Fever (2)

DVD, Smallville S2 (Fever)

'Fever'? More like 'Fever Dream'! This was one that I had no recollection of from the title and even when the episode had gone some way in I didn't remember what it was about or what happened, and I think I know why: it was quite uneven, some momentous things happen, but at the same time they don't really turn into much and there's a strong side order of teen soapiness that jars a little bit. I mean, one moment you've got Jonathan Kent breaking into the Disease Control Authority, full of soldiers clumping around with drawn weapons, and the next you have Chloe spilling her teenage girl's guts all over an unconscious Clark, only for him to utter the one word in response: "Lana?" Right from the start I'm questioning characters. For instance, Martha opens the episode sneaking down to the storm cellar to bury the tin of flour that was carrying the Kryptonite key that was hidden under the sink (keeping up?), since Jonathan's fixing the tap. Why didn't she tell her husband and son about it? Similarly, I'd forgotten she was supposed to be pregnant (did we know that, I can't remember?), so why didn't she tell her husband and son about it? At least, and this is a big point in the episode's favour, they didn't drag it out over multiple episodes as a modern series would probably do, we have the questions raised and within a few minutes Jonathan's at her side as she wakes up in the Smallville Medical Centre, and what does he do right away? Asks her about these very two questions.

This was a relief. I'm not saying Martha's answers were particularly compelling or full of the kind of homespun good sense you'd expect from a farmer's wife like her, but it chimed with her character to some degree, even if usually she doesn't keep things from her family and was being a bit silly. But we can forgive her for some feminine eccentricities and it all comes right in the end so no real harm done. But there could have been. There could have been great harm done! How many moments in this episode is Clark and his secret put at severe risk by his parents? Obviously the farm being searched by the DCA in their hazmat suits was the first big threat, but fortunately Pete was able to pull through and help his friend by stashing the Kryptonian ship at his place and proving what a good friend he is. But then Clark is also affected and Dr. Bryce pays a home visit to see to him while Jonathan starts babbling about how Clark is special and she can never tell anyone about him and she can't take a blood sample… Oh! She did. Well, she can't send it off anywhere and she can't tell anyone… Why trust her? I suppose there was no way to prevent it, but it's very awkward since she's Lex Luthor's girlfriend. But at least she's very strict on doctor-patient confidentiality - did Mr. Kent know she would be, or, as he says about something else later in the episode, is he just grasping at straws?

I thought maybe the blood would show up as normal since Clark was under the influence of the meteor spores (which never gets fully explained - how did it get underground, isn't the storm cellar older than the time of the meteor shower?), the doc did manage to spike him with a needle and draw the sample, which ordinarily wouldn't be possible and was what I was expecting to happen which would prompt Jonathan to be forced to tell Helen all about Clark and his abilities. Instead she's just flabbergasted by what she sees in his blood (we're not privy to that), but at the end is happy to wave it all away as a miracle that Martha recovered and Clark's blood is weird in some way we're not told. Or was she just fobbing them off in order to have time to think about what she's going to do next? The next time Clark was put at risk was when his Father tries to break into this DCA facility to get the ship's key - would it really be that highly guarded or do they share it with a military base of operations for the local area (the car chase doesn't seem to go on very long!), because that was the most unbelievable moment in the whole thing! Mr. Kent doesn't have a military background, I'm pretty sure, he's a farmer, and yet he's confident in his ability to break into this top security compound, cutting through wire, sneaking around like a spy (should have blacked his face up), rolling under doors and then ransacking the correct storage room - how would you even track down stuff in a place like that in the dark!

If it wasn't for Clark showing up against orders, he'd have been caught, and this and the moment Pete is similarly caught on the road a bit later were the most cartoonish parts of the episode: you're pushed to the limit, you think it has to be the end of the line, how are they ever going to get out of this one…? And then Clark knocks out the guard who's interrupted Jonathan, and it turns out Pete is driving the Kent pickup. But how suspicious was the whole thing, I was really expecting the head of the DCA investigation to show up and act like he thought Mr. Kent was to blame: the soldiers who saw him had given some kind of description because Pete doesn't match it, one guard, the guy who got clunked on the head was quite close, and Mr. Kent's stuff is the bit that's rifled through… His pickup is the one that's seen leaving, or so they think, and why is this kid driving it out here at this time of night. It was a whole shady, crazy thing, culminating in everything's gone back to normal so the DCA aren't going to come back and establish what really happened there? Utterly ridiculous! I know, I know, this is a comic book series, but it's a tribute to the actors and the writing of the first couple of seasons that for the most part it came across quite realistically and wasn't played up melodramatically.

