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Now, I'm the one who's always liked Enterprise right from the start... I thought the first season was a nice change of pace, I loved the action in the second season, and I really thought the third season of Enterprise was one of the strongest Trek seasons in the history of the franchise... Probably at times, I've felt like the only one who felt that Star Trek Enterprise was worthy of the Star Trek name...

... hell, even if I actually liked Smallville this week, it wouldn't have stood a chance against the return of Data... Now, I have no clue why Brent Spiner returned to the universe of Star Trek. I mean, last I heard of him, he was going on tirades about just how much he hated being typecasted for the robotic role he never wanted in the first place...

But damn, am I ever happy to see one of my favourite Star Trek actors come back to the series I love... Because in all honesty, Brent Spiner completely owned the screen with all the amazing lines he was given in this episode... Sure, at times he acted a bit too much like Lore from TNG for his own good. But seriously, why the heck would that matter, when a) that actually makes sense, since Soong's descendent did program Lore, and b) Arik Soong had some of the best script writing I've ever heard on the show, period... Right from the start, Brent Spiner brought in a whole new conviction into the show, with just the way he would mock Archer for being the hero of the world... I absolutely loved the dialogue between Soong and Phlox, not only for bringing up a lot of real world points on genetic engineering, but because you could somehow feel that these two were once friends a long time ago... And you just gotta love Brent Spiner. He was just so damn observant as Dr. Soong, even somehow realizing that Trip and T'Pol had a thing for each other... Just the little nuances in the character, form the oomph he put into zapping the locator in his neck, to even his overdramatic fall from the magnetic handcuffs (which were pretty damn cool, by the way), helped forge a completely unforgettable episode... with probably my second favourite character in the entire Trek franchise next to Captain Picard...

It wasn't just him that made Borderland into absolutely borderline fantastic... His augments were a nice blast from the past, wearing exactly what the Eugenics wore in Wrath of Khan (a movie I despised, though...), and Darth Malik even having the same damn arrogant accent as that Khan prick did long ago... I just loved the first battle scene with the Klingons. Sure, the dancy martial arts were a bit over the top for the Trek series, but at least for once a show "realistically" dodged disruptor fire... And even if it was cliche, I even found the power struggle between Malik and that noname leader guy to be interesting. If only because the Cromag looking girl kept switching sides (like all women seem to do...), it just somehow brought an extra dimension to the Augments, instead of just leaving them as generic bad-guys as Enterprise used to do in the first two seasons... And c'mon already, who didn't love the scene where Archer gets captured (again), and the ship gets boarded (again)? Sure, some roll their eyes at the Enterprise crew getting their asses kicked for the umpteenth time. But dammit, the Augments definitely had style! Malik even warned Archer what he was going to do, and yet Jonathan just froze there like a deer in the headlights... And I even felt happy for Soong in a way, when he saw Persis again for the very first time. The group really did seem like a family... a very incestuous family who inevitably will go Oedipal on their father I'm sure, but that just makes them the perfect supervillains in my book at least...

The rest of the cast wasn't nearly as prominent as the villains were this episode, but every single actor did get a key scene or two to shine... I loved Malcolm Reed's reaction, to Soong knowing his name but not his face. I guess the writers were giving a subtle nod that Dominic Keating definitely hasn't been given his dues on the series... Mayweather only had a single line, but at least he didn't look like a dumbass this episode... I've already mentioned Phlox's outstanding work with Brent Spiner. Sure, the two were only together for one scene, but these two actors just somehow made the slightest few lines into the most memorable 'reading' that I've ever seen... Hoshi didn't get much to do, and I really don't get why such a fine women wasn't beamed away by the Orions. But damn, she looked so alluring in that T-shirt of hers at the start, that I really don't get why she just can't be in civies all the time... Trip didn't have many moments, but his romantic arc with T'Pol sure had short but sweet moments of continuity. I just loved the reaction on his face, when T'Pol basically told him that she didn't do it with her new husband... And c'mon, who didn't notice the poor engineering redneck, get all red in the face when arguing with Soong about slavery in the past?... And T'Pol? Well, once again, she felt a little off this episode. She was calmer than before, and her scenes with Trip just had so much touching chemistry, that you almost think the two in real life could become a couple... I like that she's now part of Starfleet (Spock fans be damned). I just didn't like how damn embarrassed and uncomfortable she seemed, as the WWE wrestler Big Show (all in green, like a fatter version of Shrek somehow...) was having the jolliest day of his life with Jolene... Sure, I laughed my ass off at how damn pissed off Blalock looked as she was fumbled around. But hey, good television is good television, even if the actress has seemed to be hating her job for the past four weeks...

As for Archer... It got on my nerves just how much he walks around when he's addressing his crew. But still, I always forgive him when he takes the ship out of drydock, and the campy music plays to the sight of his eyes glazed over in over-dramatic glory... It just works somehow. And his commitment to the crew later on in the episode seemed to work as well... I absolutely loved Archer in the Orion trading exchange. His control of the situation reminded me so much of his potential in the pilot episode of Enterprise... and I'm sure T'Pol being sold as a sex slave certainly helped as well... Archer had a lot of great moments of his own in those scenes. I loved how bored he looked as the Orion took forever to be knocked out from the hypospray. I loved how calm and collected he seemed when Soong was climbing the wall for his life... And even when Archer was dumb enough to get within arm's length of Malik, he still seemed rather badass and carefree as his neck was about to be snapped in two... But most of all, I really liked his dynamic with Brent Spiner. I loved their arguments over the augments together... Right from the start, when Archer brought up the point that Soong unsuccessfully tried to escape from prison, you knew the banter between these two would be gold. And it all cumulated in the brig... When Soong mentioned the death of Archer's father? Well, I almost expected Bakula to lose it there, neck ringing style... He didn't... but rest assured, when him and Soong meet again... there will be hell to pay... Airlock Archer will be back in full force, and I'm lovin' it...

Borderland was perhaps the absolute best episode that Enterprise has produced since Azati Prime... or dare I say it, even Broken Bow... It had everything a Trekkie would want, from Orion slave girls, to Archer going totally Kirk-style on Soong's ass... It had the best looking Klingon Bird of Prey that I've ever seen, period. And it saw the return of General Martok, as yet another Klingon leader who gets kicked in the face... It had the hottest Hoshi since Broken Bow, it had PMSy T'Pol sold to slavers. And the only way Big Show's appearance could've been better, was if he got hit with a steel chair to both the head and the groin, but I digress...

Every actor was spot on in Borderland. And how the hell can't I love the return of everyone's favourite Data?

Yes, I may have loved Star Trek Enterprise throughout its first three seasons... and I still love those seasons...

... I feel proud, actually... like a father... or a hot, incestuous sister at least...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Transference small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers) -

You know, I was really expecting to write a shockingly upbeat Smallville review this week... I mean, how many weeks in a row has it been that I've actually enjoyed Smallville?... It was unprecedented, actually. Like a president actually being elected without a recount in Florida, at least... But in this case? Almost the entire season of Smallville I've enjoyed, and I really don't know why... Maybe part of it was out of respect for the late, great Christopher Reeve? And maybe some of it was simply because not only was Erica Durance hot as Lois Lane, but she could also act as well?... or maybe it was thanks to Lana Lang, being almost absolutely invisible on screen... except for the showing of skin, I mean...

... but alas, all good things do come to an end... because I know you've all been waiting for it...

"Clark Kent can kick old man ass... in an old man's ass?! Honestly, WTF? Since when did the farmboy learn to actually fight?!..."

Ah, yes... I'm sorry, but even though Transference had its positive quirks, the episode as a whole just didn't do it for me. And you can blame it on the bitches, because that's what they really were this episode... Lana Lang has always been a bitch. But she was just so completely out of whack with the world this episode, that it simply wasn't funny anymore... Oh wait, it was funny. If I do recall, I did burst out in tears of laughter at the look on real Clark's face when he learned about Lana and Jason the coach... But what wasn't funny, was just how completely out of place Lana looks in Smallville right now. She wears clothes and earrings that at first looked gorgeous, but now just look completely rank and arrogant when she even wears them in the halls of a public school... And Chloe? WTF was wrong with Chloe this episode?... I felt no chemistry between her and Clark in that non-kiss (although I got a huge kickass kick out of the "don't you wish" line that was uttered...). And then afterwards, why the hell wouldn't she listen to reason?... It just plain hurts to hear a character in a science fiction show, not even consider the possibility of a person being possessed. I mean, didn't she get taken over by parasites before or some crap like that?...

... sigh... I miss Lois Lane... at least she didn't try to hide her bitchiness behind guise... just boobs...

Because in general, Transference simply had a lot of stupid things to bitch about... Jonathan Kent should've realized something was wrong with Clark. At least he should've guessed red kryptonite or something, yet he just kept on smiling as Clark/Lionel kept murmering under his breath, "it all makes sense now", in the usual cliche supervillain sort of way... Martha Kent finally got to kick some ass with the meteor rocks. But she certainly was pretty damn clueless before Clark as Lionel gave her that true hollywood sob story in the prison... And Lex? Well, I guess I don't really have a problem with Lex. He was a cool character all around, driving a badass Porsche, and instantly knowing something was wrong with Clark in the car. And I absolutely loved his final scene, pointing a gun at Clark and asking about all the times they hung out in the past (even if on the show, we never see these "friends" doing friendly things whatsoever...)... For once, Lex actually didn't seem like he was lying through his teeth. He truly seem appreciative that Clark saved him from the body swapping fate... The only question now remains, is Lex dumb enough to fall for Clark's explanation of his sudden burst of strength? Lex has been dumb for four years now... but he's bound to go insane sometime, which will definitely be a plus for the series... unless be becomes even more clueless, but I digress...

