I would like to give him more. His concepts are good, but he seems convinced in damaging them with elements that don't fit which ultimately become elements of absurdity.
The audience gets little time to become involved before a unnecessary element of absurdity slaps them in the face. The sheer shock of hearing the "F" word and the "S" word spit out during dialogue makes it hard to take the drama serious. Since the "F" word and the "S" word are both of Germanic origin during the 14 or 15th century, their use in a Roman setting is absurd. Rather than adding a degree of guttural realism, it evokes "forced" usage. Their is no easy way to watch an actor speak with a Romanesque dialect and then interject these two words. It is like watching someone with turrets syndrome.
How could the same person who wrote 'Run', one of my favorite Smallville episodes, have also written 'Mortal' and more of the worst Smallville eposides I've ever seen?! I assume that the author is to blame in the episode 'Mortal' for effectively labotomizing Clark, his dad, Lana, and Lex. But knowing that this author also wrote 'Run', maybe the director also shares some blame. And I thought Season 4 was bad with all of those manufactured plot twists. In the episode 'Mortal', the character of Clark Kent is reduced to a mindless farm-boy. Lana is reduced to a mindless small-town girl. Jonathan Kent has been neutered, reduced to a fool who only dotes on his wife, asks people around him 'what is going on', and throws his face into other peoples' fists. The genius of Lex Luthor has been reduced to the actions a simple-minded street thug.
