10.12, Collateral (spoilers)

I got a facebook message this morning stating the CW has aired promos stating Collateral comes on tonight. TV Guide has Collateral set for Friday, 02.04.2011 like normal though. So what to do?

You guys may want to check out the CW at showtime though just to be safe.

Cant wait for tonight, finally new episodes after its long break, and its delayed a week fiasco.

Edit- my review of the episode since in now has aired(spoilers within)

Well tonight was finally the return of smallville(after the additional week off). I am so glad the show is finally back. But sad its the begining of the end. Being its the first of the last 11 episodes. Tonight episode was written By Jordan Hawley and directed By Morgan Beggs. It featured the return of allison mack as chloe for her final arc episodes. Plus return appearances of the VRA and the sucide squad.

Jordan i thought developed a pretty cool plot/story for the return episode. It was nice to see where the plot went after the heroes were knocked out by the VRA back in the last episode. Also the play on trust/and fantasy vs the real world was nicely done. I have enjoyed jordan work so far in the show. He is a solid writer.

Had a few faults here and there. But nothing to major in my book. I enjoyed how they played on what was real and what was fake. The world the vra developed was cool. Also i am happy my theory of the episode pretty much was true.

As for director Morgan did pretty good here. I think they only done a few episodes in the series. But camera angles, and blocking was nicely done. I loved lighting and way sets looked. The show looked pretty good tonight. Some pretty cool action scenes with the VRA and jl/ss fight out. Also the flight in the VR was pretty cool. Sure it would have been nice in the real world. But still it was a cool looking scene(now with that we definately need to have a big payoff in the finale).

Now as for acting in tonight's episode. Lets first start with the return of Allison Mack. I thought she returned pretty good. A solid story with her coming back and where she went. She played chloe pretty well. We got to see a wicked cool badass fighter chloe, the typical hacker chloe, and some nice old school happy/normal chloe. Allison overall i think played the character traits well.

Tom welling, again was on the ball. He played clark as well as he has been all yr. Plus the whole trust/fear thing was nicely played by tom. He as i said in past reviews has grown alot over the yrs. Cant wait to see how he develops in the remaining episodes.

Justin hartley as ollie was pretty good too. He played depressed/crazy well. Then we got to see a happy/in love ollie again. He played off both very well. I hope he wont get depressed again any time soon. Cant wait to see how he i ends in the end.

Alianna huffman return as dinah was pretty good too. I definately hope they get her to return for another episode or two in the end. Since she is now free due to SGU getting the canned. She was tough as nails dinah which was pretty good. Also her conflicts with allison were nicely played off.

As for the other guest cast members. They eached played their roles well. Didnt see any issues with them one bit. The VRA agents/trotter was their jerk selfs. Where as the Sucide squad with flag and deadshot were interesting allies tonight. Cant wait to see how the VRA/SS plotlines wrap up in the final run here.

So all in all a decent/solid return for smallville. It was a fun episode. We got to see some pretty cool moments throughout. Plus we moved the VRA/SS plots along. Cant wait for next week episode. Looks to be a very good episode. Here's hoping the final ten are good. Sad we are in the final stretch for the show. Really going to hate once we get to the finale.

The Apologists have a lot of crow to eat once again. They bashed on the "our heroes have escaped from the VRA" thing. "The VRA? That's the Vigilante Registration Act! Durrr, how can you escape from an ACT? The Smallville writers are a bunch of fucking hacks!" Well. Although common sense would've sufficed for most people, we now know it's the Vigilante Registration Agency.

"Clark loses his powers! But we've already seen thaaaaat!"

"Alternate realities? Tee hee hee, that's the perfect description for Smallville! It's JUST like an Elseworlds story, which I've never read but which people who read comics tell me is a bad thing!"

I bring it up because, although seeing them embarass themselves is nothing new, I've never seen the Apologists misunderstand so many parts of any episode. Seriously, I think they criticized and ended up being wrong about literally this entire GD episode. Believe it or not, that's a first for them (that I've seen anyway).

Apart from their homoerotica, dug the episode. Clark flew. Yeah, there's a bit of a qualifier there but still. He did it. And Lois was pretty much the cause. Honestly, that ties in with my theory that Clark can't really become Superman without Lois as his co-conspirator. Definitely a SV addition to the canon but I rather like it. Not what I want to see everytime but it plays here.

Fun to see Chloe again. SV has kind of a mixed track record when characters exit (and esp when they return) but Chloe's absence and return to duty here come off pretty well. I also buy Clark's reasons for not immediately trusting Chloe. To all outward appearances, she'd sold the JLA out. Clark wouldn't necessarily be immediately onboard with her return.

Really, the only thing that kind of irked me was the final scene. It just ended on a sort of weird note. "Okay, see ya Clark, fun flying with you but I gotta go meet Perry." And then... roll credits. No cliffhanger, no real sense of closure for the whole episode, no rousing or dramatic conclusion. Just "k thx bye". Not really bad or whatever, just kind of weird.

But whatever. Small potatoes. 3.5/5.

Collateral ratings are in:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/02/05/tv-ratings-friday-fringe-falls-fractionally-smallville-supernatural-return-even/81577

After a long repeat layoff, the CW’s Smallville (2.4 million avg. viewers) and Supernatural (2.3 million avg. viewers) each scored a 1.0 adults 18-49 rating, even with their last new episodes in December.

Couldn't they have made it a little less obvious they were ripping-off The Matrix? Chloe doing almost move-for-move what Keanu did when he realized he was "The One"? Really?

I do have to say though, that Allison Mack looked TASTY in that white outfit.....

Ya ap alot of folks have complained online about it. I didn't mind it to much. Since come on we seen them rip off other movies plently of times. It just how they do it and if it works/not within there story I think is what matters. I do agree with you allison did look pretty good looking.

Apologist Puncher wrote:Couldn't they have made it a little less obvious they were ripping-off The Matrix? Chloe doing almost move-for-move what Keanu did when he realized he was "The One"? Really?

Yeah, I know Smallville is open about it's "homages" but that Matrix bit was pushing it!

Enjoyable episode though, and like Colors said (and what the apologist sheep STILL fail to grasp), having Lois believing in Clark being the catalyst for him to become Superman is a classic example of Smallville embracing it's OWN Universe.