It’s hard being all pimply at school. It’s even harder when everyone around you is gorgeous and perfect-looking, and you’re the token geek. Especially since that means that you’ll inevitably hurt people in your quest to be good looking when the pressure gets too much. That’s what happens this week to “Scabby Abby”, when her mother uses Kryptonite to give her the ultimate makeover. Of course, there’s always a drawback with Kryptonite — this time it’s a kind of sanity-draining effect. Poor Abby. Luckily Clark’s always around to sort these things out. With a little help from his friends.

Alright. Let’s get one thing clear at the outset. Smallville is crappy. It’s not one of those shows that I’ll defend with my last breath, I’m not obsessed with it, I don’t care if it gets cancelled tomorrow. The acting’s usually alright, but sometimes dreadful. The writing is usually dreadful, but sometimes alright. So why am I still watching it?

I don’t know. I need help.

But in my defense — Smallvile‘s fourth season is a great improvement on previous years. We’ve lost some of the series’ most irritating baggage. Pete Ross seems gone for good; I’m sure the writers could’ve come up with something to do with him if they’d tried, but ultimately he became the quintessential boring best friend who whines and gets in trouble. Lana and Clark seem to accept that they’re over, which means no more irritating back and forth there.[ftn]

There’s also a breath of fresh air or two. Jensen Ackles[ftn] joins the cast as Smallville High’s new football coach / Lana’s new boyfriend. Here’s hoping he doesn’t suddenly and unbelievably become an evil marauding corpse working for Lionel. He has the somewhat unfair advantage over other Smallville characters of getting reasonable dialogue most of the time. Sam Jones III must be really pissed off. But even better than Jensen is Erica Durance as Lois Lane.

Yes, finally Lois Lane, Clark Kent’s future bride, is in the show. Different people judge their Loises differently I’m sure. Some will view Margot Kidder as the definitive version — me, I’m proud/ashamed to say that I grew up with Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Teri Hatcher is mine. Durance is suitably sassy,[ftn] and also seems to be getting good dialogue. Mostly. It’s all helped by the relaxation of watching a couple that you know will get together at some point. I don’t know what’s happened to this show. Well, alright, I do, they’ve got some old Buffy writers on it. A good move.

However, there’s always things to remind you that it’s the same old Smallville. The show is still taking any excuse to show off its female cast — this week, Lois wakes up to find herself strapped to a table wearing only two strips of lycra. Phwoar! Oh wait, I was going to take the moral high ground there. Dammit. I concede the moral high ground and move on to the famed “Freak of the Week” syndrome. Yes, kryptonite has once more caused problems for an unsuspecting member of Smallville High. And yet again they’re not strong-willed enough to deal with it, choosing instead to go after one of Clark’s friends. This show doesn’t have a very high opinion of humanity.

It also doesn’t manage a very convincing high-school. Sometimes the kids act their age — even if less and less effort is made to make them look anything less than 25. But other times the writers seem to lose themselves completely, and the characters start slipping off to have sex with each other in the showers after only just meeting. I’m pretty sure this isn’t realistic.[ftn] Disturbingly little attention is paid, as usual, to the emotional effects of the story on the guest characters. This week a reasonably nice character is followed to the point where she purposefully causes psychological pain to another person … and then suddenly drops off the plot’s radar. I’m not sure if she even got the traditional Smallville “So how’s X holding up?”

So. Smallville. A guilty pleasure of cute american girls, the occasional good line and affectionate play with the Superman mythos. And an improving one, at that.

Footnotes

1. Which is just as well, because I couldn’t have taken another season of that.
2. Apparently, really good on Dark Angel. Not bad here either.
3. To be honest I’m not entirely sure what “sassy” means. I think it’s a word people invented to describe women when “plucky” became too patronising.
4. A difficult criticism to make, this, as I inadvertently reveal that I was not in fact having sex with people in the showers at school.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Sunday, October 17th, 2004. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.