News of the Right

Yeah, I don’t know why I keep watching either

BUT

I was pumped for Helen “Supergirl” Slater to be guest appearing as Lara-El (another L.L. (well, “L. El”) in Superman’s life). How is it possible that she’s even more adorable now than she was when she was 20? She still has that strange, breathy, hesitant cadence (but with a huskier bouquet) which I always found to be charming. I just wanted to reach into the screen and hug her, she was so sweet.

BUT

Dammit. I was on the couch with the dog and the housemate working ourselves into a frenzy PRAYING that the people who write Smallville would let Lara do some aerial ballet just before she read Zor-El his beads. How COOL would THAT have been???

BUT

No. Lara, for whatever reason, remained powerless. No flight, no super-strength, not even an accidental super-sneeze. Then there was Zor-El, zipping around like HE was the Last Son of Krypton (for as many of them as there are “last”) sent to Earth 20-some years ago with all that time to develop his powers. But, for having been “born” at the same moment as Zor-El, Lara stayed essentially human. Helen Slater was terribly underused

AND

Since when does blue kryptonite render Superman powerless? Wasn’t that the only kryptonite he suffered no ill effects from? The only kryptonite that would hurt Bizarro?

AND

Why all the “it happened off-stage” moments this season? God, it’s worse than Battlestar Galactica’s starting with an action sequence then flashing “24 hours earlier” across the screen every single week. Kara betrays kal-el? The ring is removed? Clark searches high and low for the missing Kara for almost 20 seconds before he exhausts all possible places to look?

ALSO

Have the current writers not seen previous seasons? I SWEAR Julian Luthor came back before only to die miserably in a back alley somewhere. And GAWD that clunky exposition scene between “Grant” and Lex! Then Jor-El says he will “finally” apply a consequence for Clark’s disobeying him AGAIN? What was Season 4 all about? What kind of control issues does this guy have?

ARGH.

No, really. Why do I do this every week?

I’m still trying to decide if I’m a fan of the new Bionic Woman show or not. I’ve watched every episode so far, but that may just be because I’m pathetic and have no life (well, I have a hint of a life that’s been creeping up over the horizon since the AIDS Walk, but more on that later) or that nothing else is on TV Wednesday nights or it may be that I want to like the show but am a pussy about committing to it. I grew up watching the actual Bionic Woman (and my one gift to myself from this past July’s Comic Con was to buy the complete series on DVD (very pirated!)) and love its message that being a Cold War agent doesn’t mean you can’t hug and kiss on your superiors or let them dote on you like a favored daughter.

But tonight’s episode, Trust Issues was different. Not that the writing was better or that the insanely pithy prologue was absent, but it actually jettisoned a HUGE piece of deadwood from the cast, namely Isaiah Washington. I can hear the uproar now: “You don’t like him just because he used the f-word!” Nah. I don’t like this guy because he’s a terrible actor. Of the three talented actors on Grey’s Anatomy, he was not one (the again, neither is the lead actress, Ellen Pompeo). There, his cold-fish attitude, ironic laughter (noticeably non-ironic in scenes with George, but oh-so-profound-and-meaningful when with his girlfriend, Christine) and brusque pronouncements like God was pooping out of his mouth made him a bad doctor, but somehow these same acting techniques make him a terrible spy as well. Anyway, he’s gone. For now. We assume. We see him flatline in an ambulance, then cut to Jaime looking at his picture in his jacket (spy talk for “permanent record”) with her boss intoning “You never get over your first one.” Is that “your first partner’s death”? “Your first partner’s being a vegetable”? “Your first partner’s near-fatal wounding”? “Your first partner’s coma and eventual return as a bad guy”? We didn’t see the body, nor did we see the funeral, so I’m guessing he’s not dead, but in the wings somewhere. Hopefully in a Method class.

I do, however, like Tom, the new CIA love interest. So cute and spaniel-like for a spy!