What I'm Watching: Smallville

Smallville: Season 7, Episode 17 "Sleeper" (F)

Just to get the record straight, Clark wants to read to Lana instead of saving all of humanity from the evil of Lex? Sadly, that's not even remotely the most inept part of this episode. I'd hope the FBI had better surveillance techniques with more stealth than to pop up with a message that says "duplicating files" on the main computer that's being hacked. It's probably newbie Jimmy, who has no idea what he's doing, since if I have it correct he got trained to be a hacker and super-spy in less than half a day, and got outsmarted by Chloe but still managed to outsmart the supposedly intelligent FBI. Oh, and he got tango lessons. It's hard to decide which is more unbelievable: Chloe as a terrorist or Jimmy as a spy. Maybe this episode was making a pathetic attempt at a Bond parody, but it's a complete failure. You'll never guess what was sitting next to Chloe's cell phone - Stride gum. I hate product placement. Anyway, now Jimmy's indebted to Lex and we'll have to see an entire episode devoted to him outsmarting Lex to get out from under his iron grasp. I love time travel, but I don't think they're going about it the right way here. There was also a crazy scene from the preview that wasn't even in this episode (I guess it's still coming up), but I thought it was going to be the last scene and I'd have to rail on the CW for promoting the shocking last scene in the weekly previews (though of course it's my own fault for watching them).

One reader in particular keeps asking me why I continue to watch this show if I hate every episode so much. To address his concern, I used to love "Smallville" and I feel like it could get better. I gave up after the show's fifth season ended, having suffered through three terrible seasons in a row. I started watching the sixth season during summer reruns because there was nothing else on and the presence of Oliver Queen and some other elements really made the show good for a few episodes. Season seven plummeted right back down, but the recent announcement that new showrunners will be taking over gives me hope for the show's eighth season, so I have to keep watching until then to keep up with the plotline. In any case, it's only once a week.