Smallville Review – “Witness” (new)

We’re heading into the end of the season, and things are looking great for next year’s dynamics.

Cast

Tom Welling as
Clark Kent
Kristen Kreuk as
Lana Lang
Michael
Rosenbaum
as Lex Luthor
John Glover
as Lionel Luthor
Sam Jones III as
Pete Ross
Allison Mack as
Chloe Sullivan
Annette
O’Toole
as Martha Kent
John
Schneider
as Jonathan Kent

Written by Mark Verheiden.
Directed by Rick Wallace.

Original Airdate


Witness
originally aired on Tuesday,
April 29, 2003.

Premise

Clark is witness to the robbery of an unmarked LuthorCorp vehicle.

High Point

The final scene. My brain is still reeling in the implications.

Low Point

The truck that was robbed that everyone kept talking sure looked like
a van to me. I suspect that was changed from the original script by
the effects crew, but it wasn’t updated in the dialogue, possibly
because the dialogue scenes were already shot.

The Review

We’ve seen kryptonite-based freaks before, so that limits the
originality. It is nice to see that the intelligent villain
actually figured out a way to hit Clark where it counts, though. I
give it 4 out of 6.

The effects were limited to stuff we’ve seen time and again,
but they were still well done. I give it 5 out of 6, hurt for not
breaking new ground.

The story was well done. Nary a plot hole that I could see,
developments of multiple relationships, effective use of every major
cast member save Annette O’Toole, and a villain with motivation other
than plain old robbery. I give it 5 out of 6, hurt because we didn’t
see enough of Henry Small in previous episodes for his plotline to
work this week.

The acting was good in every shot save one. Zachary Bryan
did well enough here (and on Buffy) to make me quickly forget
about his character on Home Improvement. Apart from Lana’s
breakdown, the entire cast was convincing. You can never go wrong
with John Glover as Lionel Luthor, either. I give it 4 out of 6.

The emotional response this produced was excellent. The
moment I hear John Glover’s voice, the screen has my complete
attention (as if it didn’t already.) Mark Verheiden has done
excellent work on the show overall; don’t be surprised to see him take
on the role of showrunner on this or another show at some future
point. He can write an episode that builds on the past without
referring to it directly (for the most part), making it accessible to
people who have and haven’t watched the show in the past. The
implications of that final scene are still setting in for me here. I
give it 6 out of 6.

The production is excellent. The moving camera kept long
conversations interesting, the lighting of the foundry scene was
exceptionally well done, and the editing and direction kept things
moving rapidly throughout the hour. I give it 6 out of 6.

Overall, it’s a very strong episode. It’s not quite as good
as Insurgence was, but it’s close. I give it 5 out of 6.

In total,
Witness
receives
35
out of 42.

Next Week

I’ll be offline for a week in May, so the next new episode will be
reviewed by Hitch.

9 replies on “Smallville Review – “Witness” (new)”

    • Re: Next Week…

      Where Ya Going? Doing Something Fun?

      I’m going to Lake Tahoe. I hope it’ll be fun.

  1. Final Scene
    Man, I sure was waiting for him to say, “Oh, and you’ll need to use a pen name of some sort… perhaps something alliterative.” I suppose we’ll have to wait for that, though :)

  2. This episode
    Well, I was actually pretty bored by this episode. It seemed too by the numbers for the most part.

    But just what is that Magnificent Bastard Lionel Luthor up to? He’s the hands-down best part of this show. I could watch hour after hour of John Glover menace his way through the town.

    Will he seduce Chloe to the dark side? Let’s hope.

    Just what is he doing with that refined kryptonite? Could Lionel be assembling a kryptonite-influenced team to take Clark captive or worse? That would be kind of cool.

    Yet another Home Improvement kid? There’s what, one more, right? Then what will we get, Tim Allen with his kryptonite-powered hand tools? Geez.

    Next week looks pretty boring too.

  3. Camera work
    Between Buffy’s shakey hand-held, and Smallville’s numerous arc pans,
    the camera work on television tonight left me a bit motion sick.

    • Re: Camera work

      Between Buffy’s shakey hand-held, and Smallville’s numerous arc pans,
      the camera work on television tonight left me a bit motion sick.

      Yeah, I’m not a fan of a lot of camera motion either. Also, calling a van a truck is not a stretch — a lot of people call pickups “trucks” too.

      It was a good episode with a lot of story development, but I hope they explain how kryptonite makes humans stronger and kryptonians weaker… It’s also getting really hard to say the the Luthors don’t know about Clark Kent. They may not know the details, but if he turned into Superman now, they’d have to shut off their brains to not know who he was. On the other hand, clearly Superman has mind-warping abilities ala Tess on Roswell to be able to get away with a mask-less dual persona.

      • Re: Camera work

        Also, calling a van a truck is not a stretch — a lot of people call pickups “trucks” too.

        Ever since Stripes, I even call RVs “trucks.”

  4. Realism
    You haveta admit one great thing they seem to be working on his being realistic and still developing great plots and subplots unlike the nonsensical crap on Buffy. The new Clhoe Lionel bit has a lot of promise and im eagerly awaiting to see what interesting events unfold between them. One thing i dont like is that Chloe seems to continue to ram Clark about every little thing he does. It seems more to me like she hates him instead of secretly loves him. Cant blame her after all the times Clark shut her out but still its a little unsettling how fast she’s turned on him. They havnt really worked Pete’s character a lot he seems kind of more like a grunt the past few episodes and i expected him to do a little more talking about Clark and Chloe. The Lana thing was pretty good although a little over the top. I find it hard to believe that Small’s gonna completely boot Lana out of his life because thats how it seemed. Our villian did a real good job and as dumb as it may be that Tim Allen bit would be funny

    • Re: Realism

      … They havnt really worked Pete’s character a lot he seems kind of more like a grunt …

      Towards the end of the episode, as Pete was burying the kryptonite while Clark stood there watching, I just got this image of Pete thinking “He’s got super powers, yet I’m the one digging the !$%^@ hole.”

      (Yes, I know he Clark can’t fill in the whole himself because of the Kryptonite in it, but I just got this vibe that he had had Pete dig it.)

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