I really couldn't care for Tom Welling as Lionel Luther this episode. He simply played his character as evil Clark Kent, and really nothing like Lionel in the end... Sure, I guess I have to give the actor some credit, for trying so hard to mimic John Glover, who unquestionably is one of the greatest actors on television today. And sure, there were moments that you could actually see him channeling John Glover. The "Ms. Sullivan" throwaway he gave to Chloe was a nice touch. And sometimes when he was talking to Lex, you could almost see his mouth moving the way that Lionel's does... But for the most part? This was just red kryptonite Clark all over again. I mean, let's see here... He was incredibly horny (although normally his Oedipal Complex isn't that obvious...), he was disrespectful to his father (well, throwing him across the kitchen might count...), and he had a real love for money... Yup, red kryptonite Clark all the way... I'm not saying it wasn't fun to watch his character. It's just that, Tom Welling just didn't hit enough of those Lionel Luther nuances to be convincing, that's all...

There was one reason and one reason alone to watch Transference a second time: John Glover's utterly unforgettable performance, as Clark Kent trapped in Lionel Luther's body... Now, I can't really say that he acted just like Clark would. But it's just simply amazing, how the actor who plays the supervillain on the show, could exact so much sympathy from a man like me... As Clark Kent, just the looks on his face were utterly, undeniably memorable. Glover created a world of pathos that no other actor on the show could ever hope to achieve, and it even worked in his scene with Martha Kent. While she was a bit over the top, Clark's desperation to get his mother's attention was done to near perfection... And the reaction on his face when Lionel told him that Lex's death would be on his hands? You just couldn't help but feel bad for his character... And hell, even as Lionel Luther again, his acting was just amazing. He seriously looked like he was going to cry when he found himself back in his own body (although I guess the tear gas would do that to a man...). Even with the completely campy (although somehow appropriate) music during the riot scene, Lionel Luther stole the spotlight from the show... He was the one reason and one reason alone to watch this episode. And him and Lex are the only damn reasons that I still watch the series at all.

Now, sure Transference had its fair share of good qualities. John Glover had his best episode of the season to date (...), I enjoyed the rantings of the nerd he framed into his prison cell, and I am wondering what Margot Kidder is going to do with that stone (an explanation to Dr. Swann being gone forever, perhaps?)... and for some odd reason, I really felt the heat when Clark was feeling up his mom... so sue me...

But still, while Transference managed to transfer a lot of the good qualities of the show to the television screen, the fact of the matter is...

... sorry to disappoint you, Mr. you-know-who-you-are... But Smallville just didn't final cut it for me this week.

Y2kk Update: - Nintendo's / Intelligent Systems' Paper Mario 2: The Thousand-Year Door Nintendo Gamecube Review (Spoilers) -

... believe it or not, I've been humming those words for the past four or something years by now...

I loved the Super Mario Supershow. I really did. It had the best Link cartoons of all time, and probably the best damn theme song ever invented for a television show...

And I also loved Paper Mario... Granted, it just couldn't match the star power of Super Mario RPG. But it certainly had a certain innocent kind of flair to it, that made it absolutely my favourite RPG of the entire previous generation of consoles...

So of course I was jumping up and down, power bouncing in joy as soon as I saw the first pics of Paper Mario 2 for the Gamecube... This game pretty much came out of nowhere. One day, I was wondering whenever a new Mario RPG would ever be announced. And then the next day, suddenly the Japanese scoop was all over the net... and I couldn't more happy...

Paper Mario 2 is just one of those bundles of joy kinds of games, that you just can't really describe in words... Technically, of course it gets beaten down by the RPG giants of this generation of gaming, and maybe even the last generation as well... The sound effects are nothing that couldn't be done on the SNES. The graphics are barely any more detailed than they were on the N64. And the music, while catchy at times, just sounds too midi-ish even for my nostalgic tastes. Except for the Super Mario World theme song, of course...

But I dare you, I goddam dare you, to take one look at the world of the Punios, or watch endless hordes of adoring fans swarm you at the Arena, and tell me right straight in the eyes that Paper Mario 2 ain't a work of art... You see, there's a difference between being a bad programmer, and actually choosing to go for the art direction instead... Paper Mario 2 may not be anywhere close to Final Fantasy quality in presentation. Hell, even the start screen looks more simple than something you'd find on the NES... But Paper Mario 2 just oozes so much style and so much elation, with some of the best damn sprites and the most damn clever paper effects I've ever seen, that it puts to shame literally every other RPG on any console this gaming generation...

I'll say it here, and I'm sure I'll say it again. Paper Mario 2 is so far my favourite RPG of this entire generation of gaming.

The battle system in PM2 literally puts to shame every other RPG out there... Now, I loved Knights of the Old Republic, but the D&D like light sabre combat just didn't feel suspenseful or interactive enough at times... And I loved Tales of Symphonia, but all the button mashing did get a bit repetitive... But I never, EVER got bored of hitting the action buttons in the Mario RPG series to date. And Paper Mario 2 made the battle system even better, in ways that I'm still learning to this very day, even after beating the damn game (in a very satisfying 29 hours, just for the record...).

The Mario RPG series essentially was the first real RPG, with first strikes and battles you can avoid... two things that Nintendo just doesn't get enough credit for... In Paper Mario 2, the action commands are all back, with Mario having to hit A right before landing on the bad guys, just to hear Mario bellyflop one more time... And in this incarnation of the game, the B button was introduced for defence. And I just loved taking the risks, putting it all on the line just to stick it to the god-annoying beetles whenever they chose to attack... And new on offence, there's stylish action moves to refill your star power meter as well. Doing zany backflips seemed completely useless at first, but became positively addicting later on, just to hear the roar of the fans... And the audience? Honestly, I was confused as hell when I first learned they were interactive. I was even planning to complain in my review at first, that I hated how they kept throwing rocks at my bloody hell head... But seriously, after playing through the game, I can't believe anymore that I could ever survive without a fanbase of 200 Koopas all hollering my name. Just play the damn game, and throughout the storyline, you'll end up appreciating the audience for exactly what's worth... as one of the best damn (or just the plain coolest) innovations in the entire genre of RPGs to date...

Now, I admit Paper Mario 2 didn't have the best sidekick characters tagging along... I'll always miss having Bowser and Princess Peach in my party. Bring back the Frying Pan, goddammit!... and while their abilities were similar, having Goombella and Koops and co just wasn't as enjoyable as their counterparts were in the first Paper Mario... Still, some of the characters had their defining moments... Yoshi always made me laugh with his "Gonzales" confusion. Vivian obviously was in love with poor Mario... and while I'll never care for Ms. Mowz and that god-useless Opera Singer, at least I could also kick ass and take names with the Admiral. Even he got a laugh out, with his one last wish before hitting the sack for sleep...

What Paper Mario 2 lacked in definite characters, it definitely made up for in humour... I know it's all been said before, but I swear to you that Paper Mario 2 is perhaps the absolute funniest game of this generation of gaming, if not of all generations... Some might complain that the game doesn't have any voice acting (as if we would ever want voice acting again after hearing Super Mario Sunshine...). But just play the damn game already! And you'll see that the kind of witty humour throughout the game, just can't be portrayed in the god-awful voice acting we've always been privied to in video games...

The in-jokes in Paper Mario 2 are absolutely some of the best. Hearing Hammer Bros. talk about World 7-1, or having the Arena crowd shout out the name, "Jumpman", are the kinds of brilliant touches that make this game just a pleasure for the hardcore... I literally had to throw my controller down in laughter the first time I came across one of those cursing treasure chests. The evilness was just so over the top, that it made a mockery of almost every single other RPG out there, and I loved it... And hell, the game even makes a lovely mockery of itself, in the best ways possible. Just take a look at the screenshots of the game, with Bowser tearing apart the old skool Mario levels, and just tell me that doesn't look ridiculously amusing to you...

Paper Mario 2 just has that kind of infinite charm to it, with a kind of humour that no other game has ever been able to reproduce, even the original... Sure, big picture wise, the plotline isn't the most Shakespearean ever devised... but still, the series just has a kind of magical innocence to it all, that makes it feel that much more special than any other RPG out there...

The game did start a little slow, with Rougeport not being very interesting whatsoever... But once you get to Hooktail castle, things really picked up... Koops finding the note and sobbing over the wrong father was just a brilliant stroke of comedy. And honestly, I screamed "WTF" at my screen when Hooktail swept into the crowd and ate all my goddam supporters. I mean, since when did video game bosses look completely badass, yet demand that I smell its feet?... Hooktail castle definitely won me over. The stage may have taken me more than two hours to beat (which did make it feel a bit long...), but just for all the little things that happened that I treasured, it was more than worth the price of admission...

The Great Tree was perhaps the most artistic thing I've seen in a video game, since the last Paper Mario at least... And while it definitely got on my nerves, how my damn Punios kept getting lost on me, I still gotta admit that watching 101 of them going against their arch rivals, was just as amusing as any big time Pikmin battle has ever been... And this second chapter was just so damn sad! The arc between Punio and his little brother was heartbreaking, even if I couldn't understand why those things just couldn't jump through the bars of the prison... And I just felt so damn bad when my stupidity got them all stuck in a new cage. I lost my army... sniff sniff... and no amount of wondrous art direction could bring them back...

The third chapter of the game was definitely the longest for me (like six friggin' hours), much to my surprise... I thought that the linear battles in the arena would be done and over with in a cinch, and yet I found myself struggling to level up just to keep up with the big hitters... I loved the combat throughout this stage. Some of the battles here were the most memorable out of the entire game... I'll never forgive this chapter, for using the term "Watering Hole" when I had no clue what that meant (I sadly spent an hour trying to get to the ponds by the Glitz Arena...). But I'll also never forget this chapter, because chasing down the Yoshi egg and having my own Gonzales Jr in the end, was some of the best damn storytelling I've felt in years... I actually did feel close to my Yoshi, after he pulled me out of that battle. And the plot twist in Chapter 3, while a bit predictable, was still enjoyable when it happened... Jolene definitely was suspicious, the way she would act like a wrasslin' stone cold bitch...

... but damn... the thing is, she was kinda hot for a toad... I just have a thing for women with glasses, that's all... and yes, I do need help...

And Chapter 4? Oh my God, chapter 4... As soon as I beat whats-his-name, I just scoffed at the TV and said, "WTF? It was that easy?!"... and I threw down my controller in disgust... After spending six or more hours on the Arena, I beat chapter four in one? WTF?... and then I noticed something...