If we want melodrama then we have to wait for Chloe's emotional outlet as she apparently comes to sit with Clark for a bit. Not very long, as it turns out! I couldn't help feeling when I saw her pink page (so we know it's not just any printout as Lana has to find it later), had been typed on a word processor! Somehow this seems like the kind of thing that should be written out lovingly by hand, not the cold, detached form of the printed page. It is quite touching, but it's also a little sickly and you just wish they'd stop with all this love triangle nonsense and get back to the characters just being good friends and dealing with mysteries. Another strikingly unromantic moment comes much later, near the end of the episode, when Lex leaves a little present on Helen's desk (why does he keep showing up at her work, is that the only time she has available to see him - it's a bit weird), she fails to notice it and so he has to hand it to her and you think it's going to be an engagement ring. Let's not forget he'd already been married and had an annulment once this season (albeit meteor rock power induced, or was it just the woman's own weird freak power, I don't recall), so why not get married again? But no, instead it's a door key to the Luthor Mansion (I'm still not sure, is this Lex' place again or does it belong to his Father?), a far cry from a ring and a sign of the kind of morality of the times…

To cap it all off we have some odd cross promotion with a band called 'Steadman' playing at the Talon with Pete acting as DJ. The scene was clearly designed to feature this band (whom I've never heard of, not being a music type), but it lands rather discordantly when thrown in at the end of the episode and doesn't entirely work. Then there appears to be product placement when Pete hands Clark a CD of the Talon Mix, or whatever he called it, which smacks very much of merchandise for the series - I wouldn't be surprised. After an episode of bizarre moments, moments that could have thrown Clark's secret out to the world, we get an advert for some pop music? I didn't even mention Jonathan and Clark taking the ship on the back of another pickup right outside the hospital before popping the octagonal key in, causing it to hover above the vehicle, glowing white and sending a wave of light rushing through the hospital. I know it's supposed to be the middle of the night, but a hospital is one place where there are always people coming and going: staff ending or starting shifts, having breaks, patients being brought in! Anyone at all could have witnessed this amazing event and then the Kents would have had serious questions to answer. We never even heard whether the ship healed every single person in the hospital with its ray, or if it was only Clark and Martha since it has the power to neutralise Kryptonite as we'd seen before with the red variety. They could have said how miraculous it was every patient was healed that night, which would have been really cool and now the place is empty of the sick, but they didn't.

In the end I didn't quite know how to take the episode and it's no surprise that it didn't stick in my mind as the majority have from this season: because while the things that happen are huge (key meets ship! Helen knows Clark isn't normal! Martha's having a baby!), they're presented in quite a laid back way as if it's not that big a deal. So you're left in some ways disappointed that things didn't add up to more, and yet at the same time it's an episode that isn't hiding things from the audience and expecting us to wait on tenterhooks to see when things will be resolved. Apart from Helen being a grey area for the Kents everything is fine by the end, except for the silly girly stuff of fighting over Clark (ooh, it was so unsettling to see you ill because you're never ill). I respect Jonathan taking on any risk in order to have even the slightest thread of a chance of saving his family, even if it was bizarre and the lack of consequences at the end were even more farfetched. Hence why I think of it as this very uneven story. But the balance is the thing, and in that scale, good just about wins out over wackadoodle, there aren't the misery moments or depressing stuff that has been occasionally creeping in this season, so it's not bad overall. There was a very good moment of truth in the episode, right at the beginning when Jonathan says that for all Clark's abilities they're no substitute for a tap washer, a small thing that has one purpose and does its one job perfectly. I wish that had been a theme that had been developed throughout instead of being a throwaway line, but that's 'Smallville'!

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