8.00 - Smallville Season Eight

Top 100 Fictional Femmes of Genre Film and Television (2008)Pink RayGun has put Chloe Sullivan on the list of the Top 100 Fictional Femmes of Film and Television.  Although she comes in at 79, this is an epic list of women and her write up should make all Chloisers smile at the fact that Pink RayGun has exactly figured out what makes her aweomse is also what makes fans recognize her as Lois Lane (emphasis ours):

79. Chloe Sullivan (Smallville) – It’s tragic that she doesn’t receive half the respect that she deserves. It’s a testament to her sense of humor, devotion to justice, and dogged curiosity that fans of the show assumed she was a nascent Lois Lane. A greater compliment could not exist, as Lois Lane is another top, top, top fictional femme in the same fictional universe. Over time, she’s morphed into the only responsible adult in a two-state radius, and she’s proven that she can navigate the dictates of her conscience even in a world where she must battle both Earth-bound and intergalactic threats.

Entertainment Weekly's 24 Character Who Turn You OffGoing into premiere season is this list from Entertainment Weekly on the top 24 character that turn people off; unfortunately for Smallville, the character of Clark Kent comes in at #4 on the list:

Clark, from Smallville, because he turned Superman from a great hero to a whiny, selfish jackass who spent the better part of eight seasons moping about Lana, taking his friends and family for granted, and generally being as unheroic as possible. —Mimi

Sounds like the spoilers of Clark turning his back on humanity haven't done anything to win over past-fans into making the Friday night switchover for the series.

Ginny Chae talked about the CW network and it's struggle to find it's identy, berating Dawn Ostroff's choice to focus on becoming "the racy, young network" instead of focusing in on show which are actual rating hits for the series.  She points out their latest advertising campaigns include the phraze "Tuesdays are Bitch" for the new Melrose Place; at the same time she highlights that the CW is throwing away their best rated shows:

Were sex, drugs and money the answer to all of the network’s problems? In short, no. Despite being The CW’s “breakout hit,” “Gossip Girl” fails at the ratings game. Unlike veteran shows “Smallville” and “Supernatural,” which brought in 3.7 million and 3.2 million viewers, respectively, during their most recent seasons, “Gossip Girl” viewers averaged only 2.7 million throughout both of the show’s seasons. Despite those numbers, “Smallville” has been scheduled to premiere in the Friday night “death slot” this fall and “Supernatural” has received little promotion.

TWOP "Save Our Show": Most Redemptive CharacterChloe Sullivan is up for a Tubey on Television Without Pity; out of all the categories nominated for this year, she is on "Most Redemptive Character on an Otherwise Sucky Show."  Voting lasts through August 30th, so go ahead and show some support.

Allison Mack / Chloe Sullivan was also endorced by TWoP by being the face of the poll on their front page!

Smallville, Season Eight: CastCrave Online has a spectacular two page article on how to save Smallville from itself. They start off rightly pointing out that they've jumped the shark because it is no longer about those key stories of growing up with Super powers. The author, Iann Robinson, goes about listing things Smallville should do to get back on top (spoilers below).

His big recommendation for Erica Durance's Lois Lane is rather simple - fire her:

Moving on, I know it’s already too late for this but they should really fire Erica Durance and give some worthy actress the shot to reclaim Lois Lane’s dignity. Durance plays her like some weird combination of stripper, feminist and missing character from Sex In The City. She has no ability with humor, sadness or even terror. Everything she does is one note and has this bizarre sex kitten thing to it. I know replacing her mid-season would be difficult but I’m guessing most fans would cheer on the idea.

The last round of nominations before actual voting are in.  Once again Smallville got nominated in several categories including multiple plotlines making their Worst "WTF" Moment list from Doomsday and Hex, the Traveler plot making their "Neverending Subplot" list, and both Davis' backstory and Henry Olsen making the Worst Retcon List. 

Here are the nominees as they specific to Chloe, EDLois, and the show in general:

Beast, Doomsday, Power, Requiem, and Stiletto for Worst Single Episode in Drama

Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan for Favorite Character

Clark Kent, Chloe Sullivan, Lana Lang, and Lois Lane for Least Favorite Character

Clark Kent and Chloe Sullivan for Most Redemptive Character in an Otherwise Sucky Show

Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan, and Lois Lane for Character Most in Need of Killing Off

"Chloe Sullivan does not die!" for Best Line of Dialogue

Part two of the Tubey nomination process are in, and are up for your nominations through June 29th.  Smallville donminated some categories, especially "Most Ludicrous Plotline" where got most nominations even beating out Heroes.  Smallville also picked up nominations for Least Villianous Villian for Tess, most welcome new additions for Tess and Davis.  The nominations pertainant to Chloe and EDlois are:

Chloe Sullivan for Best Sidekick

Smallville for Worst Finale

Smallville for Least Improved Show

EDLois as a Reporter, EDLois in a romance with Clark, Chloe 'saving' Davis Bloome all for Most Ludicrus Plotline

EDLois' Stiletto Outfit as Worst Crime Against Fashion

 

The first half of the TWOP Tubey nominations are in; Smallville has been nominated in five different categories in round one.  Four of them are not that shocking given season eight.

