Rapid Reviews - Wednesday Night TV

Smallville [3-22]: Covenant: Is it just me, or was that a quadruple cliff-hanger? I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen that in a TV show before, and I can't recall any instance of it. Anyway, the opening scene made it very clear that what we were about to see was not happy and Silver Agey, and it stayed the course for the whole episode. I wish I could say it romped along, or it was really good, or ... something. But it just seemed, except for the cliff-hangers, like a normal episode of Smallville. I'm eager to see what happens next, but I'm not dying to know. It was good, but it wasn't great.

Just a note on this, if you visit The Smallville Ledger you can follow-up on some of the events in the episode. One item of note shows up in the Classifieds: "TO MY STUDENTS AT SHS... Another school year is gone, and now it'll be months before I get to see you again. Be good, and avoid watching TV shows with annoying cliffhangers. Yours, Mr. Rosso." Ha. Ha.

Angel [5-22]: Not Fade Away: Wowsa. I expected a nice explosive send off, and that's what I got. If I have any complaint, it's that things got mildly confusing in the middle of the episode. Oh, yeah, and that I predicted Eve would do something phenomenally stupid, but as far as I could tell she didn't. Oh well, I got my other prediction correct. Not like that was a hard one. (spoilers)They've been setting up Wesley's death since Fred died, and they even set up Illyria's part in it. It was done better than I expected, though.(end spoilers) There were a lot of really good lines in this one. I love Illyria's comment to Gunn: "Try not to die. You are not unpleasant to my eyes." The deadpan delivery worked very well. But I think the best line belonged to Angel: "Can you pick out the one word you probably shouldn't have said?" Very nice. Humor right up until the end, action-packed. It was a good ride, and I've only just started watching the first season, so there's a lot of catching up for me to do. And it's nice that the series ended on an almost cliff-hanger, so there's the possibility of bringing some folks back for an encore someday.

Comics to review this week: Seaguy, Outsiders, Amazing Spider-Man, Batman Adventures, Birds of Prey, JLA: Another Nail, and Powerpuff Girls. Yes, Powerpuff Girls. Stop giggling.