I certainly hope so. 'Justice' remains my all-time favorite ep, and if this two-hour event is just half as good as that, I'll come away happy. Since I'm not overly familiar with most of the Justice Society characters, I don't have a lot of preconceived notions about this.
Well, it's been a while since I saw it, but I found the episode lacking. By the time it was finished, I felt like saying "That's it?" The story was very weak as if they had this story already developed, but then said "Hey, lets put other heroes in here!" Also, I didn't feel that any of the characters beyond Clark and Ollie were really given much to do besides an obligatory action sequence (and even that felt like it was shortchanged). I'm also the only person who didn't like the slow-motion, badass walking shot of the heroes towards the end of the episode (I felt it cheesy, making it seem like an 80s action flick). I do have hope for the Justice Society episode, though. Mostly because it will be a two parter where the writers will have time to give enough time to develop these characters (even harder since, unlike the characters in "Justice", they have never appeared on Smallville before).
^ You make two very valid points in that last paragraph; hopefully, having two hours to tell the story will give the writers a bit more lee-way, but that could be hampered by the fact that the JS characters not only haven't appeared on Smallville before, to the best of my knowledge, they haven't even been mentioned in passing. Add that to the fact that they have to share the screen with Clark, Ollie, the Chlovage and everyone else. All that said, I'm still really looking forward to this ep. Hopefully, it's an indicator of the potential this show still has to tell interesting stories.
I thought Justice was the best written and worst directed Smallville episode I had seen in years. I'm not hopeful about part 1 being directed by the same person, but I hope part 2 can make up for it.
Nobody's mentioned the real reason this episode should be good: it's written by Geoff Johns, writer of last season's great Legion episode as well as a longtime writer of the Justice Society comic book as well.
^ Yes, but as is the television business, how much of it is being re-written by uncredited others? That being said, I wonder how close Johns's version of "Legion" last year was to the final version. I am not saying that Johns's isn't a talented writer. He is, but given his busy writing schedule and the fact that he, basically, works freelance for Smallville, I wouldn't be surprised if what he wrote is reworked by others in order to better fit with what the showrunners want for the episode.
^It's a given that any American TV script is rewritten by the showrunner(s). Exceptions are exceedingly rare. Still, that's the nature of a collaborative medium, and comics are just as much a collaborative medium. The writer's initial version of the story can be modified by the artist. And of course the editor of the comic has the final say. A comic-book writer is no more a singular auteur than a television writer is.
Regardless of who does what, I wouldn't be surprised if Johns's only contribution to "Society/Legends" was the initial story and first draft or so of the script, with subsequent scripts taken over by others from there given his seemingly incredibly busy comic writing schedule. Honestly, this guy seems to be involved with a billion different titles. It seems like anytime DC creates a new title, they say to themselves, "Get Johns to write it."