In the fast moving teaser, Lois is comatose from the Clark kiss, kidnapped by Tess and strapped into a convenient but oh-so-implausible memory viewer machine. We see her memories of the future- a desolate Metropolis, a large black Kryptonian with powers and a Red Sun…
And Clark's 'S' shield T-Shirt, hanging from a flagpole… tattered and waving in the breeze…
Gee, that was good and dense. How 'bout the rest of the episode?
After the jump....
Tess plugs into Lois' flashforward, and we find ourselves in an interment camp for humans (repurposed from the Kent Farm). Clark comes to her rescue in a small way, but he is powerless under the red sun. Clark explains that the Kryptonians took over, that he tried to fight Zod and company, but made all the wrong decisions. They figure out that the Legion ring brought her to the future; however before Clark can use it, Lois is called before Zod. He wants to know how she suddenly ended up in a restricted zone. Tess shows up, and they tell Lois that the only reason that Clark is still alive is to possibly bridge the gap between Earthlings and Kryptonians. Zod finds the Legion ring that Lois is hiding, and summarily decides to execute Clark and Lois. Tess kneels before Zod and gets a set of dogtags. Clark kneels before Zod and nearly gets a katana through the neck. Ollie and Chloe burst through the ceiling and save Clark and Lois with a variety of Kryptonite laced hand weapons. In the melee, Tess is killed.
There's apparently bad blood between Clark and Chloe and Oliver. They put their differences aside and come up with a plan to bring the yellow sun back, giving Clark a shot at taking the Kryptonians out. Somehow they are still trying to keep Clark's secret from Lois. Lois and Clark knock boots in the blood red moonlight.
The next day, the hero squad take the Watchtower out of mothballs, and plot to get Lois the ring back. One by one, Chloe, Lois and Clark fall bringing the yellow sun back. Clark manages to recover the Legion Time ring from Zod, and puts it on Lois' finger… the Kandorian assassin from the first episode of the season quickly hitches a ride on the time ring, and …. we're brought to the opening sequence in the first episode this season.
In the present, Clark confronts Chloe, who tells him that Lois' trip to the future gave her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Tess has her hacker wonderboy put her in Lois' head. She witnesses her own death, and orders Hackerdewd to wipe Lois' memories- they're too dangerous. Hackerdewd refuses and gets a bullet to the back of his head for independent thought. Clark shows up, and suddenly I noticed that the whole lab is glowing green. Clark stumblefoots about a bit and gets one of the brain probes imbedded in his hand (ah! Plot device kryptonite!) He is locked into Lois' memories now. He eventually comes to, to find Emil and Chloe in the lab. Lois will (conveeeeeniently!) not remember anything. Back at the Planet, Clark and Lois try to figure out where their relationship is going. They agree that it's going somewhere.
Clark decides that what was wrong in the future was that Zod needed saving. Chloe believes that a hug will probably be insufficient to bring Zod to repentance, but Clark crashes Zod's Kandorian enclave, and Zod causes all his followers to kneel…..
Kneel before Kal-El.
A LOT happens in this episode, even though it doesn't happen, per se. We have death clouds of angry Kandorians decending upon a lone Green Arrow. We have attempted executions, Hot ninja chick Kandorian killing Chloe with a Katana. Glowy-green arrows, daggers, swords and other stuff. Hot Lois on Clark action.
The future is a dreadful place, filled with death, destruction and humanity enslaved, not to mention convieniently redressed sets. It's a dark place for Smallville, but well played.
Too bad there's a built in reset button.
The Lois as time-traveller plot has resolved fairly quickly, though. In the past, the writers would stretch this out waaaay too long. The new producers seem to have a much better grip on how to time out a season this year than last (and MUCH better than the previous team did).
There were some interesting shots in the scenes from the next half of the season- we see Doctor Fate (looking like Doctor Fate), a wall portrait of the Justice Society of America and a hand with a Green Lantern Ring….
(Aside: I've been watching the casting reports on the Smallville movie of the week featuring the Justice Society and there is no report of anyone playing Alan (Green Lantern) Scott. That said… I saw an Alan Scott styled ring with green flame shooting out of it. Really.)
