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UK Opions on Eternal

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  • UK Opions on Eternal

    Well, I'll go first this week, although it doesn't mean that I liked this episode I'm afraid.

    First off, the title. I suppose Eternal can be justified by the fact that Davis/Doomsday is now apparently immortal, but Rewrite, Retcon, Insanity and Uneccessary would have been equally suitable. Now, before I comment on the plot itself, can I just note that Tess appears to have moved on from ruthless villain/businesswoman to Certifiably Bonkers Member Of A Pseudo-relegious Cult. At some points, I half expected Panorama reporter John Sweeney to burst in screaming "YOU WERE NOT THERE! YOU CANNOT ASSERT THAT!!!" - especially when she started coming up with her interpretation of what the Kawatche legends meant. Unfortunately, being Certifiably Bonkers made Tess a much less interesting character - less of a would-be Lex Luthor and more of a female Edward Teague. However, there is always a faint possibility that the producers might use her new-found insanity as an excuse to do a tribute to one of Red Dwarf's most famous episodes. Picture Tess in a gingham dress, pigtails, army boots and, on her right hand, her new friend, a penguin glove puppet called Mr Flibble:

    "What's that, Mr Flibble? You don't think he was telling us the truth? Oh, you shouldn't have done that, Clark. You shouldn't have lied to us. Mr Flibble doesn't like people who lie to us..."

    So, apart from Tess booking a one-way ticket to a padded cell, what did we get? Well, for some reason, Doomsday had to be retconned into the Veritas storyline and the Naman/Sageeth legend by having Davis found by Lionel Luthor's men and spending some time playing with Lex. Now, I can understand that the producers want to bring the purple orb thingy back into play, but why have a connection to the Luthors? Lionel's dead and Lex is currently presumed to be, so why the dull and somewhat awkward retcon, rather than show that Davis was following his own path, one of which the main players were completely unaware? Similarly, making Davis Sageeth rather than Lex invalidates parts of the legend (that Sageeth was Naman's friend, and like a brother to him), for no great dramatic gain. Actually, an attempt to justify the change - Clark telling Davis that they should have been brothers - shows how poor an idea it is: it rings hollow, because Doomsday is not a Kryptonian, but a chimera created using genetic material from various creatures that lived on Krypton. Worse still, Clark speaks of childhood nightmares in which he wasn't found by the Kents, but he never knew that he was an alien until he started high school. As with Tess' "Davis is Judas" thesis, this episode seemed to be a clumsy attempt to justify a story that simply did not fit established facts, rather than create a viable backstory for Doomsday.

    Apart from the dumb plot, other stupidities abounded. Allison Mack got this week's really dud line: "That's a pretty big coincidence pill to swallow" (why not "that's some coincidence" or "quite a coincidence" - you know, phrases people actually say?). Clark and Chloe discover just how many people Davis has killed, but by the climax, they appear to have forgotten - viewing execution as morally wrong is fine, but acting as if Davis is the only victim...not so good. As for the Kryptonite "gunge tank" - what is this, a revival of Noel's House Party? And why on Earth should Clark think that Davis killing/becoming Doomsday is his fault because he wound up with good parents and Davis didn't? Apart from making Clark look like a complete moron, it showed the idiocy of the introducing those five days in the Luthor Mansion into Davis' backstory. He isn't who he is because of the Luthors - or any other bad childrens'/foster homes, but because he is genetically programmed to be that way. It would have made more sense to have had flashbacks showing him at a succession of perfectly decent foster homes, but forced to leave each time following an "incident".

    All in all, this wasn't quite as bad as Turbulence: the dialogue wasn't guite as flat, and there were some decent performances (Saw Witwer, in particular, giving Davis some dignity as he makes it clear that he knows he must die for what he has done), despite the ludicrous nature of a lot of the script. However, it wasn't particularly entertaining, didn't advance the Doomsday plot in a good manner and left several characters looking very stupid indeed, so it gets added to this season's list of duds.

    ----- Added 1 Minutes later -----

    Quick note: if a mod can correct the title, since I clearly can't spell "opinions", I would be grateful.
    Last edited by newbaggy; 05-14-2009, 06:02 AM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

  • #2
    I'm a little torn on this episode. On one hand the flashbacks to the events of the meteor shower were well done, and fascinating to watch. And I loved getting to see lex again, even if it was young lex. But on the other hand those scenes should never have been in the episode, this whole retcon story was a terrible idea that shoudln't have happened. They were just trying to make davis seem more important than he is by saying he's been around from the beginning, has ties to the luthors, is a brother to clark, is the judas to clark's Jesus, and is destined to destroy the world, or make clark into superman. Ok we get it! He's important! Even though all he does is seduce chloe, and murder a few people, like many freaks of the week have done.

    I can forgive a lot of things. I can forgive the flashbacks that put davis at the meteor shower, because those scenes were so cool (and they were all tess reading a story anyway, so its not set in stone). And I can forgive the destroyed kryptonite cage being back, and it spraying liquid green k instead of davis just killing himself by touching some green k rock, because it was another cool scene. I appreciate them trying to keep things interesting visually.

    But I don't like how they're ruining chloe. Jimmy left her because she didn't beleive him when he said davis was a murderer, well now she knows davis is a murderer, and yet she makes no attempt to get back together with jimmy, or apologise, or anything? Not onscreen anyway. And the show ended with chloe choosing to stay with the murderer. Wha? So he's 'calmer' when he's around her... does that mean she plans to spent every second of the rest of her life with him, to stop him killing?

    This may be the worst ep of season 8 so far.

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    • #3
      Season 8 has really dumbed down all the characters!
      WHY did Clark want to save Davis when he knew he could kill him???
      I'm not sure I like the road Chloe is on!!

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      • #4
        Originally posted by 9-SOSIHTWB
        Season 8 has really dumbed down all the characters!
        WHY did Clark want to save Davis when he knew he could kill him???
        I'm not sure I like the road Chloe is on!!
        I agree with you in the road that Chloe is going down on is pretty bad, but remember that in the future Clark Kent will be Superman and Superman doesn't kill anybody. He's that type of moral hero who always wants to find another way other than killing and it's those morals that Martha and Jonathan have been instilling him with in the early seasons of Smallville.

        I must agree that Chloe is acting a little bit idiotic here. I mean, seriously, I wouldn't fall in love with the world's ultimate destroyer even if she were the sexiest woman on the planet. Davis has little personality to attract Chloe; their relationship is clearly sympathy-based. Either that or Chloe has been driven completely mad...

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