Tom Welling for Favorite Actor

Allison Mack for Favorite Actress

Erica Durance for Least Favorite Actress

Smallville for Worst Show

Clark & Chloe for Not Quiet A Romantic Relationship

The last category has Clark and Chloe up against other favored television Will-They/Won't-They and show OTP's such as Barney & Robin on How I met Your Mother, House & Cuddy on House, Chuck & Sarah from Chuck, Booth & Brennan from Bones, and Kara & Lee from Battlestar Galatica. 

Vote for Smallville at the Tubey's here.

Today the nominations for Fox's Teen Choice Awards have come out with a few interesting pieces; one, they seem to have brought back the sidekick nomination role that AM has been nominated for every time it was on the ballot and has won in the past.  She is nominated in this role again, despite being the leading lady of the series at this point.

Two, they seem to side with those who prefer what fandom has dubbed the "core four" of the series (Clark, Lex, Chloe, and Lana) and nominated those characters/actors in their traditional roles of the series for the past seven years.  It's most notible this year, however, because Lana/Krisitin was only on the show for five eps, and Lex/Michael wasn't on the show at all.

Nonetheless, here are the categories of the TCA's that Smallville is nominated for in 2009:

Smallville for best show.

Tom Welling for lead actor.

Kristin Kreuk for lead actress.

Allison Mack for Best TV Sidekick.

Michael Rosenbaum for Best TV Villian.

We wish best of luck for Smallville in the 2009 TCA's this year.

Smallville Magazine #32Brian Peterson, Darren Swimmer, and Todd Slavkin talk about season eight and in particular Chloe's arc in the latest issue of the Smallville Magazine.  Slavkin notes that "She and Clark will be at odds in a certain way, but she's doing the right thing.  Chloe has been through a lot this year and has had the most difficult time of all the characters."  

Peterson chimes in that, "Since the beginning of the show, she's been on a trajectory of where she wanted her life to go, and she's been on a bit of a detour from that.  Chloe's going to get back on track to what she [always] wanted."  Hopefully, that's back to the bull pen!

Slavkin also weighed in on the state of the Chloe/Jimmy relationship post-Turbulence, "What we don't want to do is more of Chloe and Jimmy pining for each other.  We want them to move on."

Issues go on sale to the public May 5th.  Thank you to wwg for sharing a scan with us!

Dave Sharp with Birmingham News give a pretty sharp (and on the mark) review of Smallville's episode, Stiletto.  In side, he points out the issues going on with all characters, but takes time to specifically highlight the issues he has with Durance's version of Lois Lane (emphasis ours):

TWOP's Mindy Monez gave the counterpoint list to the Supporting Characters They Love Right Now by outlining TWOP's list of Supporting Characters We Hate Right Now.  The list included Durance's Lois in part for upsurping Chloe's rightful role on the show:

Lois (Smallville)
Another dumb character, we hate Lois mostly for stealing Chloe's rightful journalistic and screentime thunder. She may be nice to look at, boys, but a believable crack reporter Lois is so not.

Others on the list included Thirteen from House, Mohinder from Heroes, and Ruby on Supernatural.

Jarett Wieselman over at PopWatch is getting in on the spoiler speculating business as well; thankfully he includes a bit of non-spoilery information in the beginning from his interview earlier in the year with Allison Mack about her contract. Smallville, Season Eight: ChloeShe is indeed contracted through season nine (confirmed before Season Nine was actually confirmed). Not that exciting, but check out his analysis after the cut. 

Pop culture blog "Entertainment Base!" has reposted the spoilers leaked out by Entertainment Weekly the other day, along with their own  recommendations on how they think the show will execute those spoilers, and where the fan loyalty lies. More after the cut.

Entertainment Weekly Online, March 6, 2009Entertainment Weekly's Micheal Ausiello cracked spoilers for this year's finale.  Since his scoop is so big there is more on it after the break. In non-spoiler news, the news of the spoiler got Smallville stars Tom Welling and Allison Mack on the front page of Entertainment Weekly.Com yet again (featured at the right - though beware the image is spoilery.)

DC senior vice-president -- creative affairs at DC Comics, Gregory Noveck talked to Comics Continuum about Smallville and how they are involved with what comic characters are on the show.  Noveck gets into the history of how DC's relationship with Smallville has changed over the years and how Smallville has evolved to be an Elseworld type of story:

BuzzFocus wrote up a review of the 8.15, Infamous trailer today noting all the issue there are with season eight.