OK, on reflection, still disappointed.
Biggest disappointment is Tess Mercer. Smallville has always done great villians, not just Glover and Rosenbaum, but Marster, Joan Collins, even that reporter from season 1.
I like the idea of "Tess Mercer", a cute nod to the movies and comics, but she's got nothing. They are supposed to show, not tell. Don't tell me she is wicked, evil and ruthless and manipulative, show me. Like you showed me with Lionel, with Lex, with Brainiac. So far she is just an asshole.
By comparison, Lex's assistant last season, was at least cuter, we saw how cold blooded and ruthless she could be, and she had motivation, she was obviously all about Lex, she worshiped him. This is the kind of characterization that makes her interesting, we see it, it's not just told to us by some nameless flunky in the dialogue. Too bad Lex shot her, although that was a great scene.
Going through the rest of the show, the whole scene in the Russian smuggler's camp was stupid. What did it have to do with the story? Nothing. How did it tie in with the past? Didn't. Tie in with the future? Apparently not. What was the point? Clark could have been stuck in a cave with a few supplies and it was too far to walk home. The only point should have been, at least, if it was fun and interesting. But really it wasn't, the staged fight with Ollie and Clark was flat, it could maybe have been fun but it wasn't.
And how did Ollie find him? They were scanning computer images all over the globe for Clark's picture. Might have made sense if the Russian took a picture of Clark. If there was any way Ollie could possibly have found him. But there wasn't.
Now, J'onn... Shows up at the last minute when Clark is arrowed. Why didn't he show up in Russia when powerless Clark is getting the shit kicked out of him? Did J'onn, through the power of plot, develope a mystical sense of knowing when Clark is dieing?
J'onn knows enough about Clark's powers to know how to get them back when Clark loses them. How about J'onn tells Clark some of this information?
J'onn flies Clark to the sun and loses his powers. How do they get back? Clark can't fly....
Powerless Clark insists that Ollie and he split up to find Chloe faster. Why? She's been missing for MONTHS, she isn't going to die in the next five minutes. At least Ollie has some sense. The only reason to split them up is so they can get taken out, there is no reason in the plot for them to split up. So they don't even try, they just make Clark an idiot.
Black Canary looks like Ziggy Stardust. I'm going to get bored of looking at her pretty quick.
Oh, yeah, Chloe, "We won't throw you in jail for 20 years if you work for us for a year..." Maybe you should have gotten that in writing? What's to stop them from just keeping you as their sex slave for the rest of your life? I would... How about, "I'll start working for you with full enthusiasm 5 minutes after my lawyer shows up with a binding contract, and my friends are informed of my new job."
Thing is, previous seasons I might have suspended my disbelief for things like this, for the sake of a decent story. But the little nuances that kept my attention, which was Magnificent Bastard, Magnificent Bastard's little Bastard, Magnificent Kryptonian Ooze Monster Bastard, etc, were all gone. Without some decent evil, there is nothing to show off how good everyone else is, to paraphrase the Tao Te Ching.