Dear God, the plot twist in chapter four was amazing... I mean, sure some gamers complain about all the backtracking in this stage, but I welcomed it. It really made poor Mario feel helpless, having to kick the asses of his friends in the end (although of course, I welcomed it...)...

And the humour in this stage? Have you listened to the crows? Best damn dialogue, EVAR. Seriously... I went in unspoiled, and came out absolutely hurling in laughter... The writing in Paper Mario 2, in chapter 4 alone, was so damn strong that this game seriously deserves some sort of award. I just wish there was an award for something as funny as this, at least...

Now, chapter five was sort of a letdown compared to chapter 4. The combat was a bit tedious, the platforming in the treasure cave was annoying, the backtracking got on my nerves, and swimming around as a paper ship wasn't exactly the most suspenseful of situations... But I loved the bosses to the stage. And I still burst out laughing, seeing all those Toads stuck on that one raft of wood, wondering how the heck the guys on top get to go the bathroom... And honestly, who can't love a chapter where it's just so damn obvious who the stowaway is, that he even tells us not to say a thing, and Mario just keeps on obliviously smiling as he overhears...

Chapter six was probably the slowest chapter, with a whole lot of problem solving and a Sherlock Holmes character who should've turned out evil... I suppose chapter six would've been alright, if it wasn't for finding that damn ghost invisible in the room... But still, the boss of the stage did look pretty damn cool. The top of the train had more sprites than I've ever seen on screen at once in my lifetime... And there should be a new rule for all Paper Mario noobs: you have to read the diary...

Chapter 7 suffered from a lack of gravity on the moon, and a lack of interesting rooms on the inside of the complex... Still, I did feel bad for poor TEC. I loved how he somehow fell in love with Peach after watching her in the shower... the sick humour in this game still riles me up to this day... And it was a nice bit of nostalgia actually, to actually fight through the rooms you already knew from the point of perspective of Princess Peach actually... While I still wish she could join my party ala Mario RPG, I still found her scenes compelling in Paper Mario 2. I should've guessed what would happen to her in the end... but instead, the game somehow managed to keep me in suspense, as poor TEC was erased in front of the only love of his life... sniff sniff... Paper Mario 2 truly is a Shakespearean tragedy at its best...

As for Chapter 8, it was a bit longer than I expected from a final stage, but I gotta say, the final bosses certainly weren't a disappointment...

He wasn't a tough boss to beat. It's just that, it was so damn obvious who he impersonated, that I almost wish I could bitchslap Mario in the head for his naivete... But what really got me about the final chapter of the game, was just how damn hard it was, beating three damn bosses in a row at the end. I mean, honestly!... I went through the whole game, coasting at experience level 26, only to suddenly get my ass kicked by Sir Grodus two times in a row... Eventually I learned how to take out all his shield thingies at once (even with my 10FP max...), only to be squashed by Bowser a moment later (which I lost as well, until I figured out how to use Vivian's veil)... and as for the final boss?...

WTF? How could I not see that coming?... Hmm... let's see here... pure, virgin, vaginal Princess Peach is possessed by a dark, slinky, shadowy, and tentacled-like monster covered in grubby and feely hands... hmm, indeed... I see all Japanese have very dirty minds, even Nintendo (with Miyamoto being the top class pimp daddy, and Yamauchi the absolute premiere bitch slapper...), but that's besides the point...

The point is, thanks to The Shadow Queen's confusion spells, I couldn't use my ultra mushrooms! And I fucking lost again!... After 10 minutes of unskippable cinematics, I lost to the Queen and had to do the whole thing over again!... Sure, I beat her easily the second time around, fully knowing how to counter most of her attacks. But I just couldn't believe it... I never even came close to a game-over for the first seven and a half chapters of the game, and yet I was massacred three times in a row by the final three bosses in the end? WTF?...

... end spoilers... which were kinda more XXX rated that an E rated game deserves, but I digress...

The thing is, sure Paper Mario 2 has its fair share of faults... The backtracking definitely got annoying by the end of the game. The side quests (besides the help center) were almost completely non-existent in the entire series... There was almost no challenge, sans the 100 level challenge and the final three bosses... It was damn annoying how Mario could neither jump nor swim, and some of his abilities (the spring jump, rolling into a curl) weren't as simple to use as they should've been... I personally thought once the novelty of TEC having a perverted mind, and Bowser being in Super Mario Bros. 1 wore off, that all the Princess Peach scenes and the Bowser ones felt boring and drawn out... And yes, if you really consider this a complaint, the sound and graphics weren't exactly top notch. The blimp for example looked awful, even for paper, and I just wish the sound was of higher quality than the NES was back in the day...

But why the hell does any this matter?... Nintendo and Intelligent Systems have made one of the funniest, most endearing RPGs ever made... It never once felt boring, no matter all the backtracking. It never once felt tedious, thanks to the amazing battle system and immediate help from Goombella whenever you needed her... I never had trouble with any puzzles, except when I was too dumb to ask for help. And I never felt the game was dragging me down, thanks to almost non-existent loading times and some of the most artistic settings I have ever seen in a video game ever... And how can you ever forget the unforgettable storyline? How can anyone forget the humour? If there is any damn reason to buy Paper Mario 2 right on the spot, it's because it is perhaps the absolute best damn written game in the history of this generation of gaming. Hell, maybe for all generations...

Sure, Paper Mario 2 may not be the Godfather of all video gaming patrons, for anyone but the hardcore Nintendo fans like me... But even so, it's still absolutely Midas golden to all who touch it. Just give the game a chance, and you'll see just exactly why this game is considered an RPG for all ages... and why it's already considered a true RPG for the ages...

It's the perfect example of why Nintendo is still the best gaming company out there... and a most nostalgically refreshing reminder, of just why we all loved video games in the first place...

... and then? Like I said before?... the absolute best RPG of this generation of gaming to date...

Y2kk Update: - Electronic Arts' NHL 2005 Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers?... umm, no...) -

It's been a long road... getting from there to here... it's been a long time... but my time is finally near...

... or at least, that's how most Trekkers have felt about the Braga and Berman era of Enterprise... and especially about the Enterprise theme song, but that's besides the point...

Truth be told, I'm a Star Trek whore. Because except for god-awful Voyager, I actually loved the B&B run on Star Trek... I liked the first season of Enterprise. I even liked the second... and I absolutely loved the third... I may never forgive Berman for the travesty that can only be known as Voyager (or the travesty that can be only known as Travis as well, but that's besides the point...). But I do love Enterprise... ever since its initial series incarnation, I've loved the show... and I'm still loving it, with Manny Coto now at the helm...

Well, the thing is... either Smallville's excellent episode this week (with The Flash) is throwing me off, or something just didn't feel right about tonight's episode of Home... it just didn't hit home, you know?... Maybe it was the low budget special effects or something? The first scene with the huge crowd in San Francisco did look worse than any Star Trek blue screen I've seen before... Or was the wrong feeling simply from the fact that this episode just wasn't as powerful as Family was for The Next Generation?... I mean, I liked how Airlock Archer became cynical Archer over his past year dwellings. And some parts of the T'Pol and Trip scenes on Vulcan were heartbreaking... But overall, the episode just didn't feel as cohesive or fresh as it should've felt. And it didn't really feel nostalgic either... afterall, I never did like The Original Series in the first place, but...

I'd like to say that every character in Home got their dues, but I'd just be lying then... I can only hope that Manny Coto will start writing for each and every character and not just the captain, but Manny certainly didn't really show it here... Travis got to kick some ass and take some names. But that's about it, as he was just about as much of a token black guy as you can get... Hoshi didn't fare much better. Sure, she looked damn hot in that red T-shirt of hers (back to Brazil, eh?). Hell, she even glowed a bit as she lectured Phlox about prejudice. But she really didn't have anything but that one scene - literally... Malcolm Reed at least got a few moments to shine. With a shiner of his own, at lerast... I chuckled at his lame attempts to open the door while holding all of Phlox's luggage. And you gotta love his 'Reed Alert' narcissism when it came to wearing the Enterprise jacket... But besides his little xenophobia speech? He was pretty speechless as well... Phlox however did get quite a few moments to shine. Whoever thought before that the Xindi attack wasn't a metaphor for 9/11, then they better take a closer look at this episode. Because Phlox was basically labeled as a terrorist by that bad actor in the bar, and you can't help but feel for the poor egg-drop soup guy when his feelings were hurt at the end... And in the spirit of Phlox, it was great how in the midst of all this heavy prejudice stuff, we still get freaked out by the doctor puffing his face up like a blowfish. His character definitely is quirky, even when facing the worst aspects of humanity...

Archer and Captain Columbia, or whatever her name was (Martinez, I assume?), didn't really have a lot of chemistry. But the actress definitely looked damn fine in that mountain climbing gear of hers... Still, I did like a lot of the dialogue that the two captains shared. I loved Archer's reference to "Captain Jefferies" of Jeffery Tube fame. I loved the interior look of the two captains on the NX-02... And poor Archer just seemed so out of place on earth now, talking about battles here and wars there, when just three years ago, he only wanted to be a peaceful explorer... The most moving characters in all of fiction are always the tragic hero ones. And poor Archer was feeling the aftereffects, of just being an innocent boy turned into Cynical, Airlock Archer... The Xindi dream was a bit too cliche for my tastes. But it was damn funny seeing Jonathan fall that far... Still, overall I did like what Home did for the Archer arc, just like what Family did for Picard after his rescue from the Borg. There were a lot of unresolved issues with both Enterprise captains, and it's great to see both of them hailed as heroes, when neither of them really felt like one inside... Now, I could've done without the forced romance between Archer and what's-her-name. But it did feel natural, how he opened up to her, about wishing that he could just be alone. The poor captain was feeling the inevitable guilt of doing what he had to do to save the day... That's what being a hero means. He just wanted to be an explorer though... but of course, all kickass captains have to turn out to be heroes in the end... poor, cynical bastard, with goddam high schools named after him...

