Sunday December 15, 1996
465211
Christmas Eve is happening over and over again, and the people of Metropolis begin losing hope. Can Lois and Clark stop an imp from the "Fifth Dimension," best known as "Mr. Mxyzptlk," before it's too late and hope is gone forever?
Read Full Recap » (warning: possible spoilers!)Lois and Clark's Groundhog Day hide show
This is the third and final in a trilogy of Christmas episodes, and once again they do a Christmas episode right by doing sort of the Groundhog Day approach. I would of love to of given this a ten but I couldn't because the only real problem with this episode is it doesn't quite generate as much emotional impact as the first two Christmas episode. I felt that it was probably because they kinda tried just a little too hard in two or three places in this episode making some moments feel rather chessy. But this is a minor flaw to get past so it's not much of a problem.
One of the things I like is the fact that they brought in a Superman supervillian Mister Mxyzptk who was always a rather bizzare and unothadox villan because of how truely starange, comical, but also unstablely sinster he really is, it was a great idea to get comedian Howie Mandel to play that role he fit like a glove. Mister Mxyzptk in the Superman universe in a way is sort of a sugar coated version of Mephasophles, his job was to make Supermans life a living Hell till Superman surcomes to his will.
Mxyzptke figure the only way to get Superman out of the picture in order to get what he wants is to take away people's tommarow (basically makeing them stuck on Christmas Eve and with no Christmas) to destroy hope. Trust me it makes sense metaphyically, tommarow is always a day that offers a sense of opportunity that there may be something more around the conner. But when you don't have that then there then you would have no sense of foward movement, no sense that things can get better or add up to anything. Like a plant without sunlight it can't grow without it it withers and dies.
This episode I thought was blackly humorous and a little painful just seeing everyone Superman knows and loves suffer bad karma. From Jimmy begining to regret the girl he has a crush on and feeling lonely, Perry White feeling lonelness from the fact that his two children have shunned him due to his career, the Kents insecruities about losing the farm, Lois's mom also still harboring a bit of anger toward her ex, but also Lois Lane who just has that empty feeling that the Christmas spirt she's trying to find just isn't there. So it's up to Clark with the help of Lois to bring hope into a world losing hope in order to beat Mxyzptk and save their relm.
And that is pritty much the name of the the game in this episode, the theme is about the importance of hope why despite times of darkness we must never lose it. It's the most important thing that keeps everyone alive because it's in the belief that things can get better or good things will come and if you believe it enough they will. And I'll admit this episode did give me a good feeling like the Christmas epsiodes of the show always do because everything does come though in the end, one of my favorate moments would have to be when Superman helps a desperate bank robber go on the right path again by giving him a job at the bank, Lois giving the girl Jimmy having a crush on the makeover she truely needs or even Perry White playing Santa Claws to orphan kids that he never got to do enough of with his own kids and the list goes on. Like in all things in life it is always the darkness before the light.
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