"Spirit" Review!
Written by Triplet

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Brief Recap:

Dawn is a narcissistic Prom Queen wannabe who ends up driving her car off of a cliff and into a gorge filled with (what else) kryptonite. Her spirit is freed from her comatose body and invades a series of people, affecting their behavior. She goes through almost the entire cast actually. Meanwhile on the Stone storyline front, Lex hides Bridgette Crosby's corpse but Jason plays dumb even though he had a lot more to do with it than one might think he ha. And Clark gets a little Lana action in a very romantic scene that made Clana shippers happy the world over.

I liked the episode a lot but before I start the review, I want to have myself a little rant.

Rant:

The tease was annoying. As gorgeous and talented as Allison Mack is, she couldn't save this for me. The teaser is essentially flawed, in my opinion, since it's thinly veiled purpose was to have the most shocking moment happen in the first two minutes. The result sets up the rest of the show as a flashback that builds again to that moment.

I hate when that happens. They do that a lot on Star Trek: Enterprise a lot and it's a crutch. (Sorry, second review in a row where I mention a ST skein. I'll try not to do that next time.)

If you can't tell the story from the beginning then maybe there's probably something so fundamentally wrong with it to begin with that there's no point trying to use gimmicky time shifts to fix it.

If anyone reading this ever gets a job writing for genre TV (or is currently holding such a job) and runs into this situation and thinks a flashback episode is the cure-all, let me give you a tip: it's a lost cause. If you ever feel the urge to make your first four acts a flashback, then maybe you should just throw that 50 pages of drek you just wrote into a drawer and start over.

But never mind the flashback set up thing. That could very well be an unreasonable pet peeve of mine that bothered absolutely no one else. No, probably the worst part of this was that in the first two minutes of the show they spoiled that Chloe would be going postal.

:sigh:

I would have preferred that have been news when it finally happened some 43 minutes later. Because her storming off the stage at the end of Act Four then became an act break cliff hanger that wasn't very cliff hanging…

I knew what would happen next because I had seen the tease… So, how is ruining what should be your biggest act break cliff hanger a good idea?

If anyone knows the answer to that, please let me know. I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that one.

Review:

Anyway, aside from timeline trickery (and an annoying guest star, more on that "laters") I enjoyed this episode a lot. Probably the best part of the show was Annette O'Toole's performance as the teen drama queen possessing Martha's body. She's always perfectly motherly, loving, warm and generous as Martha. She's been underutilized this season, so I was glad to see her get possessed by the vengeful Dawn Stiles. It gave her a unique opportunity to stretch herself outside the boundaries of Martha's usual straight-laced self.

I must think that Annette O'Toole really enjoyed herself during this episode because she was at the top of her form. It was a rare chance for Annette to show her stuff and she didn't disappoint. She was petulant, pouty, self-absorbed, vain, and loved singing along off-key to Ashlee Simpson songs. It was funny and lots of fun.

And why wouldn't it be? The guest star who played Dawn Stiles (Beatrice Rosen) was so over the top she was barely watch able. As interesting as that character could have been, she was totally ruined by the twisted caricature that Beatrice had made of Dawn. Too bad for Dawn, but it was pure comic fodder for Annette and the others whose characters were taken over by her.

I was disappointed that Clark wasn't in this episode very much, Tom did so well with the short time Clark was possessed by Dawn. His line, "The crown's mine, bitch." Was classic … This was more of an ensemble piece than usual. So just about everyone had a piece of the action, as it were, and did well. Everyone except for John Schneider, that is. This is the second straight episode where he's phoned it in.

Makes me wonder if he knows something we don't… I guess we'll see.

The episode made some good progress on several running storylines, which I always like to see. And Jason is finally showing his true colors.

Although, I have had a feeling for awhile that he's far deeper into his mother's intrigues then we've been led to believe, "Jason, methinks you dost protest too much."

But I had no idea he was such an active participant. After all, actually killing Bridgette Crosby in order to get the stone from her? That really surprised me. I thought Lex did it.

But poor Lana: she really doesn't know how to pick 'em, does she?

Jason is clearly possessive of Lana, if looks could kill when he saw Clark and Lana dancing together at the Prom, Clark's lifeless body would have been riddled with kryptonite bullets.

That's setting up a conflict that will play out later in the season, no doubt. I can't wait to see what happens there.

Anyway, the director of photography again did a beautiful job as did the costume and production designers. The Prom was gorgeously lit and the set was beautifully dressed. I found it a very interesting technique to have the Christmas lights hang down into the frame as the camera dollied while the band performed. It added quite a bit of sparkle to the already sparkly set and was a nice touch.

Although Lois' dress was hideous, since she was in the depths of being possessed by Dawn at the time I thought that choice was understandable. Chloe's and Lana's dresses were perfect and their hair and make-up were fabulous. Martha's suit was probably a little too mother-of-the-bridish for a Prom chaperone, but Annette looked gorgeous in it.

And Clark's tux made the already drop dead gorgeous Tom Welling even more so… I liked the white rose boutonnière on Clark's lapel, it was a nice touch. It reminded me of the one he wore the last time he attended a formal dance at school in the season 1 season finale, Tempest.

Also, I must mention that the last couple of times that Smallville went to the trouble to bring in a band (this episode featured Lifehouse) it seemed forced and phony.

The director did an excellent job of seamlessly blending in the performance of the band into the dance scenes. It was very well done and they really seemed a natural part of the scene. Far more than Remy Zero did in similar scenes in Tempest or how tacked on the Steadman performance felt in Fever. Also the ending song, "You and Me" was a perfect fit for Clark finally getting the dance with Lana that he'd missed out on in the Pilot episode. It was beautiful and romantic.

I suppose the only major complaints I have center on the script. Scribe Luke Schelhaas' record hasn't actually been stellar since he signed on this year. His previous efforts include the less than successful Bound, Krypto and Devoted. Although, those episodes also had redeeming features...

Oh, well. They can't all be like Onyx and Transference.

All in all this was pretty uneven fare, but it gets pulled out of the cellar because of brilliant Annette O'Toole's wonderfully over the top performance as a Dawn-possessed Martha. She was so much fun to watch that I actually laughed out loud at several points.

3.5 stars outta 5.

Minor Episode Faux Pas:

Just where did Jonathan get that kryptonite so quickly? Wish they'd explained that one…

Note: The views of Triplet don't necessarily represent the thoughts and feelings of everyone at KryptonSite. Send her feedback - Talk about this review on the KryptonSite Forum!

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