"Sleeper"
Review!
Written
by C.M.
Houghton ("Triplet")
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WARNING:
This review will spoil you rotten, so don't
you dare read this until after you've seen this
episode. I gave you fair warning...
You
know, I had a bad feeling about this episode
as soon as I realized the tease was a flashback.
I
loathe that as a plot device. I mean I LOATHE
it with a passion. I cannot express how much
I hate flashback episodes. In fact, I hate it
so much any hope I had for this episode actually
died a very quick and painful death even before
the tease was over.
I
hate flashback episodes mostly because the device
had been used so poorly by Smallville in the
past. It's a crutch to insert tension and drama
into a moment and to maybe even, especially
in this case, use up some screen time of a short
episode by showing parts of the action twice.
I really think with "Sleeper" that
they didn't have enough story in order to tell
it all in the space of the hour, so they had
to tell some of it twice.
I
can only think of a one episode of Smallville
that's used this device well, "Combat."
"Spirit," also directed by this episodes
helmer Whitney Ransick, was a particularly good
example of it being used badly.
I'm
surprised scribe Caroline Dries produced such
a boring episode, but what surprises me more
is how much ground was lost from what had been
gained in just the last episode. Clark, so passive
and wrapped up in trying to protect Lana in
"Veritas," had actually shown some
backbone and acted very much like his Future
Super-self in "Descent." He has seriously
backslid as a character in this episode.
Here
in this episode, not only was he obsessed with
Lana, spending all night with her at the asylum,
he was totally ignoring the promise he'd made
to Chloe at the end of "Descent".
She told him, massively stating the obvious
by-the-way, that Clark had to get the keys away
from Lex.
Clark
had replied, "He's not going to have the
chance. I won't let him."
What
a great line.
What
a perfectly awesome Superman moment...
The
resolve in Tom's voice, the determination on
his face: it was all perfectly like Superman.
What a great scene and what a terrific promise
that I was sure he was going to keep. At least,
I was sure until this sorry excuse of an episode.
So,
why on earth would they take Clark a step forward,
get him closer to his future-self, and then
move three steps back in just the next episode?
Why would he tell Chloe that he doesn't care
about Lex now? What happened? Is he bipolar?
Does Clark have multiple personality disorder?
Why the change in the space of an episode? Why
squander the ground they'd gained so quickly?
I
just said in my "Descent" review how
much like Superman Clark had become. Then they
turn him into a guy who forgets a promise he
had just made to not let Lex get away with anything.
I
know they're getting another season, but come
on. I love this show and tend to be more forgiving
than a lot of other reviewers online, but what
they did with Clark here was ridiculous.
And
yeah, I can even see why they did it. They needed
to put Clark into a sort of a holding pattern
for the space of this episode. This was largely
what is derisively called by online fans as
a "filler" episode. I have said in
the past that I don't think that Smallville
really has filler episodes, even almost completely
pointless episodes show some forward momentum
in the season's storylines. There was some moving
along here too: Lex got to Zurich and Clark
did finally buy a clue about where Brainiac
took Kara and Chloe and Jimmy patched things
up a bit. But somehow at the same time, and
inexplicably, they actually moved backwards
with Clark's storyline.
The
filler vibe in this episode, and I truly think
this is like Hero or Blue with the ends very
much justifying the means here, is doubly inexcusable
because at this point they went in knowing that
they were two episodes short this season. Why
even have a "filler" episode to begin
with? They were lucky they got five more to
shoot after the strike ended. Some shows didn't
get to finish their seasons, like Heroes, or
only got a few more episodes to shoot, like
Supernatural (coming in at 6 episodes short
of a full season). Why blow the chance to do
their best every single episode they had left?
Maybe
this dreck happened due to rewrites done when
Tom was given the helming duties for the next
episode, "Apocalypse..." The man isn't
a machine, after all. He needs time to do the
prep work for what could possibly be the most
important episode he's directed so far. Or maybe
it was due to some reshuffling they had to do
to get five episodes shot in only 6 and a half
weeks after the writers' strike was over....
I have no clue why a normally very dependable
writer ("Subterranean," notwithstanding)
like Caroline would produce dreck like this.
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I
mean, not only do they do this to Clark,
they also turned hapless and not-quite-with
it Jimmy into James Bond? I understand
that this is homage to a comic book series
on Jimmy, but get serious... Does anyone
really believe he could take on a trained
government agent and not have his butt
handed to him on a platter? He can't take
good enough photos to guarantee his job
much less have good enough eye-hand coordination
to make an omelet without breaking eggshells
into the bowl. How could he possibly last
longer than a second with a trained operative?
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And
why did they have him do a tango with Chloe?
