Superman on Television

Smallville: Episode Reviews

Episode 7: "Craving"

Okay. It has been brought to my attention that I am missing several things with these reviews...so I'll address them straight up, here, at the beginning.

First, the good. I've been missing the fact that Chloe has some great lines. Chloe, as a character, has been omitted far too much from my reviews. She is a peripheral character, sure, but she's also an important and well liked one. Also, it should be noted, as a general matter of course, that the music is fairly well chosen. Save Me is the first song on my play list in the morning, and the last one at night.

Then, the bad. The characters are great. The premise is great, but the plot has grown absolutely, positively stinking horrible in its formulaic spirit. In my opinion, the characterization and the new take on the old heroes, done very well, overshadows the pitiful plotting and makes the show more than worthwhile, but the plot is getting worse, fast, and something needs to be done about it, or this show will say hello, dinosaurs, goodbye royalties.

Which brings me to the episode at hand: Craving.

The characters, as always, were top notch. The Lana/Clark ending made gooseflesh break out on my arm, and the moment when Lex indicated that he got rid of Whitney was priceless. Pete and his date acceptance...gold. The gluteus who poked fun of the "chubby chasing" who was then nearly eaten...gotta love that. And the continuing good writing, at least from the dialogic and characterization front, proved exemplary once again. The drive-in was succinct and brought out well, without expectation. Good hidden foreshadow.

The villain almost made all of this negated. The make-up was horrible. She didn't look like a fat girl. As an overweight person, I know my own, and from the moment I saw her on the screen, I knew the villain was really a sprightly teen actor faking it...poorly. Once again, Kryptonite makes the villain, with no explanation. You'd think several things...

First, if Clark is vulnerable to Kryptonite, and these are Kryptonite spawned powers/maladies, that he would be affected.

Second...you'd think someone would start noticing that a) Clark is saving everyone in town, and b) Superhumans are popping up left and right.

And barring that, third, you might also think that someone who survived the craziness, say the truck driver, the "craving" girl, the "horse necklace waitress" from Hourglass, and maybe even Lex Luthor might start talking and exposing Clark.

There's these things, and the cookie-cutter plot. It's starting to wear thin and affect the enjoyment of the show. For me, at least.

Still, I will say, it beats most of the cookie-cutter plots on TV these days, and at least it's Superman.

Because of these things, I give this episode 3 of 5.

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