Smallville 8x15 "Infamous" - Discuss/Grade

[CorporalClegg]

That was all kinds of "meh."

Too many plot holes for my taste.

I do have one question though: are we going to have to put up with eight years of Clois crap now?

Clark will be in his sixties and, when it comes to relationships with women, have the maturity of a scone.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Great, now Clark feels completely justified in his not stepping up to the plate.

Smallville isn't exactly known for its airtight logic but I loved how quickly everyone is to accept the story. But then the kicker comes from Linda Lake's counterclaim and five seconds later the cops are on their way to arrest Clark. So silly it was quite funny.

Cute little play on Clark having the power to turn back time...but then he did!

And the hospital containment ward or whatever? I did like Davis setting LL free though. I couldn't tell if Tori Spelling was a really good actress playing an annoying character or if Tori Spelling simply is annoying, I suspect the latter.

 

[nx1701g]

I thought that it was a really good episode and, while many have seen this as it'll keep Clark from his destiny, I think it may push him into it. He knows that if he reveals himself directly what the consequences will be so he knows he needs another identity. I really think we saw the birth of Superman tonight.

As for the people's reactions to Clark: I think that they were perfectly correct. Like Spelling's character said there is only one thing people like more than building up a hero: tearing them down. I do think that if you had someone admit they were an alien and the red blue blur then, a day later, someone claims he's the first in an invasion and uses events like the meteor shower as proof there would be a lot of people who would descend like that.

 

[Aragorn]

Good lord. I wasted an hour for this? There was a reason I stopped watching this show. Are there any other writers on TV right now who are as awful with such a steady paycheck?

 

[highlander]

A reset button episode??? Really??? How original. Other than another stellar performance from Erica Durance this episode was blah. Things look to pick up next week. Will he fly??? I doubt it. Less flying more angst. Well hope to be here in real time next week.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Good lord. I wasted an hour for this?

You got the hour back at the end.

 

[the Dagman]

Blah!

Does Tori Spelling look like a transvestite to anyone besides me? I swear, Aaron Spelling must have mated with a horse to produce someone that looks like she does.

Clark destroyed the Legion ring? Boooo! I was hoping he'd take at least one trip to the 31st century. At least that pretty much confirms that it won't be the Legion returning for the season finale.

Overall though, this seemed like a wasted hour that had far too many ads.

I also predict that next week when Clark kicks open the plane door there will be no flying, just lots of falling. He will jump out of the crashing plane with Tess in his arms. Much safer for her not to be in a crashing plane and in his arms, even at 30,000 feet.

 

[Aragorn]

I think Spelling went the Lara Flynn Boyle route with one too many trips to the plastic surgeon. She looks nothing like she used to on 90210 (which she was on for ten years so you know what she's SUPPOSED TO look like now).

As for the episode, the synopsis got me to watch it, but the bad writing, the bad acting (though Durance was the standout performance of the episode), the stupid stock Smallville law enforcement, the stupid stock Smallville journalists, the stupid stock Smallville civilians, the time travel, the reset button -- it was all auto-pilot business as usual.

Also, what's with the Heroes syndrome where the person who knows the secret won't blab it to the world? Conceivably, you could do this exact episode for multiple consecutive seasons with bringing back every bad guy who knows Clark's secret who wasn't killed.

I think there's a lot that could be done with the Smallville format, probably nothing great, but at least shooting for a high-level apartment with a view instead of being content with the basement would go a long way. Though I wonder if the show would've lasted as long as it did if it were smarter, and if it weren't for being on the CW.

 

[hyzmarca]

If the had guts, they would have let Clark stay public. Instead of having the government try to capture him, have them send him after Bin Laden. After he single-handedly dismantles every major terrorist organization by using his super-hearing to listen in on their plots no matter where in the world they are, then there can be some concern that he might be going a bit too far and perhaps violating people's privacy.

 

[Samurai8472]

Clark destroyed the Legion ring? Boooo! I was hoping he'd take at least one trip to the 31st century. At least that pretty much confirms that it won't be the Legion returning for the season finale.

Seriously! He could have trained in the future for 3 months our time(Summer hiatus) but while he was with the Legion it will have been 3 years.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Clark could've used his heat vision and reduced Linda Lake to water vapor.

That might've killed her, though.

Perhaps a better ending is that he captures her in water form and puts her in his freezer.

 

[Gojirob]

Like most here, I knew it was all gonna be reset. But Clark's Legion Ring never occurred to me.

It was funny how Clark activated the ring right when Lois was about to tell him that Davis was Doomsday. Would it have killed him to hear what Lois had to say?

What's worse is he seemed to have an annoyed look on his face when Lois told him Chloe was in trouble. I know he was going to reset everything but what a dick! Couldn't he have waited two seconds longer?

