion thing.)

Lex's character introduction: driving a very nice porsche while dramatic rock plays. Okay, so we're supposed to think Lex is the coolest character, right? That's definitely what I'm getting from this.

Holy shit, Clark is actually being selfless and saving Lex from a car crash. That may be the only nice thing he does all season.

Ah, the introduction of Clark's habit of watching Lana change through his telescope. Because Clark's a totally relatable guy, and a hero.

“Hey your lucky charm, isn't that the thing that killed your parents and a bunch of other people and gave Lex alopecia?” “Yeah I figure just because it's always been super unlucky up till now, maybe it'll be lucky this time.” That's some fucking weird figuring you're doing there Lana.

“Hey you look like that Scarecrow kid” is a weird way to greet someone who you had a direct hand in putting into a coma twelve years ago.

Oh good, naked crucified kid from the opening now has superpowers and he's back for revenge. Question – why has he waited 12 years?!

Lex brought Clark a truck. And so begins the tradition of Lex buying Clark inappropriately expensive gifts because he doesn't understand how friendship works.

Making Jonathan Kent irrationally hate the Luthors was a really weird writing choice. Really weird.

Wait, Clark doesn't know he's an alien?! How the fuck did he think he could do any of this shit?! What have Jonathan and Martha been telling him all this time????

Oh man, I'd forgotten Lana's habit of riding horses through graveyards. Like normal teenagers do. If I was Nell I'd be seriously worried about Lana.

Lana thinks visiting her parent's grave with flowers is weird, but Clark hanging out in a graveyard where no one he knows is buried is totally normal.

Clark is pretending to hear dead people. Nothing like a séance with a girl's dead parents to really set the mood.

Clark just walked Lana home. She arrived by horse. And walked home. What happened to the horse?!

“Hey you want to go to the dance with me?” asks Clark to a girl in a long-term relationship who he's only ever had one conversation with. You know, like normal non-stalkers do.

Until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume that the writers decided the Luthor family would all be into fencing because they thought Lex would look hot with a sword. And they weren't wrong.

“Do you believe a man can fly,” is one of the strangest pick-up lines I've ever heard, but oddly it seems to be working for Lex.

Chloe sees a guy she's never seen before in a town of 45,001 people, and just assumes he must be some kind of immortal and starts checking 12 year old school year-books. You know, like a normal person does.

Chloe tells Clark that she's been investigating strange goings on in the town, Clark responds with “You should have told me about this.” Fucking why Clark?

And now we see literally the only bad thing Whitney ever does, and it's weirdly jarring. He's such a nice dude in all the later episodes, but now he's beating Clark up, stripping him to his boxers and trying him up in a crucifixion pose in a field for the sake of some cheap jesus imagery. Also giving away the necklace that he knows is super important to Lana. What the fuck writers?

Man, school dances in 2001 were wack. I mean, we all remember slow-dancing to Linkin Park kock-offs right? That was a totally normal highschool experience.

Fun fact – if you electrocute a car, it will start. And none of the electrics will be fried. Because that's how cars work.

Wow, villain gets convenient amnesia may be the laziest fucking 'we've run out of time to resolve the plot' get-out I've ever heard.

Okay, so Whitney is captain of the football team. And Lana and Whitney are Homecoming king and queen. But they definitely aren't seniors, because it's going to be seasons yet before they graduate. How the fuck old are these people meant to be?!

You know, fantasizing about slow dancing with Lana may actually be only relatable thing Clark ever does. Good for you pilot episode.

#smallville recaps #charlie watches a thing #smallville #s1e1 #the character assasination of whitney begins #protect whitney 2k18 #disappointed they didn't stick with the super goth characterisation of Lana #i'm honestly kind of digging it #it's all very byronic

3 notes · View notes