Smallville Review – “Ageless”

Twenty down, and two to go in the season. Two and a
half, if you count the extra long season finale.

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 and directed by Steven S. DeKnight.

Original Airdate


Ageless
originally aired on Wednesday,
May 4, 2005.

Synopsis

Clark and Lana find a baby in a crater, which ages
very rapidly.

High Point

Lionel and Genvieve. It seems there’s a loving father
buried in
there after all.

Low Point

The “only for a short time” speech. The content was
pointlessly
obvious, and the dialogue was corny. I get the
impression DeKnight
felt he should say something, but didn’t really know
what it should
be.

The Review

This wasn’t original. Ryan has been used in
a similar way
before, although this version seems to be primarily
focused on putting
Clark and Lana together again. The new material and
true character
growth seems to centre on Lionel. I give it 3 out of
6.

The effects were substandard this week. The
distortions were
rippling effects that didn’t seem to damage anything,
and the last
major effect looked like an explosion in the CGI,
though it behaved
like an implosion and torque at a random location when
you look at the
effect it had on the surroundings. I give it 2 out of
6.

The story, dispite a somewhat flimsy
framework, did some
great things with characters. Clark and Lana saw each
other in a new
perspective, Chloe had some great private moments, and
the Lionel and
Genvieve scenes were simply fantastic. I give it 4
out of 6.

The acting wasn’t bad. Kreuk keeps
improving, while the
others remain static. Kreuk and Welling are the only
two that I’d
really like to see improve, though, and one out of two
isn’t that
bad. I give it 4 out of 6.

The emotional response was not too bad.
There were some
great moments, but most of them seemed tangential to
the plot rather
than based on the plot itself. I think it would take
the pulling of a
lot of strings to make the officials happy about this
one, and they
just walked away with a “thank you” to Lex. I give it
4 out of 6.

The production is as good as ever. Shots
like Clark emerging
from the smoke are very well done, and the camera
angles are chosen to
maintain the correct focus throughout. I give it 5
out of 6.

Overall, this was a decent, but not
spectacular episode.
I’ve come to expect more from an episode this late
into the season of
the show. I give it 4 out of 6.

In total, Ageless receives 26 out of 42.

4 replies on “Smallville Review – “Ageless””

  1. Worst. Episode. Ever.
    Sorry, but this episode just really sucked. The stuff between Lionel/Lex/Genevieve (sp?) was awesome, but it made up like 20% of the show. The rest was just some horribly written dialogue, and possibly the most egregious ignorance of Clark’s powers by Lana. Just terrible….

    • Re: Worst. Episode. Ever.

      I agree! I maybe the writers have some master plan and next season we’ll all go “Oh! That’s why they had that really lame episode, but I doubt it.”

      I was wondering how Clark was going to explain away this too. The “Oh I got away at the last moment” excuse was weak.

      • Re: Worst. Episode. Ever.

        I agree! I maybe the writers have some master plan and next season we’ll all go “Oh! That’s why they had that really lame episode, but I doubt it.”

        I was wondering how Clark was going to explain away this too. The “Oh I got away at the last moment” excuse was weak.

        I’ll third that. Smallville started strong this season, but it seems to be petering out.

        And what is up with them killing off all these great guest stars? It’s almost like they went “Uh-oh, our budget’s running out and we still have to do a big finish!” It seems like bad planning – of course, I may yet be proven wrong.

    • Re: Worst. Episode. Ever.
      I didn’t dislike it *that* much, but it was definitely a disappointment after seeing a similar story told with Ryan. I would have given this about a 2 on the emotional response because it just didn’t hold a candle…

      I was able to let the authorities issue slide though, because too many people saw Evan age for there to have been much of a problem there.

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