Greetings, Smallville viewers! Apologies all around for coming
into this a little bit late. Starting this week we have every intention
of keeping a regular schedule where new episodes of Smallville
are dissected shortly after their initial airing. Since this is a new
segment, feedback is welcome in terms of content and aspects of each
episode that you may feel need more coverage (characters, subplots,
etc.) so that Newsarama can make this an enjoyable and engaging regular
feature.
This new season is significant for many reasons. For starters,
precedent is minimal that a program originated on the WB network could
reach an eighth season, no small feat. Shows like Gilmore Girls, Seventh Heaven, and One Tree Hill enjoyed tenures of similar length or longer, but Smallville
is indisputably the CW network's (CW being the 2006 merger of the
fledgling WB and UPN networks) veteran program now. It stands to reason
that the ratings success, or lack thereof, will determine the
likelihood of a ninth season. What's probably got Smallville
making press in various entertainment publications the most right now,
though, has got to be the major turnover in the starring cast like
nothing they've experienced before. By the end of the seventh season,
the elder statesmen of the show, Lionel Luthor (John Glover) and Martha
Kent (Annette O'Toole) were phased out of the scene in one way or
another. Lionel was killed by his son, Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) in one
of the more riveting episodes of the series ("Descent," 7.16, Lex
finally gave in to the dark side), and Martha took her role as a Kansas
state senator to Washington, D.C., her farm life well behind her after
being widowed in Season 5. Also absent, though there's indication that
she'll turn up at least more than once before the end of the year is
Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk), legendary in Clark Kent's (Tom Welling) life
as "the one who got away." I think Lana spoke for most fans in last
season's finale when she suggested, via a "Dear John" letter that she
was holding back Clark from his heroic destiny. It is also a toss-up
whether the show's biggest loss was Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor or
the show creators Miles Millar & Alfred Gough jumping ship as
Season 7 came to a close. Rosenbaum opted out altogether of a new
season, and it made for the most questions between seasons as to how
last year's finale was going to reconcile itself with a new era sans
Lex Luthor. As we delve into the first two episodes of Season 8 of Smallville,
we will look at the three major additions to the show that have made
even the opening credits look drastically different from those of only
two years ago -- heck, one year ago.
I've love to say that things get off to a brilliant start, but the
transition from last May's finale and this premiere ("Odyssey," 8.1) is
anything but seamless. Last season ended with Lex finally realizing
that his father's shadowy Veritas cadre was protecting the Traveler,
and of course that was Clark/Kal-El. Lex confronted Clark at the
Fortress of Solitude with a Kryptonian talisman that was a fail-safe
meant to rein in the Traveler, should he or she go rogue. In using this
Kryptonian gem against Clark, the Fortress imploded and the two rivals
disappeared. Cue to weeks later and neither can be found, LuthorCorp on
a search mission up north to find their boss, and the Justice League
scouring the globe looking for Clark. LuthorCorp's assignment is
hijacked by the debut of a new series regular, newly appointed CEO Tess
Mercer (Miss Teschmascher, get it?). Apparently Lex stipulated that she
was to run the show in his absence, and it takes all of Lex's faithful
completely by surprise. Her ability to take over was way to easy and
convenient, but I have a certain amount of faith that the more we get
to know her (Cassidy Freeman) the more her role will guide the story in
an interesting direction. Looking past her crazy eyes, she may start
out annoying with potential to grow.
Of course knowing that Lex was going to be creatively phased out due to
behind-the-scenes activity, his disappearance made sense. What didn't
make sense was how Clark found himself imprisoned in a Russian labor
camp. Knowing how his biological father, Jor-El, has toyed with him
over the years for a destiny I'm not even sure the show producers know
how to map out, it's the least suspenseful aspect of "Odyssey" that
Clark is powerless. They don't even try to explain Clark's relocation,
and it's a theme found throughout this new episode. In their search for
Clark, Green Arrow (now series regular Justin Hartley), Black Canary
and Aquaman bust up the LuthorCorp search party way up north, but they
don't get any closer to their goal. What does eventually bring most of
the characters, good and bad, together is a newfound ability by show
stalwart Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack). When we last saw her, she was
hauled away by the DCU version of Homeland Security on some trumped up
charges, but it was actually a ruse of Lex's to hold her in captivity
to harness her green meteor-induced abilities. Only thing is, her
original talent was a healing power, but when we find Chloe here in a
Montana facility being used like a lab rat, she's like a human computer
and able to process numbers quicker than Windows Vista. I don't even
know where that change came about, and neither does she as she
discovers at the worst possible time that her healing touch is no more.
But, as I said, her new skills with lots of numbers comes in handy when
she unwittingly gives up the cell phone numbers of her Justice League
allies, and two out of three of them end up where she is in remote
holding cells. Fortunately for Green Arrow he was busy coming through
and tracking Clark down in Anwherevsky, Russia -- even that plotline
wrapping up before it even began -- and the two heroes were on their
way back to the States with a plan to get the whole gang back together.
