Facade

DVD, Smallville S4 (Facade)

"Sounds dangerously close to nostalgia" someone says at one point, and if anything this episode could have been called 'Nostalgia'. Or 'Beauty'. Or, if you're feeling unkind, 'Deja Vu' (or would that count as two words?). It's crazy how Season One/Two this episode feels - not just the freak-of-the-week storyline, though that has been done before in different guises, but Martha wanting to work for a Luthor, and Jonathan having something to say on the matter; Lex Luthor going in and finding someone by Lana's bedside in the SMC - only it's not Clark this time. Chloe buzzing about The Torch. A focus on school life, and Clark in disagreement with his Dad over joining the 'football' team. Even the Talon is planned to reopen! It's all crazy, but it's all crazy-good, not crazy-stupid.

The only letdown is that Eric Johnson's Whitney only features in the teaser, then his name comes up in the opening credits, so you wonder if they'll do another flashback, but they don't. What a great idea! Bring back an old character (one who's died, no less), and show a scene that could have been from the first season - Clark even looked the same. This is the first episode that Pete's absence has stuck out like a sore thumb, as so far since he left we've had wild, sci-fi moments or super-soap, or mad Army encounters. Now we go back to Smallville High and it would have felt so natural for Pete to fall for Abby, then regret his feelings when she turns out to be dangerous - it would surely have been a Pete episode.

Although this is the first one to focus on school in a while, it's also the one with the most real conversations between the Kent family. It made me long for the times of yore when they were like a family and the recurring characters frolicked in the town of the early seasons, and the unbroken to-ing and fro-ing of people making up a believable world. That has long been lost, and it was always the reality that adult characters projected onto the story that contrasted with the bizarre meteorite transformations that made up the bulk of the early series. But it's mean to wallow in the past and try to compare this episode to The Great Times. Of course it can't measure up, just enjoy the nostalgia.

Despite being so backward-looking, the episode proves best for the new characters of Jason and Lois. They both get good moments, which hasn't really been the case in the opening installments. I have the feeling I saw the scene with Clark meeting Jason the coach, as Lana looks on, and maybe some of Clark's football training, but then again we occasionally saw his dreams on that front, so it could have been from an earlier episode. I have to admit, it is purely the elements of the past that make this enjoyable, with the 'that's going a bit far to get rid of spots, isn't it?' beginning, to the feelgood ending (although we have to have a touch of angst thrown in for good measure). You can grit your teeth as teen models orate the importance of inner beauty, but that's nothing new for the series, and the brightness and a little bit of joy improve it no end. If they could only recapture a bit more of the danger, emotion and intense slickness of the period they emulated here, we might get back to something approaching a good series. Might.

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