(S06E01) Quite a spectacular opener. Clark's imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, which is arid and menaced by cool monsters -- but that's not as bleak as Metropolis under General Zod's Krytonian virus. Zod's so bad, he only refers to himself in the third person. With Martha and Lois crash landing in the Fortress of Solitude, Lionel Luthor splitting for Smallville, leaving wounded Chloe in Metropolis, the cast could not be more far flung at the start of Smallville's sixth season, which starts off with ambition and style.Kal-El meets a woman named Raya in the Zone. Wherever this guy goes another hottie turns up. For a minute I though she might be Kal-El's cousin, but fortunately not. I guess they are saving Supergirl for another season.
By nailing Lana's hand to the wall, Zod sure makes it easy for her to divest herself of any hope that Lex is still somewhere buried inside himself. Lana sure gets the crap beat out of her again this episode, which -- based on comments I've seen on previous Smallville posts-- should make a few viewers happy. Not me. Lana's going to have a tough time trusting Lex, even after Zod is banished.
But all is not lost, miraculously the spinning globe atop the Daily Planet building comes through the apocalypse completely undamaged. And Chloe meets Jimmy Olsen. Fortunately for long-suffering Chloe, this is The CW -- so even Jimmy James Olsen is a hunk. Clark rethinks their moment last season. But, being Clark Kent, he's too late again when it comes to love. Now that the apocalypse is averted, it appears another one of the Smallville women has moved past the boy of steel.
This episode was a strong start. Smallville usually starts out strong for me, and finishes its seasons strong too. It the episodes in the middle that start to wear me down, with various villians of the week and side adventures popping. Last season would have made a killer thirteen episode series. I'm looking forward (perhaps foolishly) to Green Arrow in a few weeks. But before that, Clark's got to clean up the mess he made bustin' out of the Phantom Zone ...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-29-2006 @ 7:48AM
Stephen said...
BTW -- It's Chloe not Zoe....
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9-29-2006 @ 9:07AM
lp said...
I was wondering who the heck Zoe was, then I realised it wasn't.
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9-29-2006 @ 9:44AM
Ed said...
Don't forget that when Clark escapes, he releases some of the Kryptopnian villians Jor-El semt away into the Phantom Zone. Wonder which ones they could be...
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9-29-2006 @ 10:04AM
Blue Sam said...
Kneel before Blue Sam!!!
It look like there are 4 villians come out. One of them should be Zod who made it in. I'm not sure how it work about Zod and posses over Lex's.
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9-29-2006 @ 1:47PM
matthew m. barnes said...
no. just... no. was it a good episode? sure. but give me a freakin' break. it's the same formula over and over and over again. i love this show but it's starting to get old.
a plotline that could have very easily taken an entire season to play out effectively (or at least three or four episodes) was, once again, wrapped up in a single episode.
oh... and here come Clark to save the day with Lana. "and... cue Lana fainting so she doesn't see Clark do something extraordinary." gosh... that's never been done before.
and to wrap it all up, a preview of next week which looks like we're back to the old "freak of the week" schedule again.
this show refuses to take some actual risks. let Zod wreak havoc on earth for a while. let Clark struggle to get out of the Phantom Zone. let Lana die instead of Jonathan (or with him!). (sorry to go back in time on that one... still annoyed by that.) it's just not getting as fun to watch because there's no risk. there's no possibility that at the end of the episode everything's gonna be pretty much back to normal.
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9-29-2006 @ 5:11PM
Brent McKee said...
Of course Chloe already knew Jimmy and that was clear when they first encountered each other in this episode. If you don't know the backstory, Chloe surrendered her virginity to a "bow tie sort of guy" named Jimmy during her earlier internship with the Daily Planet - this Jimmy.
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9-29-2006 @ 6:21PM
Jimmy said...
I actually think this show may just be staying around too long. With the exception of a season or two that was medicore at best, Smallville has been a consistently strong series and done more for the Superman franchise in the time between movies. First, Tom Welling is beginning to look like the 30-year-old he is; second there is only so much they can do before Clark needs to take on the mantle of Superman, and this show just won't work as the "early years" of Superman -- we have movies for that. Besides, Welling has already said he won't wear the red and blue tights. Don't get me wrong, this was a good episode, but it would have been nice if they kept the Zod character around for an episode or two just to wreak some havoc -- this episode was very rushed in order to keep it with the prescibed time limit. I would have liked to see more of the Phantom Zone and the people who are stranded there. Then there is Lana. Her boyfriend stakes her hand to the wall and then she just jumps into his arms after he's been "cured." What a moron they've made of this character. Not neaerly as strong as she was in the comics.
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10-01-2006 @ 3:39AM
Anna said...
Personaly I think Smallville Is A great show and all but they tend to ether go to slow or to fast like the Clark and Lana thing 6 seosons now its geting old and anoying and the Zod thing went to fast my whole family watches Smallville and they all thought that Clark would atleast fight him for 3 or so episods and where disappointed when it all ended in the first episod but all in all Smallville is a great show and ya have to give them credit for the hard work that they put into making it.
All I'm Basically Saying is that Smallville Authers should start sticking a little bit more to the comics
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10-12-2006 @ 5:34PM
Caitlin said...
I think the episode was way to rushed. I've actually felt that way about a lot of them. Lana is the most stupid person ever (she should have died instead of Jonathan. Couldn't agree more with the other guys commentary thing). They need to spice the show up a bit. It's like they try and then just are like no we've done enough. They need to just run with it.
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