Bride

DVD, Smallville S8 (Bride)

I got the impression from the opening moments (and the title), this might be a super-soap episode full of romantic dullness, but I should have expected Chloe's wedding to have a hitch, a hiccup, or some kind of rampaging alien ultra-weapon from the planet Krypton. We've had weddings before, and celebrations, so it's not like it's something new, and episodes do tend to go in the familiar teen romance direction, especially around this kind of time. I can't say I was interested in the buildup to Chloe and Jimmy's wedding (I never realised how incredibly superstitious the guy is!) - they'd already been living together, so this was more of a formality (and the chance to have a party, for the characters and audience), and I imagine that much of the viewership the series had geared towards more and more, would love all that stuff, but I was frankly relieved when things went crazy in the found-footage-style teaser. How crazy, I didn't suspect, for not only do we have our first sighting (if shadowed), of the monster, Doomsday, we also have the chilling news that Lex may be out there, Lana returns, the Green Arrow is abroad again, and Chloe's kidnapped, all in the space of one episode. Not to mention some romantic dullness as Lois goes 'sappy' in her own words, and starts pining much more overtly for Clark.

Let's address this, the least interesting part of the story, first: we all know that Lois and Clark are supposed to end up together, that's comic book lore, just as Lana and Clark never were 'meant,' so there's always been this tension, though more a source of amusement, poking fun at us for expecting the Superman legend to pan out the same way it's 'supposed to.' Usually it's with little things like Clark saying he doesn't like to fly, or whatever, but the series has, probably due to the longevity it experienced, slowly come around to do the expected things with characters (e.g.: making Lex and Clark enemies), forgetting that the most compelling aspect of the series when it started was that things were not as we expected, perhaps not even able to stay on that path since it had gone through so much metamorphosis over its lifespan, as all series' do - things start out as a 'new take' on an established mythology, whether that's 'Star Trek,' 'Star Wars,' 'Dr. Who' or this. The brand's the thing, and whatever force guides the writers towards the inevitable, be it audience pressure or the desire of the creative minds to get things back to a place of recognition, I don't know. But things rarely change drastically forever.

I didn't mind too much Lois going all gooey, it could have been the stress of organising a full bells and whistles wedding for her 'cuz,' though without the reassuringly traditional locale of a church, opting instead for Clark's barn and his house for all the preparation - long gone are the days he worried about people finding out his secret from house and grounds, and why he felt the need to keep a piece of Kryptonite in there, I don't know. Clark being knocked down by the tinkly green rocks at the moment of greatest import was really taking it back to old-school! As was the flower Clark gives Chloe, as she gave it to him at the dance way back in… Season 1, Season 2? I'm not sure, but it was a nice callback. I liked that Lois thinks her obsession with Clark is quite safe and secret, except the people she talks to know quite well, which added a bit of depth to conversations, usually missing in the series. I also appreciated the style of the wedding video as a means of telling the story, though it was vaguely irritating that we had another one where the Big Thing happens during the teaser, and then we have to go back several hours beforehand to build up to it, knowing full well that something bad is going to happen. I suppose the viewers might not have forgiven them for completely skipping all the pre-wedding stuff, though I certainly would have!

It would have been nice if Martha Kent had been able to return for the wedding taking place in, ostensibly, her barn, but she must be too busy with Senatorial duties for that. At least Kristin Kreuk is back as Lana Lang, something I didn't expect this season at all! As usual I'd forgotten the precise details of how she left, remembering only that she went into a coma with white eyes, so I couldn't quite work out how she got out of that and left. It was a bit of an anticlimax the way she was written out, but it was good to see her again, the key thing being that she's on the hunt for Lex, protecting Clark if she can without him ever knowing, though she believes Lex dead. The Green Arrow gets an outing as well, though I didn't for a moment think Lex was going to appear in the episode since Michael Rosenbaum's name didn't appear (even though I did wonder if the attacker at the barn was a crazy Lana when I saw her name come up!), so when he shoots the dummy I wasn't surprised it wasn't the bald arch-villain himself. What elevated the episode above the humdrum was that Oliver just shows up at Clark's with the chilling words "Lex is alive…" I didn't think they'd really have killed off the series and character's main enemy - even if Rosenbaum had left, he could always come back for a cameo, as evidenced by Lana showing up. It had been long enough that I was instantly intrigued by the possibilities these long lost story threads might have.

Without waiting for these things to stew we get to the main meat of the story, literally. Davis has torn some unfortunate person or persons apart and when cornered turns into Doomsday in our first look at what they came up with for the look of this terrifying and unstoppable creature. I didn't get a strong sense of the creature's menace, as you do with the Borg, for example (it looked more like an over-sized Jem'Hadar!), but I liked the design and wanted to see more of the makeup work. I would guess it was prosthetics rather than CGI, as it looked physical. Talking of physical I never expected a hoedown between Clark and the monster at this stage, I was sure that would be coming much later, maybe an end of season battle. It still may, but now Chloe's been kidnapped by it, up to the Fortress of Solitude (which is anything but these days!). Does this mean Brainiac is commanding the Kryptonian being, since that was the last we saw of the black goo, infusing itself into the Fortress' crystals? It's all quite attractive as a story to follow, not in the edge-of-the-seat style of early seasons, but in a mentally stimulating way that grabs your attention even if the twists and turns aren't anything you haven't seen before. What works are the use of the characters (I like that Lana and Clark get to talk out the past in a civil manner and see where it's brought them to) and the sheer flurry of developments, the most fascinating being what I can only assume is Lex Luthor himself reviewing the wedding video from some kind of medical chamber where he's hooked up to various tubes…

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