Smallville: Apocalypse
(S07E17) Most sci-fi or fantasy television series have used a “parallel universe” or “what if” storyline in which we see what life would be like if a different set of circumstances existed in the characters’ universe. As of tonight’s episode, Smallville is no exception to this rule. In fact, it’s kind of surprising the creators haven’t done it before now since they seem to rely on television clichés.
Somebody saaaaaavvvveeee meeeee….
Clark is shown through a simulation by his dead father what life would have been like on Earth if his rocket was never sent there. Lana is happily married with kids. Chloe is engaged. Luthor is President of the United States and about to launch a global thermonuclear war with Brainiac and Kara by his side. Naturally, Clark is in the middle of this parallel world determined to stop the worst from happening.
The first question on my mind was: if Kryptonians have time-travel technology, why did Krypton explode in the first place? That was answered near the end of the episode by Clark himself. But if they had this capability, why use a ship for Clark to escape in? Why not just teleport him out? Yes, I know. It’s Smallville. That’s the answer.
Not much information was given about the “alternate” Clark Kent. He was presumably adopted and younger than our familiar Clark since he was still wearing a high school jacket. I guess they didn’t have enough time in the episode to go through his back story.
I had heard there would be an old, familiar face in the episode and was hoping it was going to be John Schneider, back from the dead and being Pa Kent. It ended up being Sheriff Adams, who was really unnecessary as a cameo. It made me wonder if they tried to get back Bo Duke and couldn’t. It was still nice to see Jonathan and Martha again, even if it was just a photo.
This was really an episode for references to other versions of Superman. From the 1950’s series, Jimmy was wearing a bow-tie. There was a mention of the Reeves Dam, which is likely a tribute to George Reeves, the actor who played Superman in that series. From the comics, there was the Ace of Clubs and Supergirl’s comic book alter ego of Linda Danvers. From the Superman: the Animated Series, there was Lois’ address of Clark as “Smallville” (more on that later).
It’s somewhat ironic that Lois develops Clark’s famous nerdy reporter look. I admit I got a slight thrill when I saw him in the suit and glasses. Now he just needs the tights and cape to hide underneath and they can end the series on a high note.
Lex is kind of young to be President, isn’t he? It’s a requirement of the position to be 35 years old and Lex is at most 28 at this stage. I guess Brainiac had to use his special powers to make that happen. Or Lex just lied about his age.
This episode could easily have been a two-parter, with the first part dealing with the alternate timeline and the second part being Clark’s attempt to stop Brainiac from changing history on Krypton. What story logic could they have used for Jor-El and Lara not being at the launch of Kal-El’s ship? Did Brainiac kill them already?
It’s nice to see the origin on the other side. A few episodes ago, we saw the events that led the Lex to Smallville. