Your Friends and Neighbors

Watching: Smallville - the JSA episode. My review is thus: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Hawkman walking across the room is just hysterical to watch, as is Michael Shanks' Batman voice when he's trying to hold a conversation, Stargirl is clearly a short 30something woman from her first appearance onscreen and her costume is lamentable for a list of reasons that begin with "that top is fifteen years too young for her" and end with "teenage cosplayers have done a better job in their bedrooms", Lois' dialogue is spectacularly terrible - in fact 90 percent of the dialogue is terrible, mostly because it comprises of characters talking exposition and unnecessary/outdated pop-culture references to each other, and Doctor Fate is surely a legend in the making for choosing to remake someone on the genetic level using his occult powers rather than just step to one side to avoid being stabbed to death by a purple icicle-phallus. It's beyond terrible in places, trying to have all this daft imagery but scuppered by the fact that since day one Smallville has thought itself too serious for such things - there's simply too much disparity between concept and execution for any objective evaluation to avoid, and the best way to enjoy it - as I have for several years now - is to hunker down with someone like yourself who watches the whole thing as car-crash television and shout what you hope are amusing jokes at the screen, though in this episode, that comprised mostly of shouting "Thundercats - HOOOOOOOOOO!" when the camera pans across Hawkman's golden girdle, or quoting any of Anult Sweatyknickers' awful cold-related puns from his turn as Mr Freeze in Batman and Robin every time the villain 'The Icicle' shows up onscreen, because he has exactly the same skin make-up as the Governator did, and the fact that this is all done with a straight face is either the saddest thing on television ever, or the most awesome. Standout moment is probably Dr Fate's 'Henshin!' sequence, which, like the Wonder Twins' "Powers - ACTIVATE!" scene, is pitch-perfect silliness for this kind of material, only let down by everyone else in the room trying to act grown-up instead of joining in the fun.