Admittedly this is not a well-crafted review, but, intead, are my quick impressions about the episode shortly after it finished airing.
The stuff between Lois & Clark and their relationship - awesome and part of the show I'm really going to miss. They should definitely do a new verson of Lois & Clark with these two in the leads.
Emotional sequences between Clark and Martha, and Clark and Jonathan -- great. Emotionally, the episodes hit on a number of levels.
Oliver as Green Arrow (cool); Oliver as Green Arrow managing to take down Darkseid's minions with a trio of arrows... not so much. If he could have done that all along, why didn't he?
10 seconds of a physical Darkseid - rip-off. An entire season builds up to this and instead of Darkseid (beyond a few seconds) we get a Lionel-possessed by Darkseid who looks fairly ridiculous.
Return of Lex: Very cool to see them together again, but way too frickin' rushed. Nice that Lex sets ground rules of who's the hero and who's the villain and why they need each other. But with Lex missing for three years, that's all we get? If Rosenbaum was going to come back, why couldn't there be more depth to the scene and why couldn't schedules be worked out to give us more than a single scene between them?
Tess taken out by Lex -- pretty cool, but the resolution fo the scene -- and the way Lex forgets everything he's known (including about Clark) -- kind of dopey.
Clark flying briefly before taking out Darkseid possessed Lionel with one punch, awesome (though he disposed of Darkseid even faster than he disposed of Doomsday)
Clark in the fortress, being told by Jor-El how proud of him he is, but that he should never forget what he learned in Smallville, awesome. Made even more so when Jonathan symbolically hands Clark the Superman uniform.
Clark flying out of the fortress putting on the uniform, cool, except we don't get to see much more than a few flashes of blue and red.
Rescue of Air Force One as Superman, pretty cool. Clark looks in window at Lois and we see the yellow S on the back of the cape VERY cool. Unfortunately rest of bits of seeing him by the plane are CG. Nice work, but not really satisfying.
Earth's only hope, the one who can restore faith to humanity, flies by in a blur and PUSHES Apokalips away. He pushes it! At least Brandon Routh busted his ass as Superman getting rid of that crystal continent, but this Superman gives it a shove and it goes sailing away.
With Apokalips sent away, everybody's Omega symbols are destroyed. Much applause for the hero that they and we and they didn't get to see. For a guy who's supposed to inspire hope, we don't even get to see him there, floating perhaps, arms folded across his chest, for the people to behold.
Flash forward to the future (which is how episode begins): Chloe finishes reading a Smallville comic to her and Oliver's son. Cool -- but isn't Clark gonna be pissed that someone has published a comic revealing EVERYTHING?
Still in the future, On TV Lex is "president elect" (pretty good for a guy who's memory was wiped). Clark and Lois and flirting, still haven't gotten married (came close in the episode -- a scene during which Clark manages to save Oliver from his darkness, which was cool). Announcement of bomb in a skysraper. John Williams' theme cues up, Clark runs to the roof, opens his shirt to reveal the blue shirt and red S, runs towards the camera and we are outta here.
Considering all the filler of this season, there was no reason that so much had to be rushed the way it is in this episode. And why couldn't we have gotten a REAL shot of Tom Welling dressed in the Superman outfit? Why did every full body shot have to be CG and from a distance? After 10 years, and considering the suggestion was that he was in the costume anyway, why couldn't the fans have truly been given what they've waited so long to see? Pretty much everyone knew that it would be the final seconds of the final episode, but why did it have to be a cheat? And it was most definitely a cheat.
Okay, I'm done bitching. Please go back and read my piece from yesterday where I'm looking at Smallville far more fondly. Just click on the Voices From Krypton logo at the top of this page.
And now a shameless self plug: Below is the latest installment of the CBM exclusive Fleischer comic strip. I would like to point out that Fleischer does NOT have a problem appearing in public in his costume, and I think he should be applauded for it.
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