Saturday, May 14, 2011

Poem for Saturday, Brookside Flowers, Tribbles, Farewell Smallville

Crossing the Bar
By Lord Alfred Tennyson


Sunset and evening star,  
  And one clear call for me!  
And may there be no moaning of the bar,  
  When I put out to sea,  
  
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,  
  Too full for sound and foam,  
When that which drew from out the boundless deep  
  Turns again home.  
  
Twilight and evening bell,  
  And after that the dark!    
And may there be no sadness of farewell,  
  When I embark;  
  
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place  
  The flood may bear me far,  
I hope to see my Pilot face to face  
  When I have cross'd the bar.

--------

I spent my morning writing a review of "More Tribbles, More Troubles" and getting a bunch of stuff organized for what is sure to be a disorganized weekend. Daniel's senior prom is Saturday night, meaning we have to do a bunch of things tomorrow to get him prepared (since they just decided they were going just three days ago, we didn't have time for things like dinner reservations or corsages, let alone picking up the tux in advance), and Sunday we're going to the Brandywine Valley to enjoy the glorious spring flowers, though it sounds like we may have drizzle again.

I took a walk in the gorgeous damp cool afternoon air, though the bunny and deer were hiding, then we had dinner with my parents and Adam gave us a litany of things he thinks are failures. And then we came home for the Smallville finale. I did not think it was one of the series' finer moments in terms of the writing, and as happy as I was to see certain guest stars, I also wished it had been a bit more inclusive, particularly given the comprehensive flashback clips. I feel like the past few years have focused overmuch on Clark's (and, I suspect, Millar and Gough's) father issues -- one minute Clark has to outgrow Jor-El to find his destiny, the next he has to embrace Jor-El to be the hero he's supposed to be -- though we all know I love Lois, Tess, and Oliver, whose presence made up even for the absence of Lex and Lionel in the past few seasons.

But how I feel about any given show or season of Smallville doesn't make a dent in my great love for the show itself. Unless one counts the various Star Trek sequels as a single series, Smallville has been the series I've followed longest; I have watched it with my children all these years when they were growing up, following it when it switched nights. I ended up on LiveJournal because it was the epicenter of Smallville fandom ten years ago, so all my blogging indirectly stems from the show. I met dozens of people in Smallville fandom and connected with dozens of writers. Though I've thought the show took some missteps, none of them have damaged my affection for it; unlike Voyager and X-Files and even The West Wing, there was never a point when I was ready to throw in the towel.

Spoilers for finale moments I loved: the framing story, with Chloe reading the Smallville comic to her and Oliver's son. The wedding was really lovely till it was interrupted. The fact that Tess got to kill Lionel -- I knew from online spoilers that they were both going to die, I can't be too upset because Lionel already came back from the dead once, I thought the Luther family implosion was what everyone deserved. I totally loved the Lex/Clark scenes -- what was it that Lex said when Clark said his name, "You always say it the same way -- astonishment mixed with a bit of dread yet with a hopeful finish" -- and the fact that Clark promised always to be there for Lex, even if it was always to stop him. And I adored all the Supermannishness at the end...the movie music, the suit, Lois and Clark pretending to bumble around together, Jimmy's brother taking over his place in the mythology.

We watched Camelot afterward but it suffered a lot by comparison; too much of the same stuff over and over. Here are some photos of the flowers at Brookside Gardens last weekend:















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