Smallville is back! Believe it or not Smallville is back for a 9th season. A series that seems to be as immortal as Clark Kent himself, the CW is back with yet another pre-Superman adventure. But before we dive into the premier and my thoughts on it, let’s do a quick Season 8 recap.
Season 8 was the first season without the shows creators, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. It was also the first season without tw key characters that had been around since the first season – Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luther and Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang. In Season 8, we saw the introduction of Doomsday, or at least Smallville’s interpretation of Doomsday. In the comics, Doomsday is mindless raging beast that does what noone has ever been able to do – kill Superman. In Smallville, Doomsday is a raging beast, capable of really beating the crap out of Clark…but then again, lots of other people have done that too. Clark ends up destroying Doomsday without killing Davis Bloom in the season finale, but – SPOILER ALERT! – Davis ends up killing Jimmy. Doh!
Perhaps one of the better parts of Season 8 are the interaction between Lois and Clark. They finally start to have a lot of screen time together and the two actors really pull it off great. Lois Lane’s character up until now, for me at least, was more of a nuisance than anything else. Honestly, she was just kind of annoying. But the new writing for Season 8 put Lois right where she’s her best; quickfire witty dialogue between her go-get-em reporter spunk and Clark’s subdued alter-ego, and Lois being in danger and Clark managing a way to save them all without being discovered. There are many ways to do that wrong (and in fact that was done a few times), but overall I think the writers nailed it last season.
And now on to Season 9! To sum up my thoughts, I would use one sentence: “cautiously optimistic”. Of course, now would be a good time to say, SPOILERS AHEAD, so if you don’t want to here specifics of the episode, don’t read any further!
So now it appears that Clark must finally listen to Jor-El and embrace his “destiny” and forsake humanity (whom Jor-El sent him to in the first place, go figure) so that he can complete his training. Which I assume, the completion of which will leave him being that red-and-blue clad boyscout we all know and love. Part of that training includes *gasp* learning to fly! The shows creators originally had a mantra of “no tights no flight”. But those creators are now gone. And after all this time…if the show is going to end this season or next, it would be really unsatisfying to see neither flight nor tights at some point. But anyway we see Clark doing mental training on figuring out how to fly. But wait! Something, or someone, is holding him back. His attachment to Lois!
Of course. I can see where this is heading. The same thing that happened a season or two ago – Clark and Lois were hitting it off real nice and all of a sudden BAM Lana shows up and blows the whole thing to smithereens. Bleh. I’m hoping it’s not going to be that whole soap opera all over again except that its Jor-El being the interrupter. But we’ll see what happens.
Also, Clark has started to actively use his powers to help people. Which is awesome. He catches a train in the beginning of the episode – very reminiscent of Superman catching the airliner in Superman Returns. He’s also wearing his House of El symbol, showing he’s finally excepting his destiny and his Kryptonian heritage.
The suit looks eerily similar to Superman’s black suit that he wore in the comics right after he was resurrected (after Doomsday killed him). I’m not opposed to this new look, but when they did a cityscape shot of Clark standing over Metropolis waiting to nab bad guys trench coat fluttering in the wind, it looked like a shot stolen straight from Batman. Couldn’t they have been a bit more original than that?
We also see the introduction of Zod again – except this time he is in flesh, here on Earth. Only this time he is not there de-facto leader. Only the commander of a small band of troops who must convince into following him. We all know of General Zod, so this version must be some sort of earlier incarnation. Where the writers are going with this I have no idea, but the field is wide open. I’m excited to see where this could take us, and an eventual Superman / Zod battle. I loved that they paid homage to the fanboys by having Zod yell at his subordinates, “Kneel before Zod!” Which as we all know was the highlight of the movie Superman II.
One silly part is the interaction between Chloe and Clark when she asks him to use the time-traveling-ring-to-rule-them-all to go back and save Jimmy. I assume this was a lapse in her judgement brought on because of the turmoil and grief of loosing Jimmy. After all, she’s usually a level-headed character. Clark denies her yelling “I’m not a god!”, and it’s not his place to change time. The last time he did that his own father died. Chloe, of course, says that “It’s a good thing you’re embracing your Kryptonian-side. There’s not much left about you that’s human.” And walks away in tears. This all happens in the span of a minute or so. I didn’t think that much about it, but my wife pointed out how silly it was. The exchange between Clark and Chloe boiled down:
Chloe : “Go back and change time and save Jimmy!”
Clark : “No!”
Chloe : “You’re not human!”
…
So, overall impression?
The seaon looks like it’ll be pretty good. Clark will be saving the day in more spectacular ways and being more Superman-like, which makes me excited. Since the whole premise of the series is to see Clark go from farmboy to super hero, as the series winds down let’s see him become the superhero. There was an episode last season, don’t remember which, but afterward I turned to my wife and said, “You know, he really seemed like Superman there.” And it was awesome. That’s what we want to see now! Enough of the melodrama and the soap opera of “who’s dating who”. Bring on the action, the epic-ness! Bring us Superman!!
