Sneeze

DVD, Smallville S6 (Sneeze)

Superman's ability to sneeze with as much force as his other powers comes to the fore late in the series, and I can see why they waited so long before addressing it as it's one of those things about the character that's hard to take as seriously as super speed or super strength, becoming more like super spoof, even though it does make sense. Yet it is part of him so they had to address it, and at first it seemed like it was going to be a good episode, a rare comedy-themed episode. This might seem strange after the comparatively weighty events of the season opener, but as I thought about it, it made perfect sense. After last season's descent into (even more) darkness, continued in the opener, it was the right time to lighten things up and have some fun again. That is, right up until Lex gets abducted and held captive by the kind of rubbish, generic baddie we've seen all too often on the series.

The guy's a bully, waves a gun around, rants a bit, tries his best to seem sinister and hard, but is actually just a pawn of someone higher up. What happened to guest characters we can become interested in? The comedy doesn't extend much further than Lois, who looks increasingly like a bumbling idiot that she can't put two and two together. A barn door almost kills her falling out of the sky. It's Clark's barn door. Clark has a cold when he's never had one before. It's not just Lois that doesn't see what's right in front of her eyes - the Daily Planet staff remain oblivious to Clark's visits, that's taken as read, but I wouldn't be so keen to be talking secret stuff with Chloe in a room full of reporters and newspaper staff! It seems crazy, but the flaw drew attention to itself by the way Clark sneezes so that dresses fly up, papers go all over the place and… the inhabitants just look around bewildered for a couple of seconds, not noticing the six-foot guy in red from which this unexpected and unexplained air blast came from!

Maybe that's why Chloe and Clark feel free to talk about anything in their presence: the basement of the Daily Planet must be where all the total idiots work, not having reached a level of journalistic intelligence to notice what's in front of their faces. It doesn't reflect well on Lois either, the way she comes up with some bizarre story and through writing it changes her whole outlook on the journalism profession. Now she wants a career with the Inquisitor! Let's hope she's a better writer than a journalist, or her career could be short-lived. I appreciate the writers wanting to get the character on the path of her known destiny, but to do it in this offhand way in one episode does the character (and the writing) a disservice, forcing pieces into place that would have come naturally with great writing. Even more when she's been so disparaging about the profession in her previous comments.

The storyline of Lex fearing surveillance also began well, a vehicle following him while Lana obliviously accepts an invite to stay at the mansion, and turns into something that is likely to play out further, what I assume is the arc for this third of the season. It centres around an old boarding school enemy of Lex, Oliver Queen, of Queen Industries, obviously a rival company to LuthorCorp judging by the way Lionel threatens the guy. He has a nice rooftop apartment with the rear face of a large clock making for a different set piece, and seems like a bit of a rogue, proving to be the very mastermind behind Lex' capture, but it is suggested he might not be altogether evil since he's against Lex for one thing, which at this stage is not necessarily a bad thing, and didn't want violence used on his captive. He's also a skilled archer, which brings to mind Robin Hood - maybe he's an outlaw, but with a good heart. Maybe. I'm beating about the bush here because, while I don't know the comics, I do know he's the Green Arrow, from seeing the odd episode, and as far as I know, is a hero in the Justice League. So the fact his henchman tells him there was somebody else at the hideout who had special powers doesn't worry me. The back of the DVD suggests they're all going to be buddies anyway.

The generic, ring-fence, dismal, black/blue location Lex is held at was as repetitious a theme as the guy who captured him, but the ending helped to improve my view of the episode, with a nicely done bit of scuffling between Lex, Lana and their adversaries, but even more so when Clark secretly saves them by using his newfound super-breath to blow out the fire that threatened their lives. Good old Clark! I wonder why he never discovered this super-breath when he was younger - when Chloe wants him to huff and puff and blow the door down in a snooping session, he even mentions that it's not a birthday cake, so he's certainly blown the candles out on a cake. The only explanation is, like his heat vision it developed from this particular set of circumstances and time in his life. The superbly whimsical scene in which he blows the clouds away to let the sun beam through at the end felt like the series used to at the close of an episode, all optimism and brightness. Too bad we don't see that more often.

When thinking of the negative mood of the series the name Lana is the biggest thing to come to mind. I thought her discovery of Lex' secret cameras filming her room might drag on into other episodes, creating a rift between them as such stories so often did with Clark, but pleasingly it was resolved within the episode, with Lex promising to remove the one in her room even if he can't take all his surveillance down since that's how he lives. Unless he still keeps a secret one in there… It's a marked contrast between the way Lana and Clark came to be unable to accept any little thing that came up between them. We get the inevitable meeting of Clark and Lana with bad feelings so thick in the air. Even in that brief conversation she questions him and he deflects her probing of a secret, so nothing's changed. Again, it's in strong contrast with the way he and Chloe talk so openly all the time. As ever, only Lois goes around without a clue that all these things are going on around her. It's a simple life for her.

**