Smallville Review Season 5 Episode 8

First off, I'd like to wholeheartedly agree with Monsieur Brzovic and his take on the Superman Returns trailer. Pretty cool stuff, and I must say the movie looks impressive so far. It's hard to gauge at this point whether it will be the revitalization of the Superman character such as Batman Begins was to Batman, but I think it's going to be close.

[Insert easy segway here] Those who simply couldn't wait to see the new Superman Returns trailer were likely glued to the WB network Thursday when the teaser made its debut during an episode of this blog's favourite television show.... that's right, Smallville.

So on to the Smallville review (coming at you a bit earlier than usual this week, I admit).

This week's episode is a bit harder to do without giving away the major plot points, so I apologize in advance for being somewhat vauge. The episode beings with Clark sitting up at his desk, presumably doing some sort of homework or "normal" activity Smallville only mentions in passing or uses as setup shots for major disaster scenes. His mom (played by Annette O'Toole) is bringing home the groceries when a giant space ray zaps her from the sky and knocks her out, planting some sort of horrible and painful degenerative rash disease in her body. As the episode wears on, she grows closer and closer to death.

Clark, who thinks this is all the work of his biological father Jor-El, turns to his history teacher and new Kryptonian ally Milton Fine aka Brainiac (James Marsters) for help and to start kicking some ass.

Whatever you do, don't blink. Wait - did you miss it? Yep. The relationship between Brainiac and Superman is culminated in this episode. I must say, it all happened pretty quick. And when you see the way it turns out in the span of like 30 minutes... I don't know, the whole damn thing seems rushed. WAY too rush.

I mean Brainiac and Superman are legendary adversaries, and we've seen Milton Fine in four previous episodes slowly building up this arc. Why have the whole damn thing get stuffed into 30 minutes this episode?

I didn't like it. And I think the writers missed a real opportunity for some great episodes as the two relationship unfolded further. But, what do I know? I'm not a show writer, I only write for newspapers.

Anywho, Marsters is signed for (rumour has it) one more episode although, I would suggest this might have been the finale of that particular storyline.

Other key episode moments include Lois slowly but surely turning toward the world of journalism. As someone currently employed in that industry, I can say this storyline amuses me greatly since I have never had a single great adventure punching out security guards, stripping in a nightclub (except that ONE time, now let's never speak of it again) or sneaking into warehouses like Chloe and Lois do when they are on assignment for the Daily Planet. Perhaps I'm not trying hard enough. But it's great to see Lois get the bug at the paper we know she'll be a star at in a few years...

Another good performance from Tom Welling this episode, although there was one scene he seemed to miss. As his mother lay near death and she had a heart-to-heart speech with her son which was quite well written, I couldn't help but think Welling should have pulled out some tears for the scene. Hell, if my mother was on her death bed (and I'm sure I'm not alone here) I would have shown more emotion than the Welling scowl/concerned-babyface-empathy look that he gets. Time to jab yourself in the eye with some bamboo Tom and get those tears a-flowin'.

Overall, a solid episode that was a bit too rushed, and packed for my liking. It did succeed in one thing though - shaking up the future storylines for this show as it reaches a well-deserved Christmas break after next week's episode.