I'm looking forward to the second half of the season.
| neorandomizer New day 22 hours ago |
| neorandomizer wife seems to have took a step forward today but a half of a step back so her condition is about the same. It's damn hot here! 1 day ago |
| neorandomizer Already 95 deg in Vegas and it's not 10 yet. Off I go to see wife hope she has some improvement. 1 day ago |
| Republibot 3.0 I'm really sorry to hear that. She's in our prayers. 2 days ago |
| neorandomizer @Republibot 3.0 The wife is still in icu and seems to be just treading water. 2 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 Yeah? What's up? 3 days ago |
| neorandomizer All things being equal I can go for a cosmic reboot. 3 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 but he has no other genre credits." It seemed like a cool idea to me. 4 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 If we were interviewing James "Scotty" Doohan, we'd say say "He played on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Space Academy, 4 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 The concept was, "Hey, let's pretend Trek didn't exist, and just cover the rest of the genre." 4 days ago |
| jkirton2 Gonna take a few minutes to look around. 5 days ago |
| jkirton2 @Republibot 2.0 Will do 5 days ago |
| Republibot 3.0 » Jake Was Here "Jake Was Here" has been a member of our little blog family for exactly one year and three hours. THREE HOURS! 5 days ago |
| Republibot 2.0 @jkirton2 Welcome, John--- make yourself at home! 5 days ago |
| jkirton2 Reading Republibot for the FIRST time online! Yeah, go figure! 5 days ago |
Comments
27 December 2008
5 min 20 sec
Burt, you do get that this kind of over-analysis was intended primarily to be entertaining, right? It's not like Niven was laying awake nights agonizing over Kryptonian biology, he just had a funny little idea, ran with it to its logical extremes, and then published it in a magazine somewhere. It's funny and includes the phrase "Gut her like a trout," so it's had a long life, but it *IS* intended as a gag, just to be funny, a dawdle, a reminder of how comics are not to be taken seriously.
There are some of us who just want to be entertained, and then there are those of us who want to analyze things to death, and then there's some of us who just thing the overanalyzing crowd are funny, and we like to poke fun at them.
I'm just pointing this out, since you're newish here and might not have come at that from the right angle. I can certainly see how something like that might put someone off if taken seriously. Hell, it's been 300 years and people are still misunderstanding Swift's "A Modest Proposal."
4 February 2009
3 weeks 17 min
Thanks for the link, the entertainment, and the unnecessary reminder that anything can be analyzed to death. :-)
This is why I often don't fit in in this circle--as well as many other circles. Take for instance (it's applicable, I promise) of the YouTube video of the QB for Bethel College throwing a blind-backwards-pass for a touchdown. High school coaches all over America are panicking, hoping their QBs never see that play for, while it worked that day for Bethel, 999 time out of a thousand it's going to fail. So coaches are having to sit down their players who have seen the vid and, not just tell them to "forget it, kid" but prevent them from forgetting it by going over every possible problem with the play. That's what a responsible coach HAS to do.
The rest of us are just going to watch it and go, "Wow! Cool!"
I get all of Niven's points. And I can't think of any way or reason to argue with any of them. On the other hand--and, yes, I realize I'm the one who brought this up to begin with--when I watch Superman, it is strictly for the sake of being entertained. The hyper-analyzation of something is often one of the primary ways of enjoying that something for many people.
I am not one of them. Most of my analysis (of anything: sci-fi, football, Schulz, etc.) can be done in a 700 words or less. If not. I edit.
27 December 2008
5 min 20 sec
Make sure to forward that link to Burt.
23 December 2008
2 hours 11 min
Clark was depowered by a red sun, so Man o' Steel, Woman of Kleenex does not apply. But it is worth a link...
So, courtesy of our good friends at LarryNiven.org, here is
Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven
27 December 2008
5 min 20 sec
Burt, it's a bit of a cliche these days, but if you haven't already done so I'd suggest you read Larry Niven's infamous essay, "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex," in which he discusses the inherent problems of human/kryptonian pairings.
4 February 2009
3 weeks 17 min
This was a very exciting episode that I really enjoyed, but it's like when you're half-way through a novel (or movie) and wondering when your questions will be answered and slightly suspicious that the holes so far are just the result of incompetence. They did it well, though, so I'll sticki with it in the hopes my questions will be answered.
As for the "hot" action between Lois and Clark ... beyond any questions of morality, maybe they didn't want to trod to heavily on "Lois and Clark" ground, but I wonder if Clark ever asked himself if human/Kryptonian sex was even possible or could somehow be damaging to humans? Also, the suspicious side of me wondered if it would be possible for Lois to have become pregnant during her travel to the future but not know about it in the "past" yet? Could make for an interesting story line if she is pregnant but doesn't remember being involved with anyone for a few years.