But the real deal of Home, was the sad state of affairs (with affair being the key word...) between Trip and T'Pol... Now personally, I thought T'Pol's mother, T'Les, was a little too feminine for a mature Vulcan female (then again, T'Pol must've learned her bitchiness from somewhere). But it cracked me up everytime she would just bring up relational stuff with her daughter or Trip, just out of the blue as if she were the American Pie dad or something... She did have some clever insights though. And that definitely made her feel like a mother, especially when she was just folding laundry and kinking it up like a Dr. Ruth... Now, as for Jolene Blalock, I personally have felt that she's been really playing her character strangely this season. She always seems like she either wants to cry or scream, but never quite gets there. Weird... But at least that worked well whenever she was with Koss. Koss was such a loser, even Vulcan joking about their ever classic fights to the death, so it was only natural that T'Pol would look disgusted... Problem was, she looked that way throughout the whole episode, with her mother and with just the state of affairs of everything... I did love her bickering with her mom though, as I know all too well the difference between what you want, and your responsibilities to your family...

The only time Jolene felt right in her acting, was when she was with Trip... I loved every scene they were together, right off the bat as the two sort of flirted and smiled with each other over their spontaneous 'trip' to Vulcan. It was just so coyly cute how T'Pol snuck a personal invitation in there... I also loved the Vulcan architecture designs, although they did look a bit too Asian. But they somehow matched perfectly with majesty of the Vulcan fire plains, which is something I think every Trekkie has wanted to see. Especially as the flames of passion routed and gutted poor Trip from underneath... His best scene was probably his surprise at T'Les' first American Pie moment. He was just fixing the stasis fridge like any good, pussy-whipped engineer would, only to have a sex talk with a mother figure a moment later. Poor bastard... And then did you see the look on his face when T'Pol told him she was going to marry Koss? Normally, moments of awkward silence on TV are just plain awkward. But somehow, it just felt right, the way Trinneer handled it on screen... Now, knowing all too well the beguiling ways of women, that kiss T'Pol gave Trip at the end was both sweet and a kick to the nuts. She married for money over love essentially, and they both knew it... The sweet thing though, was that the poor Hick Tucker accepted all that. In his final speech to T'Les, he admitted how he felt about her. He loved her. Enough so that he let her go... and what really made that scene really powerful, was not just Connor's acting, but the way T'Les react to his chivalry... We don't know what she wanted anymore. Maybe she was finally approving of Trip? Maybe she really did care for T'Pol's happiness? Or maybe she was just relieved that he would stay out of the way? I guess we may never know...

Now, Home definitely had its fair share of moments. The views of Vulcan, and the return of Soval and Admiral Forrest were more than welcome... But the overall episode itself suffered from really weird scene cuts, pretty bad budget cuts, and a whole lot of bruises when it came to the supporting cast... It was still a well written episode, giving me a ton of new hope for the Manny Coto regime of things. But unfortunately for both Enterprise and my own ego, I think the best episode of the week award will have to go to Smallville instead...

... well, obviously I saw the movie the other day... and if there's any reason to see the film? It's because of the soundtrack... seriously...

I mean, seriously. I'm actually being serious... The theme song, "America, Fuck Yeah!" is perhaps the absolute catchiest theme song I've heard in years. I've literally been singing it on the bus for the past two days, much to the wide eyed chagrin of all the sleepy dopes on the morning ride... And c'mon already, who doesn't shed a tear at the sorrowful rendition of "America... fuck yeah...". It was just so damn tear jerking, that it still makes me laugh to this day... Now, I realize the "Montage" song was done before in South Park. And the overall soundtrack to Team America just can't read the zenith that the South Park movie did... But c'mon already! You have to see this movie for the Pearl Harbor song alone! I mean, if you're wondering why this movie garnered so many comparisons to Jerry Bruckheimer movies, then I dare you not to laugh at "Pearl Harbor Sucked a Little More Than I Miss You"... It was the best romantic song I've heard in a movie in ages. I'm being serious here... I mean, Pearl Harbor? Just out of nowhere? WTF? I still crack up every time I think about it...

And if you want more Jerry Bruckheimer comparisons? This movie was just shit full of them, fuck yeah... The first ten minutes of the movie are some of the best film making I've seen all year. The look on Lisa's face when Carson got gunned down was a perfect, priceless play off of all the campy movies out there trying to be melodramatic... And who doesn't love a scene, where the French get their asses kicked by Americans over there, trying to save the day? Sure, I might miss the Arc de Triumph or the Louvre one day... But goddammit, the French leaked Halo 2! They deserved what was coming. And hearing Bin Laden and his mindless cohorts speaking in the most absurd Arabic ever devised, was exactly the kind of movie opener that I was hoping Team America would bring to the fold...

... the only problem is, the film couldn't sustain that momentum... much like the Kerry presidential race, I suppose... but I digress...

Sure, Team America still had its fair share of laugh out loud moments. Hell yeah, it featured perhaps THE BEST XXX SEX SCENE EVAR in the history of movie making. When I get a band geek girlfriend, those are definitely the poses I want to try first... And even the scene before had the entire theatre that I was in howling with delight. "I promise I will never die" is exactly the kind of thing a man would say to an extremely horny chick looking for naked, emotional comfort... And there were a whole host of other great scenes in the movie as well. "Everyone Has Aids" was another song done perfectly on screen, the flying Lamborgini limo was a very nice Thunderbirds touch, "Freedom isn't Free" sounded exactly like something out of the Bush campaign, and who could ever forgive or forget the Film Actors Guild (or "FAG" for short?). Hell, Helen Hunt was actually pretty damn hot with her giant mug of a chin... and who doesn't love a film with Danny Glover and Samuel L Jackson kicking some ass and taking some names?...

But you see, while Team America definitely had its share of thrills, and I certainly did ball out laughing more than enough times to make my movie ticket feel worthwhile... the thing is... I don't know, there were a ton of boring scenes as well...

... and was it just me, or was the overall acting in the film just a little bit?... I don't know...

The thing is, the people I was with in the theatre really did love this film. They couldn't stop balling at the endless torrent of puke spilling out of Gary's tiny little body. And the whole crowd erupted in cheers at the big speech at the end, "Dicks Fuck Assholes"... and while I actually do think that whole speech was strangely enough deep and thought provoking, it just wasn't really funny to me. Because just like you would expect from the makers of South Park, the dick and pussy jokes were used a bit too often, and just got boring by the end...

Just like it was with South Park the series, the writers just didn't know when they were overkilling a joke... Gary's bowel problems were funny the first couple times he imploded, but not the latter two or three more times... I snickered at Matt Damon's crude stupidity the first time around, but not the other two times he said the same thing... Kim Jon Il had his moments, with lovely sharks and "panthers" at his disposal. And I did chuckle at his patented-Asian way of never pronouncing his L's and R's. But by the time his solo came up, his whole personality felt just plain boring and overdone, to the point where he sounded almost like just a fatter version of Cartman... And while it was fun to watch Egypt get massacred by the completely oblivious and ignorant Team America, it just didn't have the same effect as seeing the Eiffel Tower take out half of Paris... Too much of a good thing equals the latter, crappy seasons of South Park. And the writers just never learned their lesson, did they? They had some real comedy gold here, but it was stretched too damn thin in the end...

But besides the obvious global destruction and the best soundtrack ever made, people flock to see Team America for one reason and one reason only: for the geopolitical ramifications and supposedly-sophisticated crap like that... Election time is coming up in America, and the entire world is suffering from an extreme case of racism against America. Or at least, Americans who support Bush and the war on terror... And for those people, Team America is just as good, if not better than Fahrenheit 911. They get to see Americans being complete dicks, tearing up assholes into the world, trying to save the planet from WMDs when actually causing all the disasters themselves. And even I have to admit, the looks on the faces of those damn Frenchies in the movie were goddam priceless...

But even for the other side of the political spectrum, Team America paid its share of dues... The huge speech at the end was truly one of the best descriptions of politics everywhere. 'A dick can be fucked by a pussy, but a pussy can never fuck an asshole. And since an asshole can shit on both a dick and a pussy, the only thing to do is fuck the asshole with the dick'... Team America is the dick. And there were plenty of pussies in the movie, namely the Film Actors Guild... I liked them for that. I liked their talk of hybrid cars. And I especially liked all the neat explosions that went on in their heads... Poor Susan was losing her acitng chops with age...

The first half of the movie felt completely for the Democrats. The second half leaned more towards the stupidity of activists... The problem is, as balanced as this sounds, the first half of the movie was by far the superior part of the film. By the time the final act rolled around, I was too tired of the movie and all its South Park rehashed fart jokes, to care about Gary sucking cocks, or martial artists getting raped by the actors of Cats... While the first half had just so many fond memories, the second half just felt like a tired rehash, somehow even managing to make Michael Moore as a suicide bomber feel like a boring cliche... The movie tried to be pretty impartial in the end. But when the first half, the Bush-criticizing half, is just so much better than the Kerry-bashing side?... I don't know... I guess I could complain about that, but the movie just had so many great moments...

How can I ever hate a movie with the best damn sex scene ever filmed?... and, well...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Run small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers) -

Hmm... don't have much time to waste, considering my first midterm of the year is coming up tomorrow... and I've only studied for it about an hour so far... which is sad to say, a lot by my usual standards, but... still...

"... Smallville was actually... good... today?... and without Lois Lane?... without a flash from Lois Lane? What the fuck?..."

Yeah... truth be told, Run would've been a far better episode to dedicate to Christopher Reeve than Devoted was... Sure, Mandy had that perfect kind of body to take our minds off of the fact that a great man died. And sure, now that Lois Lane is gone, I definitely feel the need to get my weekly fill of her with that god-awful House of the Dead... But even with O Mandy, even without Lois Lane, Run was really far more about the Superman mythos and what being a hero really means, than any other episode this season so far. And that's what Christopher Reeve really turned out to be. Just a regular guy who out of circumstance, became a true hero to so many. And I think Run did a really good job of showing just what those circumstances may or not be... how to become a hero, at least...

