oiran | Smallville and Veronica Mars

Smallville: *squee* Naked, naked, more naked. Shirtless!! Doublemen!

Lana: KK certainly has better chemistry with this new boyfriend than with TW, and I liked him. I wonder if he's going back to Smallville with her... (don't tell me, though). I was inadvertently spoiled for the whole Super!Lana thing, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. And I actually loved naked, fucked-up, sweaty Lana babbling across the door chain about passing out and waking up at home and not knowing how she got there. The tattoo was one of the things that had me worried, but in context it was fine. In fact, it does make more sense for Lana to wake up with a mysterious mark than to deliberately go to a tattoo parlor and ask for a specific design. Even if it turns out she actually did go get a tattoo with a needle and ink, she did it under the influence of...mystical WB-S, which seems much more in character than making a conscious decision like a normal person.

Clark: I personally prefer Kal-El, the humorless, clothing-optional, contraction-free, alien sex god, to the simple, fully-clothed farm lad. I mean, come one: which one is more likely to rule you and make you like it? Plus, flying! And the lavish use of that blue-white light that makes him all eyesockets and cheekbones and tousled hair and just guh. I hope we haven't seen the absolute last of Kal-El.

Lois: my quibbles with Lois have more to do with the writing than the actress, i.e., there was certainly a lot of emphasis placed on making her ~~annoying~~ quirky, and there was a bit much mugging going on. However, she has chemistry with TW, and she's pretty and the mugging demonstrates that her upper lip does, in fact, move, so she's already a definite improvement on KK in terms of being able to hold up her corner of the triangle. I also am annoyed with her hair: it is pretty hair, but I bet it was prettier before someone went at it with the 70s-style Frost-and-Tip. I had seen pics and read a few things that made me wonder if she was going to be another Victoria, but I am confident now that she will neither embarrass herself nor bore the audience.

Lex: The shirtless thing was nice. And there was no hair, at least this time, which always makes me extra-happy. I can't remember my Egyptian gods, so can anyone tell me what Horus' special trick is? I'm curious if he has any Supes-legend-associated relevance, or if it was just someone in props picking a random shiny god.

The thing that bothered me: Margot Kidder, whose character name escapes me, showing up with the box of black Kryptonite. First, that box looks just like (and probably is) these cheesy little "CD lockers" that I saw (and disdained) at Best Buy. Second, wtf does black Kryptonite do? Because I don't know one way or the other how it behaves in comics canon (or if it even exists), but there's this presumption that I know it does something because why else would this mysterious person show up with a big chunk of it? How would Dr. Swann know what it does? Did he get another message that he hasn't told Clark about? Does he have another Kryptonian locked up in a box in the basement of the planetarium and he and Dr. Margot poke at it with different-colored stones for fun? And then, as

lexcorp_hope points out in her script analysis, it really sucks that Mama Kent's timely use of black-K basically absolves Clark of having made choices, whether for right or wrong, and contradicts past information we've received about Clark's responsibility for his behavior.

Overall, though, I was happy.

Veronica Mars: Well, I'll certainly watch it next week, but I'm kind of disturbed. The various evils arrayed against young Ronnie are pretty fucking dark, though the show doesn't seem to be quite aware enough of this... The degree and variety of violence in this little community seems excessive and thus somewhat trivialized, if that makes any sense.

I do really like the actress - Kristen Bell - who plays Veronica. And I like that her new friend is a total dweeb and a sweet boy. She's going to help him grow some balls, obviously. And who doesn't like Enrico Colantoni (i.e., her dad)? Even if he's not being really funny here. I have to admit, I can't see him without thinking of his character in Galaxy Quest. Which I love, but I digress...

The virginal white dress/roofie thing was creepy and overkill. I somehow missed who, exactly, the new sheriff is - in the pockets of Mr. Kane, I suppose? Or just an asshole? And, okay, I can't get away from the roofie rape thing: it always bothers me when shows depict "date rape" type scenarios playing out like this. Yeah, it's what worked for this plot, and yeah it's what usually happens (i.e., girl doesn't bother to report it for various social/self-worth reasons), but just once I'd like to see even a meek girl decide to take herself to the ER and have them do an exam and rape kit. Because, you know, maybe some girl will see a fake!girl do that on TV and do it for herself should the awful circumstance arise, or convince a friend or something useful like that...

I could have told her whose car that was without running the plate. I bet you could have, too.

I did like how everything wrapped up, as I was wondering if it was going to just be a big pile of loose ends at the close of the hour. Because, yeah, I kind of didn't expect anything resembling Earth logic, since I was really seeing this as Chloe Dark. I can easily anticipate that it might take me a few episodes to stop thinking Veronica = Chloe.