Dominion

DVD, Smallville S10 (Dominion)

The Phantom Zone: not my favourite place. Zod: not my favourite returning character. Callum Blue: not my… you get the idea. From the off it didn't look like this was going to be a winner, even with the novelty of Justin Hartley, he of the Green Arrow, directing the episode, as well as returning from Star City or wherever he took off to with Chloe. I would even say he did a good job with the material he was given, making the Zone as unpleasant and grey as ever before, filming the strange, tent-like locations in the extremes of motion, this emphasising the impermanence and hopelessness of the place. But he wasn't given much to work with. Zod has made himself ruler of this desolate prison, and he wants to stay there and have dominion over it? Why? Wouldn't he rather Darkseid had promised him a nice fresh planet somewhere to colonise or destroy at his leisure, than this hellhole? Or is he so insane that he'd rather rot in a bar-less prison where the only entertainment is staging gladiatorial duels to the death. For one thing he'd surely run out of people to fight in his arena, but then he was never really that farsighted or a good planner. Heroes take note: good planning skills essential for a successful life! That's really all there is to it, except that the inevitable happened - you guess as soon as Queen and Clark stumble upon these fights that they're going to end up going at each other, and you also guess that they'll use this to make their escape somehow. And that's exactly what happened.

The point of the story is that Oliver doesn't want Clark to know he was infected with Darkseid's 'darkness,' sporting the invisible omega forehead symbol. And this is exactly what Zod uses to apparently get him onside to take out Clark to please Darkseid so he can rule the Phantom Zone… with a brother. What is it with this guy and his obsession with having a brother? Can't he rule singlehanded or does he need someone he sees as an almost equal (not an equal because he's obviously got to be the superior one), to show off to? Even that fun would pall eventually in the endless bleakness of the Zone, so you'd have to say the biggest crime he commits there is a lack of imagination and forethought. I wonder if the Roman blood and sandals epics such as 'Rome' or 'Spartacus' were around at this time because the episode's bloody, stark and violent nature suggests they were being influenced by something. And it was bloody: slashes and slices, red stuff flying all over the place, even more dramatic for the desaturated style of the cinematography and the slow motion visuals Hartley favoured in battle. But apart from Queen's secret concerns over being discovered as a Darkseid minion what else is there to glean from the episode?

Zod's ridiculously low expectations to want to be ruler of the land of boredom was enough, but then there was the whole odd countdown to destruction so that the Zone would be off-limits forever, but at least that second oddity was explained at the end: Lois had so much faith in Clark that she refused to let Tess explode the whatever and just give Clark however long he needed to return safely. Three weeks, as it happens. It was good that she never postponed the wedding, which is now in two days time at the end of the episode, as that really showed her faith (or her desperate need to believe Clark would get back somehow if only not to miss his own wedding!), and she did add something to an otherwise fairly empty and meaningless episode that was little more than an excuse to bring back Zod (this time both Zod's: the one that had been a consciousness in Lex if I recall, and the Callum Blue version, bonded together if I'm reading it correctly), so at least they carried on the tradition of returning characters. But why have a countdown at all if it could just be stopped, why not wait for Clark to get back, then blast the crystal or whatever they had to do? It leaves us at the end with Oliver setting off to find a special weapon of some kind that Hawkman knew about which could take care of Darkseid, and the return of the black blob creature, so we assume it knows what he's doing, maybe wanting to be led to this thing to prevent its use?

Sadly it has to go down as a waste of a good slot, one of the final final episodes ever on the series, and we didn't need to revisit either Zod or the Phantom Zone again, especially as there's only two or three episodes to the end (the finale is two episodes long, befitting its position capping a decade of Superman-to-be). And if they were going to bring back a character he wouldn't be my choice! Still, there needed to be a gearing up to the final confrontation, even though I don't care about that because we know Clark's going to be fine and it would be pointless to kill off other characters - perhaps they're setting up Queen to 'be' Darkseid in human form in the same way Lex was Zod, using an established character rather than get in a 'name' actor for stunt casting? Regardless, it's the personal character stuff that matters far more than that and I want to see the Kents and all Clark's friends together in some kind of happy reunion as he becomes Superman. Maybe too much to ask, I just hope they don't lose all the goodwill the season has managed to generate.

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