Fast-forward a bit to Montana and Oliver, briefly under Green-K control
to find Lex by all means necessary, lands two arrows in a de-powered
Clark's chest, and it couldn't look more dire, especially since,
remember, Chloe can't patch up Clark like she used to. Like a shining
angel, John Jones (J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter to those paying
attention) swoops in and escorts Clark into outer space to take a
much-needed yellow sun bath to not only survive his wounds, but to
regain his Kryptonian might. Deux ex Machina at its finest. Convenience
aside, what I liked the least is that in no way do they address the
good guys holed up in Montana again (including Erica Durance as Lois
Lane, forgettable when she's not altogether useless in this epsiode)
and we are left to assume that when Jones and Clark bust out and later
have a leisurely chat at the Kent farm, Chloe, Oliver and everyone else
escapes safe and sound without so much as another dust-up with the
LuthorCorp baddies. Overall they cram a lot into this first episode and
it rarely gets fleshed out as it should have. This story really
deserved two or three episodes to give it all its due rather than tying
it up neatly and moving on to the next chapter in Clark's life in 42
minutes, which brings us to...
The second episode ("Plastique," 8.2). Clark has finally come to the
realization that he has outgrown his life in the town of Smallville,
and his destiny stands a better chance of fulfillment in Metropolis.
Clark took up Lois on her Season 7 suggestion to find work at the Daily
Planet, and she's shocked to find that he got a plum position in news
reporting right next to her. "Plastique" kicks off with Clark's first
full day at work, barely out of his farmboy plaid and into a new shirt
(nice shade of blue, by the way -- a phone booth??) before Metropolis'
latest calamity occurs right outside the Planet office. A bus explosion
has made a wreck out of a city block, and Clark's ultimate reason for
joining the newspaper has come to the fore: getting instant access to
news that will let him know where he's most needed. This first few
minutes of relief and recovery brings together much of the season's
cast, and it's symptomatic of how this episode worked where the
previous one came up short. We're introduced to paramedic Davis Bloome (Battlestar Galactica's
Sam Witwer) as tending to the episode's eventual protagonist (the
story's titular character to DCU scholars, referred to here as Bette)
who appears initially as another victim of the bus explosion. Davis
also has this occasion to meet Chloe for the first time and there are
sparks a'plenty between the two. Never mind that Chloe is newly engaged
to Jimmy Olsen, and when she shares her news with Clark later on it's
clear that neither are 100% certain it's meant to be. What promises to
be a key element of the new season is the relationship between Lois and
Clark. They are frequent partners now, and "Plastique" displayed what
can be good and bad about the union. The less they portray Lois
as a know-it-all the better, seeing as she's only been on Planet
payroll for a year longer than Clark and significantly less than Chloe
(who has gotten out of journalism and taken over Lana's Isis
Foundation, a sort of meteor freak counseling group). The flirting can
be cute, though, Lois having the toughest time keeping eye contact with
Clark as he's growing up before her very eyes.
"Plastique" had all of the makings of the oft-maligned "freak of the
week" theme that's had about a 1 to 1 success ratio on the series. But
the creators keep things a little more interesting in that Bette is not
immediately recognized by the characters and casual viewers as the
source of the explosiveness. The investigative process conducted by
Clark and Lois keeps the story moving at a good pace too. What also
looks promising is that it appears that future meteor freaks we meet
will find themselves being LuthorCorp recruits whether they want to or
not. A mystery in the story early on is that the first bus victim
rescued by Clark turns out to be Tess Mercer, so of course it begs the
question why a CEO is taking the bus at all. When she reintroduces
herself to Clark as the new head of the Daily Planet (you know, because
LuthorCorp obligations can get a little boring), her BS excuse is that
she's "going green," ironic in that she privately calls out Clark as a
liar when his story regarding Lex Luthor's whereabouts was more
truthful than her own story. We get a pretty good handle on her
machinations throughout the show, especially at shows end when Bette's
coming out party results in her being the latest addition to a team
that will likely spell trouble for Clark & Co alter in the season.
Speaking of which, for a change with their meteor freaks, Smallville
actually went with an established DC property in Plastique for this
episode. I hope they continue that trend. And Davis displayed at the
very end of the episode what he's here for as a new iteration of
Doomsday. Charming by day, not so much at night? Seeing as there is
some sort of physical transformation that he's capable of, I hope it
proves effective for a TV show with anything but a bottomless budget.
So thanks for enduring two episodes worth of recaps here, everyone.
Starting later this week the recaps will be leaner and more specific to
the episode rather than the series as a whole. Episode 8.3 looks
especially cool if you fancy yourself a fan of Green Arrow. The "next
week" teaser showed nothing but old school origins for the Emerald
Archer (again, a series regular now), so that should be fun. What do
YOU think of the new season so far?
