KO is OK

Since I mentioned Smallville in my last post, and with the show's season premiere coming up next week, there's a page of guilty pleasure that no fan of the show ought be ignorant of:

Neal Bailey's Smallville KO Count

What began as a chronicle of the frequency with which Smallville characters got knocked unconscious eventually evolved into a comprehensive list of unfortunate recurring themes in the show. The number of times Clark has used his powers in front of other people, the number of times cars have been destroyed (sometimes to return unharmed), the number of indictable offenses committed by our leads, etc. In other words, the KO Count is essentially a list of things that Smallville has repeatedly wanted its fans to suspend their disbelief over.

One category is entitled "Mountains in Kansas." Kansas may not have many mountains, but Vancouver, where Smallville is shot, does. So they tend to slip into shots on occasion. I don't particularly mind, since that's really more of a shooting mistake than anything else. And personally, I don't mind the use of forests.

But the show does aggravate me when it comes to the deep, cavernous gorges of Kansas. On the occasions these have appeared, they've been the setting for major and important scenes (like in "Perry"), and were not merely accidental backdrop. It's been years since I've been to Kansas, but I don't recall any the terrain including hundred-foot-plus gorges. Maybe the writers know something I don't; or maybe they forget they're writing about a show set in a rather flat state.