If there was anything that ruined this episode, it was Lana... Whenever she was with Jason, she was a whiny bitch. She would pull away from him, snapping in the process. And then Kreuk's irkish acting was just atrocious as she tried to admit to him about that new French tattoo in that most provocative spot on her back... And her conversation with Martha? Oh dead God, was it ever cliche... What really killed that scene, was the fact that Lana looked so damn smug when she was telling Martha about love, that I couldn't help but bitch slap my own head at just how goddam moronic the two of them were being... Do neither of them ever watch TV? Because I could've sworn Lana's advice was dished out on Full House and Growing Pains about a dozen times or more back in their day and age... I just feel bad for Jason, I really do. Not only does he suck as a football coach, but he's stuck with a girl like Lana. Who granted, may look damn fine in a black tank top, but has absolutely nothing else going for her besides her fancy new rich wardrobe...

Chloe wasn't in much of the episode either. Just one scene actually, but her smile just seemed to glitter perfectly with her new sparkling hair... Now, I definitely did miss Lois Lane this episode. Run was missing the kind of witty sass she brought into the show... Instead, we got a cliche Martha plotline, of what business does to romance and family. And then we got Jonathan, complaining about being all left alone and lonely, instead of continuing on with the football plotline from last episode... Lex didn't have the greatest episode either. I mean, was it me, or was he completely stupid (or just Dr. Evil?) when he saw Clark standing by that empty manuscript thingy, and just gladly assumed that Clark had nothing to do with it?... And where are the bloody hell cameras? Doesn't Clark even know when to fly when goddam alarms are blaring in his ears?... Lex was a bit too mysteriously ignorant this episode for my tastes. He would call the cops, but warn the criminals of it five minutes before the sirens came for some odd reason... Now, at least Luthor got to kick some ass with some really neat disarming moves. But he just seemed off this episode, especially in all his weird "trust" comments when it came to Clark... In previous episodes, you could tell from the way he spoke to Clark, that Lex was becoming more and more sinister. But in Run? Well... He just seemed more and more... Dr. Evilish, actually... and I'm not sure if that's a good thing...

Sure, I have my own fair share of complaints about Run... but that doesn't change the fact that I really did enjoy this episode. Because the entire hour was pretty much dedicated to Clark and Bart Allen, all culminating in a weird "you have me" scene at the end with bright cow eyes... Still, I gotta say that the Smallville writers really seem to know how to write for DC characters other than their main cast. Perry was well done last season, Lois Lane kicked ass, and Bart Allen definitely had the kind of street urchin personality that you'd expect from his character... There were some nice fanboy touches as well, from the "Barry Allen" and etc mentions, to the cheesy talk of having a "league". And while the Flash's big running flashy special effects weren't the greatest, I still loved the look on his face when he left Clark out in the dust in the end... I thought Superman could reach light speeds though? Well, apparently the Flash can go faster than that... and over water as well... talk about a saviour complex...

... hmm... thank God I'm a Marvel fan... I prefer realism in my documentaries, thank you very much...

Still, Run was perhaps the best "Superman" episode of the season so far... Without Lois Lane, Clark Kent really didn't feel like Clark Kent. But as Superman, this was a pretty neat episode... It dealt a lot with the idea of using your powers responsibility versus just having fun, and where to find the balance between the two. And sure, while all previous seasons have dealt with god-annoying red kryptonite, Run dealt with Clark's powers in an actually responsible way for once... There was a nice contrast, between Tom Welling and Kyle. You had the over-mature and stiff farmboy on one side, and this puny little guy hitting on Chloe on the other... And it worked if you ask me. The scene where the two confront each other in the hotel over Jonathan's stolen wallet was one of the most priceless of the season, if only because the two actors played perfectly off of each other. If only because it was nice to see Clark feel a little inferior for once. And if only because that scene alone, really showed what it meant to be a hero.

Run wasn't the perfect episode... but it certainly is a contender for best episode of the week at least... Of course, I'm sure Enterprise will hand Smallville's ass to itself, just like The Flash left Superman to choke on his dust at the end of Run... But still, this episode definitely had a good run going for it tonight... It definitely felt like the first episode of Smallville this season (and one of the few of the entire goddam awful series), that really felt like it belonged in the Superman-universe at least...

Y2kk Update: - Star Trek Enterprise: Storm Front (Part 2) Review (Spoilers) -

Heh... my friend from high school, who convinced me to start watching Smallville in the first place (in exchange for him watching Stargate, at least...)?... Well, I guess all my negative Smallville weeks in review have finally started to get to him... because he's been complaining a bit about all the glowing, overly positive reviews I've been giving Enterprise in comparison. And it's completely obvious why I've been doing this...

I love my Star Trek. Always have, always will... But even though I thoroughly enjoyed Storm Front (Part 1) last week, I do admit that it did feel emotionally vacant. It was just pure eye candy, with no real plotline and no real action to speak of... It didn't leave a lasting impression on me. Or at least, not the way that the better episodes of season three did... So since I obviously want to stay on my friend's good side, I was planning to finally write a semi-negative Star Trek Enterprise review this week. I knew Storm Front (Part 2) would still share the same flaws as part one of the Temporal Cold War closer did, so I thought maybe I would throw my friend a bone, and give the Best Episode of the Week award to a Smallville episode that might actually deserve it... if only because of Mandy MuchMusic's amazingly hot body, and if only because of the Christopher Reeve tribute...

And yeah, sure the episode was emotionally vacant. Almost every single actor but Scott Bakula had nothing to do... And the temporal war paradoxes? Oh dead lord, the goddam paradoxes... Sure, Manny Coto made sense out of his whole reset button. The Nazis invaded America not because of Vosk, but because some other faction from AFTER Vosk turned the temporal cold war into a hot one, assassinated Lenin (because he apparently hated communism as much as I do)... So by stopping Vosk from igniting the war in the future, it stopped the faction in the future from ever forming and changing Lenin's past. It all made sense to me... but then all the other reset buttons? And the oh so convenient return of Daniels, Enterprise's own uncanny version of Southpark's Kenny?... and oh, the fact that Silik was officially killed off (with no reset, since he was on Enterprise), the only decent character to come out of the Temporal Cold War (which I did enjoy at some parts... Cold Front was a good episode, but the rest?... umm...)?...

... heh... Hey terrorists, terrorize this!... with a montage of Hitler times 911 times 100 footage in it, no less...

Sure, the plotline of the episode was weak. But why does it goddam matter? The atmosphere for the episode was great, and some of the best I've felt since Azati Prime of last season... I don't care how stupid it is in principle. Seeing Enterprise sweep through Manhattan, firing phase cannons at alien suped up German Luftwaffe fighters, was exactly the kind of badassness that I wanted from the show... Sure, it pissed me off to no end, that three photon torpodoes had less of a explosive effect than a modern day cruise missile would. But at least it was damn cool, to see the Enterprise taking a real beating again, and see Vosk scream in his cliche evil alien nazi sort of way (strangely enough, we've seen it all before...)... And while Silik's shapeshifting effects were pretty poorly done, I really have to admit that the sight of the Enterprise soaring into the sunset was one of the best damn effects I've seen in a long time... And c'mon already! Who can't love an episode that plays all the same tricks that helped make ST First Contact into an actually good TNG movie (even if I didn't like it)?... Sure, Alicia was a bit too much of a clone of whats-her-name from First Contact. But her shock after being beamed up into space with time travelers, was still written well enough to be mostly effective... And who can't enjoy a good ol' fashioned battle of tommy guns against the Nazis? While it was disappointing that none of the insurgent mobsters died, there was still a hell of a lot of a cool carnage. Even without any blood, the pinpoint shot to the German neck was definitely the guy highlight of the day...

Archer was both great and a bit stiff this episode... His super Matrix slowed speech was way too much of a giveaway to Silik in sickbay. And he was too much of a generic action hero with his phase pistol, and not enough of the confused bastard he played so well in part 1... But he definitely had chemistry with Alicia. It was somehow a nice touch for the show, simply when he thanked her... And while not much emotional acting was involved, I liked his rapport with Silik as well. I mean, someone finally brought up the change to "Airlock Archer", with a mention of his brutality during the Xindi crisis as well. And all the talk about why Silik was suddenly on the good guy side again, was a nice continuity touch with Cold Front so long ago... Archer's best moments were with Trip though. I loved the look on real Trip's face when he saw the captain alive and well. He was actually going to hug him, until the nice comic relief of the base blowing up, came up at least. Still, it was just definitely nice to see the real friendship back between the two, that's all... It was also neat to see Action Figure Trip Tucker back, slitting his wrists of rope with glass. And even when it came to fake Trip, he was still damn cool, if only because he gave Archer a Matrix kick to the face...

The rest of the cast each had their moments, but not really their dues... Hoshi looked so damn adorable when she heard all those Star Fleet voices over the comm (where the fuck were those dozens of ships when the Xindi attacked though?!...). I just love her little "O-face" (of wow, I mean...) whenever her smile beams on the bridge... Mayweather was back to being the token black guy, looking like the dumbass when sitting next to foo-Tucker. But hey, he got to be beat up and interrogated by racist Nazi pigs. That's something to put on a resume, at least... Phlox only had a moment shown in sickbay. I liked his subtle gesturing towards the security comm, but besides that, he definitely didn't have much to do... Neither did Malcolm, but at least he got a great moment of comic relief when in the middle of an attack run, he melted away at the thought of fighting vintage German planes... And T'Pol? Well, her character has really felt off this season so far. She seems to ignore Trip, she seems to go all weepy on Archer, and she seems to not really be there as an actress for all the times in between. Guess time travel just ain't a Vulcan's thing, eh?... Well, at least her suit still looks good, even though everyone else's uniforms have been subtlely fried over the Xindi arc season...

So I'm sorry, I'm really sorry... an apology to my friend at least... Smallville was decent this week. But Enterprise, as hollow and shallow as the episode may have been, still kicked Clark Kent ass...

