Smallville Review – “Combat”

Sorry this review is later than usual. Flying home yesterday was something of a comedy of errors.

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
Erica Durance as
Lois Lane

Allison Mack as
Chloe

Sullivan.

Written by Turi Meyer and Al Septien.

Directed by James Marshall.

Original Airdate


Combat
originally aired on Thursday,

March 22, 2007.

Synopsis

Clark’s anger at Lana’s wedding is vented on meteor

freaks.

High Point

Clark gets himself recruited.

Low Point

The teaser structure was even worse than the latest

bout of convenient unconsciousness.

The Review

This wasn’t original. (I’m surprised the guy’s name was Maddox instead of Mongul.) The characters even constantly refer to it as a fight club. As for the Lex and Lana storyline, from my perspective, the only suprise was doing this before the season finale. I give it 3 out of 6.

The effects were more extravagant than usual. The first hit in the big fight looked great, but some of the acrobatic trajectories were all about the effects and not about the storytelling, which is distracting and sometimes hard to follow. I give it 4 out of 6.

The story was minimal. The side plots seemed to cover more ground than the main plotline did. Let’s hope this finally puts things to rest. I give it 4 out of 6.

The acting was mixed. Kreuk did some great work this week, as did Mack throughout and Welling at times. The WWE guest stars were less impressive, however. I give it 4 out of 6.

The emotional response could have been better. There were some fun moments, but there were some tired moments (Clark’s final conversation in the barn) and some very un-Supermanly stuff. I give it 4 out of 6.

The production started out very well. Things started to slip in the big fight, though, when the effects shots took precedence over the storytelling. I give it 4 out of 6.

Overall, it’s a piece of the puzzle, but if you missed it, I’m sure you’ll be able to catch up when the new episodes go back to air. I give it 4 out of 6.

In total,
Combat
receives

27 out of 42.

3 replies on “Smallville Review – “Combat””

  1. Elaboration on the guest stars, please
    Anything specific for how good (or bad) the WWE guest stars were?

    It looked like Glen Jacobs (Kane) was playing his usual "Brutal Psycho" character, which I could think he could pull off, since he’d been playing that type of character since at least 1996-7.

    I wasn’t aware of any other WWE guest stars on this episode.

    • Re: Elaboration on the guest stars, please

      Anything specific for how good (or bad) the WWE guest stars were?

      It looked like Glen Jacobs (Kane) was playing his usual "Brutal Psycho" character, which I could think he could pull off, since he’d been playing that type of character since at least 1996-7.

      I wasn’t aware of any other WWE guest stars on this episode.

      Ashley, one of the WWE Divas. She was as good (or bad) as you would expect.

  2. Clark goes nuts
    Of course both the fighter and the promoter had to die.

    The only time this episode could have been done is right after the wedding when Clark would be really, really mad – enough to take it out on poor widdle Titan.

    What was Lois doing in that costume? She sure can fight!

    Good lines from the fight: "My turn." "Nice fight."

    What was it that killed Titan, anyway?

    What was special about Lana’s baby?

    From the previous week: The standard convention: Two people who should get together RIGHT NOW say they will get together later and something happens to prevent that (big threat here, secondary character killed in Numb3rs).

    It is a general weakness of superheroes that they will not kill a bad guy who wants to kill them. This week was a big exception. In a current Superman comic, where someone comes from the future and tells of Superman’s defeat and eventual death by a villian named "Khyber" (sp?), the defeat is caused by Superman’s unwillingness to kill. The future guy’s lesson, as told by him, is that bad things happen in cycles and the good guys fighting only makes them worse. My read is the exact opposite: Unless the bad guys are really, permanently stopped, things will be really bad; if they are stopped, things will probably be better and certainly won’t be worse.

    When will Clark find out why Lana went through with the wedding?

    Will Lana ever get off the island? (Oops, wrong show)

    Tune in next week for the exciting (we hope) non-conclusion.

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