Lost

[cactuswatcher]

"Lost," get lost!
Um, hate to say it, but it looks like a kiddie show for adults. Effects stolen from Firefly and Jurassic Park. Too little 'what's going on?', too much 'The monster is coming! Fret! The sky is falling! Worry! The airplane food is ready! Flee!' It seems too serious for younger kids, and a little too dumb for adults. I don't see it lasting out the season.

A few flips over to Smallville proved that everything there is still much the same. The whole town is still constipated from the looks on all their faces. Clark is still sometimes mean and not knowing what he's doing. At the start of flying sequence I caught, he knocks his mom down. Swift move, Clark. Small town Kansas still looks closer to Los Angeles and Knotts Berry Farm than Salina and wheat fields. Lois Lane showed up, but other than looking way too old to be messing around with high school seniors there is not much special about her. You certainly can't tell her from any other female character on the show based on her behavior. The bizarrely brightly back-lit Lana-in-the-shower scene was far from unpleasant, but hardly an orginal way to get the point of the scene across.

With no Angel on this year I think I can safely skip watching TV on Wednesdays.

Comments

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Lost: The Big Bad was a bit overdone, but I liked the characters. I think I'll stick with it for a while and see.

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Too little 'what's going on?',

I'd give it another week if I were you. The pilot is actually 2 hours, and was split up into 2 weeks, when most people who saw it agreed that it should have been aired in one sitting, because the "what's going on?" part of the pilot occurs in the second hour, which is what the majority of the advance viewers and critics say really sold them on the show. I'm personally very intrigued. I don't really see it as being kiddie at all. I thought it was a very taut, suspenseful hour that managed to do what Stephen King hasn't been able to do for a long time: create a mysterious, effective horror story populated with complex characters you actually care about and whose three-dimensionality imbue the fantastic elements of the story with believability. At least it accomplished that for me.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Lol. I never became caught up in Smallville because the guy who plays Clark looks vacuous, imo. And because one of my favorite aspect of the Superman myth was the great belief in humanity he had, something I didn't see it the few episodes of the show that I've watched.

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

And because one of my favorite aspect of the Superman myth was the great belief in humanity he had, something I didn't see it the few episodes of the show that I've watched.

Yes! That's it exactly! I've only really seen all of Season 1, and maybe an ep here or there of Season 2 and 3. But while I really saw the insecure farmboy Clark in the pilot (which was gorgeous and a wonderful retelling of Clark and Lex's first meeting) I don't often get the sense of anything really special about him. Nothing that makes me sit up and say, wow, this guy is something else. He has that kind of strength and humility and integrity that makes me believe in his humanity. I mean, as bitchy as Buffy could be now and then, she had this sense of humanness that really gripped me. I don't really get that from Clark yet. (To be fair, I haven't seen all the eps...)

Anyway, thanks for articulating that for me, Arethusa! OTOH, I think Tom Welling (guy who plays Clark) is really pretty. Heh. He's HOT. I think he only looks vacuous when he's trying to make Clark look sincere or beseeching. When he's just being himself, Welling has a sparkle. Big grin, pretty face :)

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Smallville's Clark: completely vacuous, but Smallville's Lex: probably the best interpretation/version of the character I've ever seen. It balances out in the end. ;-)

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the really great thing about Smallville is this new, vulnerable, totally engaging Lex. I mean, I know he's going to be The World's Greatest Villain in the end, just as Clark's going to be The World's Greatest Hero, but at least we get to see how he got there. And sympathise with him, and mourn for the better Lex that Could Have Been.

Or perhaps they'll twist it even more. Make him something like a good guy, if you squint. Heh. I like AUs that are just two or three steps away from the regular verse.

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

And sympathise with him, and mourn for the better Lex that Could Have Been.

Exactly...At its best, Smallville plays up the tragedy of Lex Luthor. All of the scenes displaying the great friendship between Clark and him are always incredibly bittersweet, since they will one day be mortal enemies, and when you watch you think of how differently it could have gone, perhaps had Clark been more honest with him to begin with and had he been more honest with Clark. I think the most interesting aspect of the show, though, is that in keeping his secret, Clark drove Lex away, thus contributing a great deal to the Lex of the future. Is this the only version of the Superman story where Clark himself is indicated as possibly having helped create (if indirectly) Lex's evil? Powerful stuff, again, when Smallville is at its best.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

In Elliot S. Maggin's book "Superman: Last Son of Krypoton" Lex tells Superman that if Superman had never existed, he wouldn't have existed either. He only became such a huge villain to fight such a huge hero as Superman. It was the competition that drove him, not the spoils of crime. It's a good story, and it's not a novelization of the old movie, although Christopher Reeve is on the cover of my old edition. "Miracle Monday" is good too, especailly the part where Superman realizes he has become part of our alien planet, and has a place where he belongs. Good stuff.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :)

Yes, he's a hottie. Maybe I'm too old to appreciate him, lol.