Smallville Review – “Spirit”

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Cast

Tom
Welling
as
Clark Kent

Kristen Kreuk as
Lana Lang

Michael
Rosenbaum
as Lex Luthor

John
Glover

as Lionel Luthor

Annette
O’Toole
as Martha Kent

John
Schneider
as Jonathan Kent

Jensen Ackles as
Jason Teague

Allison Mack as
Chloe Sullivan.

Written by Luke Schelhaas.

Directed by Whitney Ransick.

Original Airdate


Spirit
originally aired on Wednesday,
April 20, 2005.

Synopsis

What would a Smallville prom be without a body
snatching prom queen?

High Point

The ice cream dinner scene.

Low Point

If he sent Jonathan for that, then he knew what kind
of danger he was
putting the host in. That’s way out of character, and
seems to have
been forced into the plot as a mechanism for relaying
a particular
piece of information.

The Review

This episode’s basic plot was about as
original as last
week’s. It wasn’t even original when it was used as
the series finale
in the first Star Trek series. I give it 2
out of 6.

The effects were not bad, but they weren’t
anything we
haven’t seen before. Clark’s dash in the blackout was
very nicely
done. The problem was in consistency for the story;
if Jonathan
responded to the conclusion, then it was visible, and
Clark would have
noticed it at other times. I give it 4 out of 6.

The story had some very interesting
implications
(particularly in the B-plot at Luthor mansion), and
the execution was
decent apart from a short span at the end. I give it
4 out of 6.

The acting is always amusing with a body swap
episode. There
was some nice out of character work all around,
particularly from
Annette O’Toole. I give it 5 out of 6.

The emotional response wasn’t great. There
were amusing
moments, but the teaser portion that aired before the
credits
completely removed any sense of suspence. Yeah, they
were trying to
make the fans think something else was going on, but
when the “body
snatching prom queen” line has been blasted so often
on all the ads,
including the one that aired right before the episode,
there’s not
going to be a lot of confused members of the audience.
There were
amusing moments along the way, and a B-plot that
worked quite well, so
I’ll give it 4 out of 6.

The production is the typical quality for the
show. The
lighting in the Jason/Lex confrontation was very well
done. I give it
5 out of 6.

Overall, despite some predictability, it’s a
nicely made
episode leading us into the end of the season. Only
four episodes are
left. I give it 5 out of 6.

In total, Spirit receives 29 out of 42.

4 replies on “Smallville Review – “Spirit””

  1. seeing it coming

    the “body snatching prom queen” line has been blasted so often on all the ads, including the one that aired right before the episode, there’s not going to be a lot of confused members of the audience.

    I hadn’t seen any spoilerish ads, but as soon as I saw her stand in front of the oncoming pick-up I thought “Oh, a discorporiated body snatcher”, on account of, as you said, the pre-intro-credit teaser.

    Still fun.

    • Re: seeing it coming

      the “body snatching prom queen” line has been blasted so often on all the ads, including the one that aired right before the episode, there’s not going to be a lot of confused members of the audience.

      I hadn’t seen any spoilerish ads, but as soon as I saw her stand in front of the oncoming pick-up I thought “Oh, a discorporiated body snatcher”, on account of, as you said, the pre-intro-credit teaser.

      Still fun.

      Not exactly an auspicious penultimate episode. They probably could have had a more interesting ep if it looked like some Kryponite-villian-of-the-week was causing trouble, but nothing was actually going on. Just a string of implausable, yet possible events. You know, the guest star appears to be in 3 places at once, but they are really triplets, stuff like that. Now that would drive Chloe up the wall!

  2. Crusty Premise with Good Movement
    Thanks to TiVo, I see no commercials (30-second skip) and thus had no idea what was going to happen at the opening of the show. Of course, that lasted just about as long as it took to see Chloe with a tiara in the opening scene and then the “one day earlier” introduction of Ms. Prom Queen Wannabe. At that point, the main plot was completely spoiled – sadly, even the ending solution was the one I expected.

    That being said, the movement on the subplot was appreciated. Getting a glimpse of how the “artifact” situation is probably going to play out was overdue, though they might have given away a little too much. They almost had to because of the final scene (without one critical piece of info, that last scene could take on too much added significance down the line) but it was still a lot of info for what seemed to be a one-off “throwaway” episode.

    I’m rambling, ah well…If I were to give this episode a score, it would probably be a 6/10. Five points for an old premise done pretty well with some decent humor and a bonus point for revelations and setup for future episodes.

    PS- I did actually stick around for the preview for next week. I’m quite looking forward to that one. :)

    • Re: Crusty Premise with Good Movement

      At that point, the main plot was completely spoiled

      I quite agree, it’s a completely lame device to show the almost-ending, then go back and tell the actual story.

      Having not seen the ads either, I rather thought the line about the smallville body-snatching prom queen was the high point of the show, though I agree that Annette did a great job as a high school bimbo.

      I’m not quite sure I follow the comments about Jonathan at the end — it seems to me that Clark knew that was the only way to get Chloe free safely and then solve the problem once and for all. I thought it was a good solution to the problem. With the exception of the fact that Dawn was wandering around free when she first went into Clark’s mom, so why couldn’t she go back to Chloe, or even into Jonathan? Still, I can live with that, it’s far from the worst thing they’ve done…

      I also can’t wait to see where they’re going with Jason now…

      PS- I did actually stick around for the preview for next week. I’m quite looking forward to that one. :)

      The idea of chloe teaching clark how to be superman is an intriguing one…

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