Now, I may not like Storm Front (Part 2) in a few weeks time, just like I didn't much care for Shockwave (Part 2) a few weeks after that aired two years ago... But right now, does it really matter? I watched the episode twice already tonight, in lovely SDTV quality, and I still can't get enough of Archer being a badass, or of the Enterprise taking on evil alien nazis, or even the tear jerking sight of a beautiful fleet of ships finally welcoming the Enterprise home, as the third season of the show was always meant to end...

Storm Front, both parts, may have been nothing more and nothing less than a popcorn, fluff, Manny Coto Bruckheimer film. But I like Bruckheimer films, goddammit... they're built like a rock, although Pearl Harbor did suck... and why did Pearl Harbor suck? Because there were no evil alien nazis in that World War 2 goddammit, that's why!... And like I always say, who doesn't like evil alien nazis?...

... well, besides all the people who are going to goddam cancel Enterprise after this season, but that's besides the point...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Devoted small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers) -

If you had asked me how I felt about him before 1995, I would've just shrugged and said he was just like any other Hollywood superstar. Just a face, and not really a person... But he really did become a real person, a real someone, to pretty much the entire world after his accident. He just had that "it" factor to him, that not only made the world care about his situation, but about the situations of so many others as well... He wasn't like the rest of the Hollywood stars out there, who always seemed to try so hard to look so caring. Because he actually did feel real, and his need felt more real than ever before... He wasn't like all the rest of the Hollywood stars, who seem so damn fake whenever they try to be so damn kind. Christopher Reeve was now the person that needed help... He was humbled, and yet he never gave up hope... and that really made him into a better man than I will ever be...

I know I wasn't exactly generous towards him whenever it came to my small Smallville weeks in review. Afterall, he was never the greatest actor, and his episodes weren't exactly the greatest hours of televisions... harsh, I know...

But he truly was a great person... I'm not just saying that like the cliche glowing eulogy we all give to the recently departed. I'm saying all this, because when it comes to Christopher Reeve, I truly believe in my heart that it was all true. That he was the real deal, that he was true... He proved it time and time again, through all his moving speeches, and all the damn hope he gave to so many people out there in the world. He surely, sorely will be missed... hell, he already is. The world just feels more wrong now, to lose a person like him... because, well?...

"In loving memory of Christopher Reeve... He truly made us believe a man could fly..."

... a sappy saying, perhaps... but it does feel somewhat appropriate, for a man who gave it his all, just for the sake of hope...

I just hope that the Smallville writers devote a more meaningful episode to him in the end, that's all... especially one that didn't start off with about ten minutes of pure flat silence (even during the WB's tribute to the actor, might I add...)...

Now, that's not to say that Devoted was a bad episode. On the contrary, I actually enjoyed it a hell of a lot once the sound turned back on. I mean, what wasn't there to like?... Lana only had that one god-awfully annoying scene with Jason at the start. The sappiness of their relationship absolutely knows no shame... But hell, she even redeemed herself with her not-so-convincingly lie, of watching Clark at the football practice... And Jason was actually interesting for once. He completely didn't look or act like a coach, but he certainly played the jealous dimwitted boyfriend quite well. Which eventually led to a classic pounding of Kent, both at practice and at the loft... and seeing Clark wince in pain? That always gets a snicker from me...

It's just that, Devoted felt completely devoid of meaning in the end... It was about lust and love, and the meaning of devotion. But haven't we seen this all about umpteen times during the first three seasons of the series? Did we really have to go back to parasitic-controlled or whatever, season-one-pining Chloe all over again?... Well, the cheerleader outfit definitely wasn't becoming of her. But Allison Mack simply has the sweetest smile, that it's hard not to laugh with her as she just mindlessly kept cheering on Clark as he was sacked about a dozen times straight... She did look rather adorable in that football uniform of hers. And her "superhero and journalist" quip was rather unexpectantly cute... And c'mon, who wouldn't identify with the poor gal, when the actress nearly shed a tear as she put on a happy face at that mercy kiss at the end?... Sure, we've been through this all before, with Chloe yet again falling under some sort of evil influence into going after Clark. But Allison Mack is just so damn good at being rejected, that it's hard not to care... there wasn't any real meaning in Devoted, but the episode definitely did feel like fun...

Smallville has been doing one thing right all season long: the writers have finally made Clark into a bearable, tolerable man... He just acts with a sense of maturity now that he didn't have before. He handles jokes with pride, he still wears the farmboy plaid that I tend to wear myself, and although he completely looks like a dumbass for rejecting Chloe, he finally seems to be doing it in a semi-respectable way... I loved the scene where he was absolutely mauled by his football squad. Being the newbie on the squad has always been a real thing for guys, and it was great to finally see it done well on television... And once again, his chemistry with Lois Lane was undeniable. I'm actually going to miss her, I think... I don't know when Erica Durance will be back. I just hope it's soon, that's all... She just has that "it" factor every actress covets, just by calling Clark "Smallville" in the exact kind of Lois Lane way... And it was great that we finally got some of her patented LL stupidity in as well. She just stared at that exploded pipe, without really giving it a second thought as to why it just magically blew right after she told Clark to do it... And she even got some good jokes in. The "Stepford" comment I finally got thanks to the rehashed movie over the summer, and her disgust during the Mandy sexcapades is always worth a decent laugh... Lois Lane has single-handidly saved Smallville. She makes Clark into a better man, she has the perfect lesbian sexcraft touch with Chloe, and I can thank God that she takes screen time away from Lana Lang... The real test now, is to see what the show reverts back to now that Erica Durance will be gone for a while...

Luckily for the show, every actor seems to be putting in their full 110% football team effort... It was disappointed that Lionel was missing again. But Lex picked up the pace, and just seemed so damn deviously devilish every single time he was trying to be "honest" with Clark. And I do wonder what the writers have in store - will Clark be the one to make Lex Luther evil somehow? It certainly felt like that would be the case from the ominously feeling scenes between the two... Now, Martha Kent didn't have much to do. But the ol' Lana actress was as sweet as ever. And Jonathan Kent has finally found a new purpose on the show, showing real concern over that final Hail Mary football throw at the end of the game... And as for the freaks of the week? I didn't care much for the Stepford husbands. But Mandy had that kind of slinkish, Nina (from Angel) kind of sexy hair that always stands my hairs on end... And c'mon already. What guy doesn't enjoy the occasional love potion, love triangle kind of episode? I only wish Chloe had gone for Lois instead of Clark though, with a two way dildo strapped to her you know what... but sigh, I guess Mandy looking damn fine in that bikini and paper-thin skirt would have to suffice for now...

I just hope WB continues on with the tributes to the actor... Christopher Reeve truly deserves the entire season, nay - the entire show of Smallville devoted to him... And I'm not just saying that because we all say nice things about the dead. I'm saying that, because this man truly was a great man amongst us all. And it just feels hollow to know that he's gone.

Y2kk Update: - Star Trek Enterprise: Storm Front (Part 1) Review (Spoilers) -

I've been waiting a damn long time for this episode... Just ask any of my (remaining) friends at university. And besides all my obvious Nintendo fanboyish rants, there's only been one thing on my mind... four mouth-watering words...

I'm probably the only damn person I know that has enjoyed the series right from the start (although I do know a few who were converted back from the third season). And as the only hardcore Enterprise fan left in my entire city, it was no wonder why I was pretty much frothing at the mouth last night as that god-awful "Faith of the Heart" song bellowed out of my television speakers...

Now, as for the episode itself... Storm Front (Part 1) carried over pretty much all of the same problems that plagued the Rick Berman and Braga era of the series. I loved Manny Coto's episodes last season, but I was hoping that he would put a bit more effort into cleaning up the mess that B&B left as a WTF cliffhanger at the end of the third season... Now, don't get me wrong - I actually did like the twist three months ago, assuming it had something to do with the Romulan War... but unless Vosk's people turn out to be 31st century Remans, chances are that Enterprise has for itself yet another generic time traveling arc in the works...

Like I said, the same problems plagued Storm Front that plagued everything but the best episodes from season three... Once again, the plot took center stage focus rather than the characters, and even T'Pol's and Trip's relationship barely factored in a flinch... You know something is a bit amiss, when Mafia loan sharks get more recognition than Archer did when he just magically showed up alive and well on Enterprise. And the surprise factor just wasn't there, with Silik showing up too early, and too much of Vosk's alien nazis being shown on screen (although I was surprised at fugly Daniels just showing up out of nowhere)... The episode did sort of feel like it was going through the motions, with the point A to point B to C contrivances that Enterprise has always been known for. And seriously, the alien nazis?... Honestly, WTF?...

... but you see, there's one thing I'm missing here... I may know deep in my circuital logic, that Enterprise season three was deeply flawed... but hell's bells, read any of my reviews from last season, and you could clearly see that for me at least, it was still a kickass ride. It was my favourite season of Star Trek since TNG, and why? Because I'm a Star Trek Enterprise whore, that's why... And as a gladly admissible whore, how could I not indulge myself on Enterprise's Storm Front?... Sure, I struggled to find any sort of deep, metaphorical message in the episode, with Daniels pulling a Southpark Kenny and dying a second time (those bastards!). And I'll surely be pissed off if Archer doesn't decapitate Hitler or something in Part 2... But if I managed to enjoy Enterprise before, it was because I can somehow take the series for what it's worth, and truly enjoy it at face value (something the television world just can't seem to do anymore...). And that's what I did with Storm Front - I just shut off my brain, and let the excellent pacing and atmosphere of the New York setting take me along for the ride... And in that sense? The episode was far more enjoyable than the last bit of the Xindi arc ever was. Storm Front didn't take itself too seriously, and since I never take Enterprise seriously either, that's always been a recipe for my favourite episode of the week...

Not like there was much competition, with Smallville sucking as usual, nip and tucking itself away into a corner... but that's besides the point...

