X-Ray

DVD, Smallville S1 (X-Ray)

Once again a lovingly melded mix of humour, sadness, drama and action. They really knew how to do it back then, whether it be shocks (Lex walking into a bank and pulling a gun; Tina Greer's Mum falling down the stairs to her death; the scorpion-like turn of Lex on reporter Roger Nixon; 'Clark' attempting to mow down Martha on the street), humour (Clark knowing which pocket Jonathan keeps his penknife in), and the solidifying of bonds (Chloe and Lana, Lana and Clark). It has everything and is yet again a joy to behold. Tina is the freak-of-the-week this time, a girl whose bone condition was healed by the meteor shower (so it didn't only bring disaster), only for her to grow up into an ungrateful teen that doesn't realise what she has and is always looking at the greener grass of Lana Lang's 'perfect' life. Facades are really the theme this time, whether it be the personal secret Clark has which lets him empathise even with a misguided girl like Tina, Tina herself, with her powers of shapeshifting (though interestingly, only her body could change, which is why she manipulates Whitney into lending her his jacket when she wants to go and kill Lana), and of course Lana and her 'perfect' image of the Mother she never knew and that she's felt necessary to live up to. The series isn't forgetting its characters, it's getting under their skin, letting us learn about them as they learn about themselves, particularly the teenagers as they go through their struggle of understanding their place in the world.

Clark has more than the usual problems to deal with as another of his Kryptonian powers manifests in the form of x-ray vision, the perfect timing for when he needed to see through Tina's misdirections. Makes you wonder if his powers are activating on purpose when they're required, as she was filled with Kryptonite running around inside her (which makes me wonder why Tina herself wasn't deadly to Clark - she has to be wearing Lana's green necklace to be a danger to him), but perhaps not in enough quantity to affect him through her skin? It's a little shady to get around that point, but in general the episode, as has been the case so far, remains grounded in a reality. A bright, saturated in colour reality, true, but a reality you can believe in. Real things happen, like the first appearance of Sheriff Ethan checking up on Mrs. Greer's daughter, another of the recurring cast that would make the town feel like a genuine community. Sure, this is the first freak that went beyond just exhibiting a weird power and actually could be anyone, but it's more about her character, or at least as much as what she could do. The shapeshifting was done well for the time, but even more importantly, the actors that step into Tina's shoes do a great job of selling a teenage girl's version of them, whether that's Tina's Mum calling herself an airhead and shuffling around, or Lana manipulating Whitney, or even the evil Whitney, the form she chooses in which to kill Lana.

If we're talking evil, Lex Luthor needs a mention for more than one count: seeing him rob a bank and smash Clark through a window is all too easy to believe from the inherited persona we know from other incarnations of the character, and despite his protestations that he's not a criminal mastermind in the Kent kitchen, he later proves with the reporter fellow that he is indeed capable of just that kind of terrible power. Roger Nixon makes the mistake of threatening him and rather than cave in Lex plays all his cards and ends up taking the man onto his service, partly for PR reasons, but mainly so he can share his secret project - to find out just how it was he managed to survive the car crash of the first episode. And there we have the first indication of the Lex Luthor we expected, yet it's still fully understandable the way he reacts. He was blackmailed, forced to buckle under and pay up by a dodgy customer and he turns it around. In fact, considering how likeable he is, how moral he appears compared to his Father, we're practically cheering him on. That's the secret of great characterisation, being able to create sympathy for someone even though we know what they're doing is essentially wrong. We can also feel that at this stage, despite all the juvenile delinquency implied by Nixon's files, that Lex truly has turned over a new leaf and resolved to be a better man in Smallville. It could be that his talk was all bluff and he was playing with Roger's mind when the man couldn't use his phone, but we're unsure. It's great writing!

Another character that shows a different side is Chloe. She's been given short shrift so far, along with Pete, and while he isn't integral to the story this time, Chloe does get some meat. From the first episode you get the impression she doesn't think highly of the set Lana's part of, probably what you'd call the 'popular people,' the vacuous pretty people, while Chloe isn't in that place, she has journalistic instincts and you get a sense she's got a slight chip on her shoulder for being the one who does all the work, running around for the paper. She has preconceptions of Lana, only for Lana to break through and show that if you get to know her she really is as perfect as she seems. Okay, so the perfect thing isn't true, but unlike the outward appearance of being a porcelain doll, untouchable to mere mortals, Lana shows that she's equally as much a beauty inside. Chloe's good at reading people and instantly bonds with her, doing her a good turn by finding the graduation speech Lana's Mother made on tape (I'm surprised the archive editions of the paper, 'PC,' or pre-computer, as she puts it, survived the coach's fiery torching of the Torch offices last episode - maybe they're fireproof filing cabinets!). And then there's Tina. Lana is constantly kind to her, even when she's weird or turns nasty, and she's really not the kind of girl who spends all her time with the popular gang, hanging about and laughing at others. In fact, she's quite a solitary type, something which makes her more endearing because she's as happy in party mode as she is clearing out the garage.

Far from the perfect life Tina thinks she sees, Lana is just as confused and unsure as everybody else, and her bond with Clark is further cemented by sharing the same predicament with him about not being able to ask their biological parents things. It's a lovely connection, and another move towards hinting at the wider Superman universe this series is moving towards, with mentions of the Daily Planet or Clark saying his parents are millions of miles away from his life now. His Earth parents, rather than his birth parents, once again show their great value, and this time it's Martha with the wise words. It's just as hard for them to see their son struggle with these bizarre things that are happening to him, but they don't panic and instead advise Clark to practice, since his eyes work like muscles just like any other part of the body. And at the end, when Clark asks her what she'd do if she could see anything, she sagely tells him she'd learn to close her eyes in another beautiful moment. It's not all seriousness, though, as Clark first uses the power to look into the girls' changing room, this being a teen drama. He's not quite the boy scout yet, but it does make him more human, and at least it wasn't exactly intentional. Through the episode he learns to control the power so that he can use it, either to see just below the surface, as when he witnesses Pete's muscle structure, to looking through objects, and ultimately to x-ray vision so he can save Lana from the airtight tomb. (nice to return to the graveyard of the pilot, but I wonder if Lana will feel uncomfortable going there after these events - that's probably where the realistic, grounded logic of the series falls down a little).

You could say practice makes perfect, but although this series seems to portray a kind of perfection, it also reminds us that no one is that way, despite appearances. And that's a good message for a series like this. It might seem mildly hypocritical, except that these bright and happy people (except for the freaks, another one to kill their Mother, just like bug boy), have their secrets and no one pretends everything is perfect, it's all in the perception of others. It sets up some intriguing stuff to come with Nixon a thorn-to-be, and Tina Greer one of the few returnee freaks-of-the-week when she'd be back in Season 2. It continues to give us that community we want to come back to every week, with people like the Sheriff and Aunt Nell bolstering the level of familiarity we feel, and it's all going along very well, with not a dud to be found. It's almost like they can do no wrong at this stage - I even loved Clark's dopey response to Tina's questioning why he was staring at her when he just says, 'I dunno'!

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