Allison Mack's overwhelmingly bad acting meant this episode was not nearly as powerful as it could have been, no matter how atmospheric the lighting, set design, costuming and special effects are.
Hmm. I didn't think it was bad, so much as it was off target. If she'd been playing a villain we hadn't seen before, I would have been quite impressed. It just didn't sync up with the prior portrayals of Brainiac. It was a lot of fun in a no-holds-barred, almost campy kind of way. I just... I think that AM is a talented actress, I just think that she didn't subjugate her own profile to the part. For all that he takes hits for on-the-job learning, I think Tom Welling has shown remarkable aptitude for playing different bad guys... Lionel, Red!K Clark, Bizarro, they were all distinct. This, on the other hand, just felt "generic bad guy" to me. Not that it wasn't a good generic bad guy, but I didn't love it the way I would have if it had been a one-off character, as with Erica Durance's turn as Faora.
I did like the reveal that the attraction was 'just a program' Brainiac had been running. Wow, mind fuck!
Yes, I loved that.
SOOOOO FRIGGING ANNOYED that she knows his secret again! Arrrrrrghhhhhhhh. The writers threw away a massive opportunity there. Grrrrr.
It seems to me, in retrospect, that the purpose the memory-altering served was to get it on record that it was something that Clark (with Jor-El's help, of course) was capable of, both in terms of the technical execution of it, and making the decision to do it. I suspect that it prefigures something they'll pull out in (or close to) the finale, and that they've done it here means that it won't be an out-of-nowhere solution.
Way more intriguing for me than the Legion telling Clark he'd have immense interplanetary influence, was Irma telling Lana that she's read stories about her and the incredible things that she'll go on to do. Wow.
I was extremely pleased to hear someone say that Lana, who too often is just The Love Interest, has value in and of herself, completely separate from her romantic entanglements. And I loved how KK played the reaction to hearing it, too — how much it meant to her that she's valuable as herself, not just as an accessory to Clark.
She felt very centred as a character. And wow, this made me REALLY wish that Lana was Clark's confidant/secret-keeper
I've wanted to see Lana in this role for a while — I loved their friendship/confidante vibe in the early days; how they could talk to each other. I loved seeing that come back... there was such a lovely feel to that final scene between them in this episode; it didn't feel, to me at least, as if it was leading up to anything romantic, just solid knowledge of each other and security. I could definitely stand to see more of that.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-01-17 04:49 pm (UTC)Hmm. I didn't think it was bad, so much as it was off target. If she'd been playing a villain we hadn't seen before, I would have been quite impressed. It just didn't sync up with the prior portrayals of Brainiac. It was a lot of fun in a no-holds-barred, almost campy kind of way. I just... I think that AM is a talented actress, I just think that she didn't subjugate her own profile to the part. For all that he takes hits for on-the-job learning, I think Tom Welling has shown remarkable aptitude for playing different bad guys... Lionel, Red!K Clark, Bizarro, they were all distinct. This, on the other hand, just felt "generic bad guy" to me. Not that it wasn't a good generic bad guy, but I didn't love it the way I would have if it had been a one-off character, as with Erica Durance's turn as Faora.
I did like the reveal that the attraction was 'just a program' Brainiac had been running. Wow, mind fuck!
Yes, I loved that.
SOOOOO FRIGGING ANNOYED that she knows his secret again! Arrrrrrghhhhhhhh. The writers threw away a massive opportunity there. Grrrrr.
It seems to me, in retrospect, that the purpose the memory-altering served was to get it on record that it was something that Clark (with Jor-El's help, of course) was capable of, both in terms of the technical execution of it, and making the decision to do it. I suspect that it prefigures something they'll pull out in (or close to) the finale, and that they've done it here means that it won't be an out-of-nowhere solution.
Way more intriguing for me than the Legion telling Clark he'd have immense interplanetary influence, was Irma telling Lana that she's read stories about her and the incredible things that she'll go on to do. Wow.
I was extremely pleased to hear someone say that Lana, who too often is just The Love Interest, has value in and of herself, completely separate from her romantic entanglements. And I loved how KK played the reaction to hearing it, too — how much it meant to her that she's valuable as herself, not just as an accessory to Clark.
She felt very centred as a character. And wow, this made me REALLY wish that Lana was Clark's confidant/secret-keeper
I've wanted to see Lana in this role for a while — I loved their friendship/confidante vibe in the early days; how they could talk to each other. I loved seeing that come back... there was such a lovely feel to that final scene between them in this episode; it didn't feel, to me at least, as if it was leading up to anything romantic, just solid knowledge of each other and security. I could definitely stand to see more of that.