I know Allison Mack has dance experience, but
I don't buy Jimmy as a good dancer anymore than
I buy him competing with James Bond for a 00
license.
And
why was it Clark who had suggested that Chloe
break Federal law to hack into top secret spy
satellites? With Jonathan and Martha gone, I
thought he'd become the new moral compass of
the show. Why would he want Chloe to break the
law and risk jail for him? How did she even
get the skills to do that anyway? She's not
a hacker in the traditional sense and she's
not a computer science major. She's a journalist.
Why
is a satellite monitoring station in the same
building as a night club to begin with? Does
any night club actually want to be in a building
that secure? It's a silly plot point.
As
much as I hated this episode, there were some
things to like. I'm glad I was right about Lex
not being guilty of Gina's murder in the last
episode... The guy who attacked Lex certainly
was the same man, he looked the same... However,
his attempt on Lex's life opened up more questions
than answers. Who is he? Why was he surprised
that Lex wasn't one of "them"? Was
he referring to the Veritas group Lionel had
killed off? Why try to kill Lex if he didn't
know who he was?
And
how does that thing-a-ma-jig that Lex retrieved
from Zurich even control Clark? What does it
do? The engravings in the brass looked kind
of like a map of some kind... A map to what?
It's an intriguing aspect to the Veritas storyline.
Another
thing I was glad to find out was what Brainiac
had been up to and where he'd taken Kara, even
though it's a bit of a stretch. So, she's on
Krypton in the past, but why did he need her
there? Why take her to the past? Does it make
it easier for him to get closer to Clark as
a baby Kal-El on Krypton? How could she get
away from him to communicate with Clark in the
future? Maybe they'll explain that, but color
me massively confused by that specifically and
by this entire episode in general.
Arguably,
it had enough storyline advancement to probably
not be a totally worthless episode, but I was
bored silly during most of it. I was completely
under whelmed so I only watched this twice.
It fared even less well on a second viewing.
I can honestly say the best part of this episode
was the preview for the next episode that Tom
directed, "Apocalypse..."
Hopefully,
Caroline will restore my faith in her writing
skills with her next effort. This one was massively
disappointing on several levels.
Tom
Welling was barely in this episode, having less
than ten minutes of screen time, since he was
given some time off to prepare for his helming
duties. I don't know how much I can say about
him.
Well,
I could probably talk about the wonderful scenes
he had with his costars. Despite his character's
inexplicably deliberately obtuse reaction to
the threat that Lex posed (yeah, that's me saying
he was a Big Dumb Alien, BDA, but in a nice
way), he did well in his scenes from an acting
standpoint.
He's
always had nice chemistry with Allison, as he
did again here, but it was nice to see him getting
some quality screen time with Aaron's Jimmy.
While they aren't really friends in the comics,
Jimmy looks up to Clark and will ask him for
advice. Tom did a good job acting the older,
wiser friend. It was nice that Tom and Aaron
were able to portray a little bit of that and
it was probably one of the few good things in
this episode. I hope they do it more in the
future.
Michael
was terrific in this episode, even though he
had even less screen time than Tom. He kicked
it up a notch with the evil-doing, but showed
a nice touch of regret when Lex looked at the
passport wallet Lionel had given Lex.
However,
his miniscule amount of screen time in this
episode is inexcusable, actually. They knew
coming back that they maybe only have him for
just the rest of the season since he still hasn't
signed up for next year. So why waste a minute
and a half of his potential screen time for
the sake of a Jimmy/Chloe tango? Inexplicable...
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Allison
Mack did a terrific job as Chloe, I guess,
but the plot holes got in the way. She
did have some nice moments with both Tom
and Aaron. I especially liked the morning
scene between Jimmy and Chloe. She played
Chloe as sincerely charmed by Jimmy so
she was reluctant to leave, but I guess
she had a meeting with Clark she couldn't
miss. Oh, and it's nice to see Allison
showing off her skills on the dance floor,
but the choreography didn't help her much.
The dance seemed stiff and I don't think
it was photographed well.
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I
love Aaron Ashmore's Jimmy, I do, don't get
me wrong. He was charming and earnest as Jimmy,
yet in this episode he bored me silly. He was
adorably goofy in the opening breakfast scene
with Chloe and his confusion with escalation
of the episode's events was well played, but
I couldn't wait for this episode to be over.
I don't think it was his fault, even though
he had the most screen time of anyone in this
episode, but it makes me not look forward to
any future Jimmy-centric episodes.
I
was thoroughly disappointed with this episode
on several levels, so despite the excellent
ending and terrific acting by everyone I give
this episode 2 Veritas secret brass what's-its
out of a possible 5.
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