Now, I do wish there was more character development in Storm Front, than just T'Pol looking like a bulimic deer caught in her own headlights... Mayweather shockingly got lines, and even got to correctly identify ancient P51 Mustangs. But for the token black role on the cast, he was completely outshadowed by Alicia in the meantime, who actually reminded me a lot of the finer points of Lily from First Contact... Trip got to show some real kickass moves, and would've taken Silik out if it was a fair fight. But it's just too bad he showed no concern for anything later in the episodes. There might be an explanation for that in Part 2, but chances are, he was just ignored for the plot... Malcolm was there. He didn't even get to blow up the shuttlepod himself, or nuke the San Francisco sons of bitches for their AA gun attack. But still, both of those scenes were pretty damn cool (although looking a bit underbudget)... Phlox didn't even get to pull off his token joke of the week. But it was fun seeing Daniels in sickbay looking more disfigured than any alien I've seen before. And while Phlox didn't have anything to do with that, you gotta love how he rarely ever sounds negative, even with a man dying of a temporal hot war paradox on his bed... Hoshi didn't have much to do either, but at least she finally got a memorable moment in her daughterly like (or incestuously sexy?) hug of Archer when he came back... And T'Pol? She had little to no reaction to Trip, and I really hated how "shippy" her staring at the returning captain seemed. The actress almost looked tired in her role, but in a sense, her subtlety (or just lameness) somehow created more suspense than dialogue ever could've...

And Archer? Well, the episode was all about Mr. Quantum Leap, taking it to the Nazis like any damn good American wholesome good boy would... And you see? The episode may have the dumbest time paradox contrivances ever (killing Vosk would prevent this all from happening? Huh?), and the most tired of cliche Nazi baddies this side of the comic book regime... But dammit, it was Captain Archer vs Evil Alien Nazis! That's like Kirk vs The Gorn, or Picard vs Professor X! It's just something you cannot top, and I reveled in every single moment of it... This was one of Scott Bakula's best Enterprise performances ever, because even in a situation where we all knew he was lost, he took charge and just ran with it... Just like with T'Pol, subtlety in his speech was one of his strongest assets. His silent little smile when he heard Enterprise was in orbit, was just as clever as the contained chuckle of glee (or hopefully orgasm...) Hoshi had when he first heard Archer's voice over the com... And whenever Archer started looking like his average, speechifying self, his mobster buddies picked up the pace for him. It was dumb that Archer wouldn't kill the alien nazi in the alleyway, so obviously I cheered when one of the loan shark guys did it for him...

Now, if anyone is expecting Enterprise to be as deep and meaningful as a Shakespearean play, or even as whimsical as one of those over-pretentious DS9 episodes that every Trekkie but me seems to love, then obviously you'd be disappointed in Storm Front (as most cynical critics were)... But I'm sorry, I've never liked Star Trek as a social commentary. I've always liked it as a kickass ride... And c'mon already! Who doesn't enjoy EVIL FUCKING NAZIS trying to take over America? Who doesn't enjoy Brooklyn accents, using their thuggish pistols to whip the Nazis off the hamburgler streets? And seriously, maybe it was just my satellite channels or something, but Enterprise looked absolutely gorgeous in all its colourful splendour and candor. I've never seen any TV show or DVD look so vibrant on my pathetic non-HDTV screen, and yet Enterprise somehow pulled through, as it always did in the past...

Storm Front was not exactly the high class caviar that some people were expecting from the start of the Manny Coto regime... But seriously, we got old skool, black and white films of plasma rifles, we got the first ever blown up shuttlepod, and we got an old skool rescue of the captain and co by transporter... This episode was simply a hell of a lot of Kirk vs Gorn, Picard vs Professor X, Original Series plain ol' fun. And if people just would let them enjoy fun TV these days, then maybe we could finally get a hundredth episode and a fifth season of Enterprise afterall...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Facade small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers) -

Ah... so the freak of the week formula is back... and so is that uber-famous, you-know-what of mine...

"Two hot women share a lesbian kiss... and it wasn't even sexy? WHAT. THE. HELL. is wrong with TV nowadays? Honestly, WTF?..."

Yeah, well... That was the only thing that looked decent about Facade from the weekly preview: the lesbian kiss that Lana was about to share... And while I'll gladly admit that Ms. Lang has surely been wearing some provocative outfits this season, I really can't say that any of her scenes were anything more than mere tolerable in Facade... I mean, was it just me, or did she sound completely shallow in her little admission that she doesn't know how much of the real her that Jason sees? Either that, or it was just really annoyingly anti-shallow for a girl with that kind of body... And her kiss? Her lesbian kiss? Honestly, how the heck could the show writers make two completely beautiful women have the most lacklustre of kisses on screen?! Where's the tongue? Where's the hands down the panties? Geez, and I thought Buffy was lame... And while I admit I didn't really slap myself on the head from all the god-awful Lana scenes this week (hell, I even got to laugh at her little seratonin issue), I just still can't take her seriously. And for a character who always takes herself too damn seriously, that certainly ain't good for business...

What's good for business, is the true lesbian couple on television today. Because goddammit, Chloe and Lois are just plan HAWT whenever they touch each other... Yeah, I know that they're supposed to be cousins. But whenever they giggle at each other, they just have that kind of amazing chemistry that just screams out "spin-off". Or "take-off your clothes", or something from the Aladdin DVD like that... I couldn't help but snortle out my chortles at the sight of poor Chloe being glossed over by Clark yet again at the end. Poor gal just can't accept a best friend when she sees one... But still, her ball of sunshine energiness this episode was a welcome change of pace, and I really enjoyed how she so subtlely nudged Lois Lane into the journalism business... Lois Lane herself was still as sassy as ever. Sure, I found her failing of her final year of high school to be a bit too convenient. But even when she dunked Clark in the tub of water, she really did seem to have chemistry with him. And lots of guts too, considering in her mind at least, she just saved Superman with her cliche kung fu... Now, if only she and Chloe could just feel their hands around each other's panty lines, then maybe Smallville wouldn't feel so small afterall... or I wouldn't, at least...

And honestly, Tom Welling has been a bloody revelation this season. He simply looks too old to play a whiny high school student, and thank God he didn't when it came to defying his father by joining the football team... Clark is finally making mistakes and handling them like an adult, and that's exactly what his character has been missing all these years. An actor that old just can't act like an eighteen year old... Once again, he showed great vibrance with Lois Lane, even if I think their 'relationship' is moving along too quickly. And while there really wasn't any action in this episode, at least his 'reporter sense' didn't feel forced in the locker room scene (probably thanks to Lois being there)... I can't say I enjoyed the Freak of the Week though. Abigail was damn hot (and she definitely looked familiar... but from where?), but the problem was, she was already hot under all those scabs befor the krypt/tuck surgery. Her hair was still damn fine, and you could tell behind the makeup that she had a perfect face. So honestly, her character just didn't work out for me. Especially after giving me nightmare flashbacks of that god-awful first season episode with the voracious fat sucking girl...

Facade was more or less a facade of an episode, with all show and not any real meaning. But at least it gave every character a chance to shine... Jonathan Kent had his first real speech of the season, and he really did seem like a father. And while Martha wasn't really there, at least we got to learn that she's going to have a larger role to play this season... As for Lex, I almost felt bad for him when he realized Lana was going out with that hopefully-evil Jason X kind of guy. If anyone has chemistry with Kreuk on the show, it's Lex... Jason was simply too sappy to ever be a proper glove of a fit for Lana Lang. God, I hope he turns out to be evil... But even he was somewhat interesting this episode, after learning about his corporate backstory. He could turn out to be quite the Lex Jr, and I'm guessing he'll have something to do with Lionel Luther sometime down the road. If only Lionel had been in this episode, then maybe Smallville would've felt more than just a facade...

So once again, I wrote a small Smallville week in review that wasn't very small... for an episode that I didn't even think was very good... But the thing is, Smallville in season four has actually been far more enjoyable than the groan-inducing crap of previous seasons, all thanks to the spark that's shared between Lois and Clark and their new adventures of Superman... so no wonder they're bringing Erica Durance back for 20 episodes of the season, when she was originally slated for four...

... afterall, we really do need some Lois on Chloe action to spruce up the ratings... damn they're hot together...

... sure, I guess that makes me more sick than an uber-young football coach dating a minor, but that's besides the point...

You know, I had this whole big rant set up, about how lame ass Shark Tale turned out to be... I mean, the first time I saw it in theatres, all I could focus on was a bloody hell Dreamworks rip-off of Pixar's timeless Finding Nemo classic. And to make matters even worse, no matter how many damn times I saw the trailer, none of the jokes in Shark Tale even remotely made me want to laugh. The movie just seemed so utterly jokeless, tasteless, and damn well forgettable, that I had this whole rant ready for this website and all, how the industry will now just whore out countless computer animated clone films, no matter the quality... especially after a movie like Shark Tale could still manage to rake up $50 million its first weekend at the boxoffice...

And you know what? Despite all the critics downplaying this film, especially in light of its Pixar copy-catting status, the thing is... This movie was a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be... And while that's normally not saying much, considering I originally thought this film was below whale dung on the hierarchy list of just for laughs, the fact of the matter is...

While Shark Tale certainly ain't no Shrek, and it certainly ain't no Finding Nemo... it still is a surprisingly damn good animated film at that...

Let me get the flaws out of the way first, with the first and foremost one being Lenny... Except for his whole "Sebastian the Dolphin" routine, he just wasn't funny. At all. Period... I mean, I get the whole not-so-subtle metaphor of him being a homosexual and all. That'd probably flow under my father's own homophobic sonar like it would most parents... And for the most part, I did like the metaphor. The reaction to Lenny's refusal to eat even shrimp did get a reaction from the audience as well. And you gotta love the shrimp - they were probably the best damn part of the entire movie, with their war-rampaging comeback and all... But why the hell did Jack Black make his voice sound so damn bad? I mean, I understand that it works with the metaphor. But his voice just sounded so damn annoying, that it almost hurt to listen to him half the time... Sure, I snickered at the sight of him washing away at whales as a killer henchman dolphin. But I only laughed, because Lenny didn't open his mouth... He just sounded so damn whiny, that it defies logic why Dreamworks got Jack Black to do the voice instead of just some no-name Joe Millionaire off the streets...

