Spell

DVD, Smallville S4 (Spell)

Worst episode of 'Smallville' ever? I, for one, can't recall any as ridiculous as this one. It really bugs me, and it's not a new thing, but when these radical events occur the teens of Smallville mooch around at the end, apologising and shrugging as if it was an everyday occurrence, and anyone else just sort of says 'oh well'. Now this is the town of weird stuff, but when weirdness becomes the norm, it's not weird any more and each time they've done this, it becomes harder to believe in the characters as real people in a real world. I know it's supposed to be like a comic book, and I always come back to these arguments which shows I've fallen out of the sphere of acceptance, that suspension of disbelief that we tend to engage to enjoy these things. But the sphere gets smaller each time something as absolutely stupid as this happens.

Of course they can always just have them suffer from amnesia... AGAIN! I wondered if this was how Lana would find out about Clark's powers, but as usual she forgot. Sorry Lex. Hey, no worries, these things happen. As for having the supernatural in the series, you can tell they're trying to be 'Buffy' or 'Charmed', and such things are completely out of place in this series. And now this 'magic' can harm Clark? It's all so much scraping the bottom of the barrel. They can't think of an intelligent way of using Lana so they make her possessed by a witch. How low can they go?

The only saving grace of the episode was that they didn't drag the idea on, as I had a feeling they might foolishly do. The last few minutes feel more like proper 'Smallville' even with the belief-beggaring reset button. I'd rather that than have witchery and that kind of stuff a regular part of the series. As is now the norm, the season's unfolding seems random and directionless, apart from the core storyline of finding the three stones. You'd think this would leave the writers open for experimentation and clever stories, but instead all the good feelings I had towards the season have almost evaporated. I have to keep reminding myself of the good run we had with 'Facade', 'Devoted', 'Run' and 'Transference'. Certainly Season Four has kept its neck above water much better than Three, so far. Let's hope the good outweighs the bad. And I didn't even go off on one about how the cave always has a convenient symbol whenever they run out of ideas... Oh.

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