To be fair to Clark, waiting and talking had proven to be problematic in achieving his reset. Linda Lake could have reawoken, the agents borrowed from a Chris Claremont plotline could have burst in, or his Mom might have finally arrived, which might have given Clark a heart attack. I do wonder if Clark really destroyed the ring, or if he maybe passed it on to his pal Peter Parker, then sticking a live power conduit into Joe Quesada. (Or if he just kept it so that no one would bug him to hit reset again)

But seriously, that lead agent. Is there a rule in fictional universes that has the FBI/CIA Director saying : "Its a delicate situation involving a metahuman of unknown power and motive. Be sure and send our most blustering, paranoid, shoot-first man."

I also thought it might be a dream, what with the way the police were moving in as Lake did her broadcast. To again be fair, a Superboy story I once read with the same plot basically went no better than this did, and SA/E1 Young Clark was no more insightful about the consequences.

 

[FreezeC77]

That was all kinds of "meh."

Too many plot holes for my taste.

I do have one question though: are we going to have to put up with eight years of Clois crap now?

Heh I actually thought that as I watched the sequence at the end of the episode with Lois at the Cafe and Clarke watching across the street.

I started to think... "Wow, maybe the writers are there going..." 'Hey you know what? We can totally do 8 years of Clark pining for Lois. Hell, think about how long it took for them to finally get together in the comics. We could ride this show into our retirement.'

 

[Lookingglassman]

First off - I was nauseated every time Tori Spelling appeared. She is hideous to look at.

Secondly - This show is getting tiresome with its, "almost" moments. There is no reason Clark couldnt have waited a few seconds to hear what Lois said about Doomsday before he put on the ring. It would have been cool seeing how he reacted once he went back in time, but realized who Doomsday was.

 

[hyzmarca]

A better ending would be that he comes forward under the guise of "Superman" (in his normal street clothes and without a mask) and uses Super Hypnosis to make everyone who watches the interview think that he couldn't possibly be Clark Kent.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Where the hell was the other Clark?there should have been two of them, and two time rings, and if he changed the past wouldn't that unseat the legions timeline since they were probably sure that THE Superman would never use Time travel so freaking frivolously...

Clark Red/Clark Blue?

That was just awful!

I thought it was that Black mercy of Alan Moore's again, or my dearest wish was that Clark would just wake up, even if the show has been renewed what a total and complete waste fo time.

 

[Brent]

Yeah, where was the other Clark Kent anyway?

And yeah, there would still be a ring in the barn

 

[Red Ranger]

Shit, I didn't know there was a new Smallville. But it looks like I didn't miss much. Tori Spelling does have a butta face. -- RR

 

[the Dagman]

Where the hell was the other Clark?there should have been two of them, and two time rings, and if he changed the past wouldn't that unseat the legions timeline since they were probably sure that THE Superman would never use Time travel so freaking frivolously...

Clark Red/Clark Blue?

That was just awful!

I thought it was that Black mercy of Alan Moore's again, or my dearest wish was that Clark would just wake up, even if the show has been renewed what a total and complete waste fo time.

Quite right. It was time travel, not temporal regression (which is what he did in Superman: The Movie. He reversed time). Also, given what we saw when Cosmic Boy removed that ring from the Persuader's hand, once he took off the ring or destroyed it on his finger with heat vision it he should have been thrust back to his proper time period 2 days later. His younger self would have done all the same things but for his preemptive strike at Linda Lake.

Also, this time around he was there to pick up Lois, saving her three hours at the airport waiting on him. What about all those people he had saved the first time around?

The writers handled time travel pretty well in Legion, but totally dropped the ball this time.

 

[Guy Gardener]

We could have missed the scene where he used Black Kryptonite to "absorb" (MURDER!) his past self like in the beginning of season four when the Kryptonian "evil" half of him was in charge... "My father sent me here to look after humanity." Shit like that makes me want to puke. Your father sent you there to Conquer them moneys and rule them with an iron fist and no matter the lies you tel yourself to go to sleep at night Clark, you know that your father was a despotic tyrant with no regard or respect for human life... How involved were the Kryptonians in the destruction of Life on mars? It can't be a coincidence that the last Martian in creation was just cooling it on Krypton a couple Galaxies away as somethign aweful happened?

And saving the people that he saved before but with forknowledge (GroundHog day rocks!) would have taken a fraction of the time, especially since the first time around he couldn't be sure "when" there would be a period of calm which there was this time around... Whic is shit that went without saying that would have made Clark sound even more pompous than usual, have you seen early Edition much? Clark didn't need super powers that day, He could have averted a days worth of tragedy with a couple phone calls and putting sugar in a couple peoples gas tanks the night before.