Smallville (Season 9 Episode 1): Yes, I watch goddamn Smallville. I've watched for eight long seasons and will watch the ninth. Why? Because I'm an idiot and a masochist apparently. Season 8 had its moments, though I don't recall them right now. All I can remember is the suck-ass season finale. All season they hyped a Clark/Doomsday showdown that only lasted about 4 seconds during the finale. Finally we were going to get a villain that could stand and battle Superman and we don't even get a goddamn fight! It could have been epic. It wasn't. And then, they kill fucking Jimmy Olsen! What the fuck? How do you kill Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen? It doesn't make sense. You could add Lex Luthor to the list stupid characters to kill but I really don't think he's dead. If he is, that's equally lame. At least Lana Lang isn't on the show. By time she left (what's her real name again?) I spent most of the time hoping Clark would either fry her brain with his heat vision or punch her completely out of the Multiverse. Oh well. That was Season 8.

Smallville is often about the let down. They tease that he'll fly or actually act like fucking Superman. But then he doesn't. I get it that this is basically an Elseworlds story, but come on. Can we actually have Superman being Superman even if he isn't in tights?

OK. So how was the season premiere? Well, it was okay. Clark is all about breaking off his human attachment and getting on with whatever this Kryptonian training that Jor-El has planned for him. Great Caesar's Ghost! How long have we been hearing about this damn training? Get it over with already. Anyway, so now wears all black, except for the silvery S on his chest. He demands to know why he can't fly, tries to fly, and fails. Apparently his emotions are holding him back or something. In short, eight years of emo Clark is making him a lame future Superman. Still, he's running around doing the hero thing and vandalizing property to let people know it was him.

I didn't know Supes had such an ego, but the image was kinda cool.

The bad guys this season appear to be a currently powerless Zod and a gang of Kryptonians hanging out in Lex Luthor's Smallville mansion. They're keeping Tess Mercer prisoner. They also beat the shit out of her, but we don't actually see that happen. Zod delivers the famous "kneel before Zod" line but catches a face full of Kryptonian knuckles from one of his buddies. Guess he's not quite the boss yet, though they eventually kneel to him for some reason after he whips out some Kryptonian oration on them. Also, Zod has an Australian accent, or that's what it sounds like to me. Weird.

John Corben is also introduced and will presumably become the Kryptonite-hearted villain Metallo during the season. Metallo is played by what's-his-name that played Derek Reese on Terminator:SCC. You might remember that's the show that Fox canceled because they hate quality programming. As Derek, he was unceremoniously capped in the head by a Terminator near the end of the series. As John Corben, Derek works at the Daily Planet and sits at the desk abandoned by Clark. Lois, currently fired from the Daily Planet, will probably get her job back. Let's hope for they don't start up some romance between Metallo and Lois to make Clark jealous. That would be predictably Smallville-esque and powerfully dumb.

And finally Lois, who was transported to the future by Clark's Legion ring at the end of last season, reappears being chased by someone we find out is one of Zod's flunkies from the present. The flunky comes to the past with superpowers, but disables Clark's powers (and hers) with some blue kryptonite so she can kill Clark. If I'm understanding this properly, she has to kill him because if she doesn't, in one year Lois's dream about having sex with either Clark or Zod in front of a big wall of fire will come true, thus boring the fans and possibly the Multiverse to death. At least, I think that's what Lois' dream meant. To be honest, I wasn't playing that close attention at that point. Oh, the future Zod flunky dies and Clark buries her, possibly her on his farm. Kinda of a dumb place to hide a body when you could toss it into the sun, but I guess Clark isn't that smart. The current Zod flunky is still hanging out in the present at Lex's place and kneeling before Zod. Near the end of the episode she looks at the camera to say "yeah, i'm gonna die and you already know it" with he eyes.

Oh, and Green Arrow is a drunken cage fighter because...I dont' know why. But he's not Green Arrow anymore.

Also, Cloe is sad because Clark is being a dick and won't go back in time to change the past using his Legion ring so that Jimmy is still alive. Too bad Clark can't fly or else he could just spin the Earth backwards on it's axis and start being Superman 4 seasons or so ago.

So that's pretty much it, or at least what I care to remember. I thought the episode set up some potentially cool stuff for the rest of the season. I was looking forward to the episode and wasn't terribly disappointed. A lot of setup and now it's time to hope for some payoff. Smallville has a history of hinting at moving Clark toward being Superman then just failing miserably. Honestly, this show should have ended last season with Clark being Superman.

Regular Superman.

Dollhouse Season 2 Episode 1: I didn't get into Dollhouse initially. I watched two episodes, thought "meh" and moved on. Then someone talked me into watching the rest of season one. I did, and despite some less interesting episodes, got sucked in completely by the end of the season. The last part of the season was solid, as was the extra 13th episode on the dvds. I'm still hesitant to like this show too much. Fox is just going to kill it when they need to make room for another Seth MacFarlane abortion or whatever other piece of shit they air.

The way this episode went sorta confused me, because I thought it would pick up where the finale ended. Nope. I guess Alpha is just out there being either Alpha or Roy Baty somewhere. It turns out Echo and her handler...um...Helo from Battlestar Galatica are on some sort of stakeout of an arms dealer played by Captain Lee Adama, also of Battlestar Galatica. Echo is pretend-married to Captain Adama and is programmed to think she's FBI or some such shit. We're lead to believe that Adama is the client, but it turns out it's Helo living out his failed FBI career with Echo. Eventually they stop Adama from selling his arms, but only after Echo glitches again and Helo slaps her around until she remembers how to be River Tam from Firefly, but without a sword. At the end, Helo vows to help Echo--who can remember all these personalities floating around in her head--however he can so he can live out more of his FBI fantasies with her, bring down the Rossum Corp., do her, or maybe all three. It's hard to tell at this point.

The more interesting parts of the episode are Whiskey's attempts to cope with realizing she is also an Active and not a real person. She drinks, tries to sleep with Topher, and eventually goes for a drive. Writing it out like that doesn't sound interesting, but it is. The good parts of the show, I think, attempt to deal with autonomy, individuality and personality and the consequences of Rossum Corps's manipulations. There's more to say, but I've run out of steam. It's a good show and worth watching even if there will only be 13 episodes this season, after which Fox will kill the series.

After reading this dreck, I realized I have no idea what most of these peoples' names really are. Does it matter? At least I put in an image to break up this wall of rambling, incoherent text.