And oh, the romantic triangle... Angelina Jolie was pretty much wasted as Lola, considering I could barely even tell that was her behind the lack of lips. And while Renee Zellweger did seem remarkably sweet, for a bitter tasting fish at least, she really was too one-dimensional for her own good. She didn't even get any good jokes in, besides the pounding of her fins in frustration that was already spoiled in the trailers... The love crap was simply too damn predictably cheesy in this film, especially compared to what Dreamworks magically concocted for their Shrek franchise. And fish can't kiss, dammit! No lips, no kiss kiss, no bang bang. Ya got it?... But still, Renee's voice did really work well, in those few scenes where she really lit up the screen like a great mother of pearl. Her character may have been bland, but her voice acting was definitely the most memorable sounding one in the entire flick...

Because unfortunately, even after Will Smith retooled his vocal performance per his six year old son's instruction, his character still couldn't find the right mix of just being damn dumb and actually getting a decent joke across... I mean, "you had me at hello?" WTF? Everyone may get the reference, but nobody really gets how that could ever be funny (dammit, Tom Cruise wasn't even in the movie!... umm, yeah...)... And the first half of the film simply moved along so quickly, with no hint of a decent Oscar winning performance in sight. Every joke fell flat, from the boring crazy guy in the shell, to even the sight of the seahorse race (although the slow-mo was a nice touch...). No pun intended of course, if that does count as a pun at least... I mean honestly, how do you trip underwater? Because this film definitely wasn't tripping...

The first half of the film definitely wasn't helped by the mob-like shark clan either... Robert DeNiro waltzed his way through the film, never really putting the oomph into his work to make Lino into anything but a stereotypical character... And c'mon already, most of the characters in this film were just downright one-dimensional caricatures. I mean, even the pizza phone call felt forced from the octopus guy. The blowfish got the short stick of some awful black humour. And the two jellyfish guys?... While I would've admitted they were entertaining, if only from their electrical torture routines, the thing is... THEY WERE FUCKING PLAYING THE PLAYSTATION! And that's something I can never forgive the film for...

Yeah, I was bored to tears for the first half of Shark Tale. Part of that was because the whole film felt superficial, and part of that was because fourth year university mid-term season is starting to creep up on my ass... But the film really started to light up when Oscar and Lenny got together on screen... Frankie's death wasn't funny or anything, but the sheer suddenness of it was enough to shudder me awake. And the sudden turnaround of the blowfish as Oscar's manager? The dialogue may have been predictable, but the performances were finally indelible... I never really cared for Lola or Angie, but I still gotta admit, Renee did sound cute as she was gloating over Oscar flexing his fins... And even if I didn't laugh, I still found it funny how damn afraid Lenny was of the so-called "Shark Slayer", even when the Slayer was in his company... the chuckles he got afterwards were worth a moment or two as well...

I may not have liked Jack Black's voice this movie, and Will Smith has had better days... But the two definitely worked wonders on screen. And that's exactly why I'd recommend this movie... Hell, the Oscar vs Lenny fight, and the subsequent "sit-down" at the table with Lino, alone were ridiculously stupid enough to actually get me to buy this movie when it comes out on DVD... And while I may not have liked the overly sappy (and too quickly tied up) ending, considering Dreamworks has done a hell of a lot better with Shrek before, I still gotta admit that the car wash scenes in the movie were pretty damn cool... It completely wasn't funny when the whale burped a little gup, but seeing sharks suped up like Honda Civics?...

... the movie started out as a whimper, but ended with a bang... the story of Oscar's life, I suppose...

The movie was far less complex and far less meaningful than either Shrek or any of Pixar's movies have ever been in the past. Which is why it definitely irked me when I heard the Shrek music blare at the start of the film... But while Shark Tale may never be able to match the majesty of the best computer animated films of the decade. While it may never win an Oscar, unless the awards are rigged to screw over The Incredibles... still, the fact of the matter is... Once you get past the all-too obvious Jack Black homosexual vocal vibes, once you get past the horribly misplaced in-jokes, and once you get past all the completely lame attempts at adapting black humour for children... the thing is, the film may have been far too simple for my tastes, it may have been intended far too much for toddlers (while dealing with far too adult-oriented stuff)... but still... it still left a grin on my face, whenever I saw Lenny barf up a fish or send showers of sparks through the Reef's Times Square...

... sometimes, it's the little things in life you treasure... even if its sharks, just coughing up license plates as treasure...

Shark Tale certainly wasn't the best movie I've seen this year. Hell, it probably wasn't even the best movie I've seen these few past months... But it was still far better than I ever thought it would be. It was completely not a Finding Nemo rip-off like I expected... And it still managed to take my mind off my impending, university mid-term doom... for half of a movie at least...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Gone small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers) -

Wow... I just squared off against absolutely the best damn telemarketer I've ever been annoyed by... The thing is, this guy was good. Real good. He had the perfect phone voice (and not the phony type of phone voice), and he actually was supposedly behind a good charity.// Apparently, he worked for my provincial police force in keeping juveniles behind bars and protecting the children of victimized families or some crap like that... You know, something real important sounding to get the best of your guilt. Something so damn "pure", that you really can't help thinking what the real scam is...

The thing is, he didn't just have the voice... He was pretty damn convincing too, if only because he seemed so damn confident of himself... After about three minutes of his incessant (yet understandable) rambling about the future of our nation's children, he said he would put me down for a $45 sponsorship, to arrive at my home in a few days... and in my eternal, spotless sunshine of a confusion, since I was watching Smallville at the time, the only thing that came to mind was...

That's when he 'corrected' himself, claiming "alright, I'll put you down for the $35 sponsorship then"... And since I still didn't have a clue what was going on, all I could think of to say was, "umm... I don't have to do this, right?..."... The telemarketer kinda froze there for a second, obviously taken back by the fact that I was so damn bad at getting rid of him... He eventually recomposed himself though, and simply stated, "okay, the $15 sponsorship it is"... But that was around the time a commercial break finally hit the WB airwaves. I finally realized what the hell was going on, and taunted and retorted, "I'm sorry, but I'm just not interested"... That's when the bastard finally left. But I gotta admit it - for a telemarketer, he was pretty damn good... he almost had me at hello...

... combine a sexy girl voice with his kinda of wits, and then you'd have one poor sap of a donator over here...

... and speaking of saps... Oh, Smallville... the show is just so damn sappy and sucky, that the only thing I ever look forward to... is obviously what all you two readers look forward to too... because you know what I'm talking about...

Hey, Terminator 2 is one of my favourite movies of all time, just below The Rock and everyone's favourite Parent Trap... So what the hell was wrong with the freak of the week this episode? Hasn't Smallville ripped off enough bad villains yet?... And worst yet, he was beaten back by goddam pepper spray? From Lana Lang of all bitches? WTF?... Lana Lang at least looked rather damn beautified in Gone. Her hair was far more jazzed up than you'd ever expect from a high school girl away from prom. And her clothes definitely looked more sultry than anything she wore last year somehow. So I guess getting possessed by Clark's biological mom, does more than just increase the Oedipal ick factor of the show... But unfortunately for us, her goddam Lana Langified tendencies were not gone. Her damn "awkwardness" with Clark had me rolling on the floor in pathetic laughter. And her moments with Jason? Oh God, that bastard better turn out to be evil. Because that's the only way the show can justify how many damn times I hit my head with a wrench over his goddam awful lines... The only Lana moment that I did enjoy this episode, was when she was sort of mocking Clark for having a crush on Lois. I mean, I thought it was too early in the show to really clue in the one viewer out there, who doesn't know Lois ends up with Clark. But Tom Welling's reaction was simply priceless... poor boy seemed so whipped at little Ms. "Bossy"...

Gone was a better episode than Crusade at least, although that certainly ain't saying much... Once again, Lois Lang provided the only real strong performance of the episode. She certainly is headstrong and sassy, and yet she can be emotional without getting me to hit my head with a goddam brick. Her mere one second mention of her mother dying of cigarettes and cancer, was a hell of a lot better writing than the Smallville guys have done in a very long time... I can't say they should be proud of Mr. Sam Ironside Fisher as her father though. He was pretty pointless to the plotline, except to fly around in a helicopter looking badass with the cliche cigar... But still, both he and Lois had their moments with Clark. Because truth be told, Tom Welling ain't so bad when he's actually acting like an adult rather than the high school student he just can't play... I do love his chemistry with Lois. Although at times, it's overbearing (like the shower scene), as he takes his shirt off more times than even Spike did on Buffy... But the poor bastard really does look flustered whenever he's dealing with Lois. He can't seem to handle her, and ends up looking all dazed and confused in the end... which was exactly how he played his role with Lana as well before, only this time it's actually intentional... I think...

Jonathan Kent had surprisingly few lines, considering he just came back from a coma. But the look he gave that cigar he wouldn't touch was reason enough for him to be back on the show... Chloe finally made her return, although being dangled in the T2 factory and then having a touchy, feely lesbian moment with her cousin later (we can only hope...) didn't exactly constitute a momentous return. I seriously didn't like the explanation for her 'death' though. I mean, last year the explosion happened right after she entered the house. And now it happened something like ten seconds after? What kind of lameass bomb is that?... Lionel didn't have much of a role, besides the shortest murder trial in the history of mankind. And why the hell was he stabbed to the sound of bad music anyhew? Though it will be a bit interesting, to see how he rots (or not) in jail, while Lex becomes the villain of the show... And Lex himself? Well, the only thing I really care for, is if he'll ever get Chloe or Lana or whoever. Because I was kinda disappointed, that he didn't really show a sign of evil this episode. I mean, Clark was more cliche badass than he was... Still, I do wonder where Luther's character arc will go this season. We all know it's his time to be the bad guy. But I just hope his descent to hell actually makes sense, since he still really seemed like a cigar smoking puppy dog in Gone...

So yeah, there's my small Smallville week in review for you. Except it ain't really that small... but don't expect a real hobbit of a habit out of this. With Star Trek Enterprise finally coming back next week, the universe may finally be resetted in the right Rosetta direction, for the first time since goddam Angel was canceled and gone off the air...

... yes, I am still bitter... and hell, I didn't even like the show, but I digress...

[c. visitors too bored to return...]
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