Obscura

DVD, Smallville S1 (Obscura)

Not having a clear memory of this episode other than it being about Lana developing some kind of vision through someone else's eyes, and that the villain was one of the cops, I was still able to accurately predict the demise of said villain. How else was Lana going to lose her newfound ability? And she was going to lose it because despite the series being semi-serialised, they were still largely keeping the reset button alive on things that would change the characters. Such ridiculous and permanent changes came later, and this was far from the last time Lana would gain special powers, but it was certainly the only time it seemed to make a semblance of sense. If the reset button prevented her being a freak-of-the-week for every episode to come, then there was a pleasant amount of continuity to reward regular viewers: we hear of Miss Castle again when Roger Nixon shows up to bleed money from Lex with his latest lead and is all upset about his patron's free and easy manner with the paper's opposition. Then there's the fact that Nixon is in it at all, helping to set things up for the finale coming next episode. And the breaking out of the shortest peace ever between Lex and Jonathan Kent, the revival of Lex' obsession with mysteries, meteors and men from other worlds. Oh, and the Clark, Chloe, Lana lovey-dovey stuff.

That last element was not so welcome, but at least it was more upbeat and positive this time, with Clark getting a pep talk from his Mother, accepting that it's Whitney and Lana forever, and working up the guts to request Chloe's hand for the upcoming Spring Formal Dance. What I love about Chloe is how her whole face lights up like a sunbeam, no, like the sun itself, and if the yellow sun of our solar system gives Clark his power, then her reaction to his invitation must have boosted his power levels immensely - she positively glowed in that scene! And while the teen romance side of things is not one of my favourite things about the series, to say the least, it's nice to see someone so happy. The episode on the whole is quite a happy one. For some of the time, anyway. We get the Chloe smile explosion at the end, but there's also the lovely moment when Jonathan finally accepts a handshake with Lex in friendship, even planning to deposit the cheque for damages he gave him for the LuthorCorp environmental disaster recently (even more continuity - I love it!). He chooses the wrong time to investigate the meteors, however, chewing up the very field where Clark's ship came down, and thanks to Dr. Hamilton (continuity!), and a team from what looked like Cadmus Labs on their livery (continuity overdrive!), he finds a special piece of otherworldly material: the 'key' to Season 2, the key to Clark's ship!

Things are suddenly moving again after a few episodes of concentrating on the weekly freaks. The spaceship coming into play, a new angle in which to investigate Clark, and the meddling Nixon who would do anything to anyone to get his Big Story, all set up the finale to be a rollicking good time for everyone but the Kent family! I must say it was strange for the crop duster who retold his story to Lex to call the ship a ship. You'd think he'd describe it more as a flying object than narrow it down to what anyone who heard would hear as an alien vessel. But maybe that's exactly what he guessed? This is really the B-story, but it's more dramatic and far-reaching than just another freak-of-the-week. Weirdly, this episode's freak is actually Lana, since she gets her clairvoyance, or whatever you want to call it (and they do try to explain it with some weird pseudoscience about the London Blitz that sounds completely made up!), by almost being blown up. I don't know why there was a gas main and all those pipes out in some field, and up until that moment it was quite nice to see that she and Whitney actually got a scene together just having fun, riding their horses (Whitney's also being set up for his grand finale, and I felt they did it quite touchingly with his finding the medals of his Father from Vietnam, putting him on a new path). It was also quite spectacular the way Lana gets blasted towards camera - it's an image that sticks with me because it's on the back of the Season 1 DVD box set, and for some reason I associated it with the finale, but that was a whirlwind, not an explosion!

The effects were rather good, with Clark performing a terrific save of Lana as the evil deputy shoots her and he rushes in to deflect the bullet, inadvertently redirecting it towards a large glass mirror whose shards bear down on the prone form of Lana like so many daggers, forcing Clark to launch himself over her to take the shattering impact. Dramatic and brilliant, as was seeing the deputy fire several shots into his chest to no effect. Of course, even if Lana's power left of its own accord he couldn't be allowed to live after that, and gets shot when he refuses to give himself up to Sheriff Ethan (whose whereabouts I was wondering about for most of the episode!). Oddly, this main story of an unstable cop who is crooked enough to want to further his career by solving a crime he's committed (first by Chloe's kidnapping and murder, then by Lana's), was the lesser part of the story. The effect of Lana seeing through his eyes was well done, without doubt, but the episode really needed to be all about that rather than bringing it into a story that had the more compelling story with Jonathan and Lex' troubled relations and the whys of it all. If it had been like a 'Hothead' where it was focused on this crazy cop it might have worked better for that story, because there's not a lot to that side of things. The main thing is giving Clark the need to save both his girls - I wonder how he explained tracking down Chloe's coffin in a field and punching the ground in to get her out! I'm guessing he said his first shovel strike fortunately struck home!

Clark has a lot of moments to show off his abilities in this one, whether it's little domestic asides like wrenching the pipe out from under the sink, or showing up his Dad who can only manage one sack of feed at a time while he absentmindedly carries three, there's a strong sense of his farming life amidst the drama, something that would be missing in later seasons. There are good scenes with Mr. Kent and you really feel the horror he feels at how close Lex and his minions are to finding something that could be tied to Clark, and out of the blue like that made it so much more palpable, just when things had become serene. The writing was very good, my favourite exchange coming right at the end between Hamilton and Lex as they discuss the Kryptonian key - the doctor spins his employer a riddle, he replies he doesn't like riddles, then he in turn says in that case this object will make him profoundly unhappy! Superb! It's so strange to go back to the series when it was in its prime, where most things seemed to make sense, they knocked out so many good lines (Lex especially was super well served this season), only for the quality of sense and drama to drop so much later on. We actually get a little link to 'later on,' too, as Chloe's cousin is mentioned a couple of times, and of course, later on we find out she's Lois Lane!

It's also fun to see the casting for the good cop: Aaron Douglas, who'd go on to be probably my favourite character on 'Battlestar Galactica,' Chief Tyrol! We also get Gabe Sullivan back as Chloe's Dad, so there's a lot of things tying the season together in a pleasing way. Even details like good deputy Birdego getting clonked on the head and being found at the Talon was like a reference back to 'Zero' - the last time that happened was the guy off 'SG-1' who pretends he was knocked out at the Talon, only this time it really was as it seemed, though they do their best to make him seem sinister (the main thing I was wondering about was whether he was going to pay for the coffee Lana offered him or if he was going to take it as a freebie!). I don't know why bad cop felt the need to wear that wacky black suit and helmet, other than to keep his identity a secret and he had to wear something, but I didn't get if there was some connection to his funfair job. And that funfair was more like the final showdown in a Batman story than Superman - maybe it was the big clown face that made me think of The Joker? I like that at this stage of the season and the series Lex can just show up at the homely domestic setting of the Kent kitchen, but if Pa Kent was trying to be more suspicious about hiding a secret he couldn't have been: he sees the field being dug up and hands back the money and gets all agitated about it, and Clark goes all sceptical about the crop duster's UFO story when Lex and he chat separately, so it wouldn't take someone half as cunning as Lex to see something's up! I could also say that Pete is poorly used and Martha's not much in evidence, but these are minor qualms in another solid story I enjoyed.

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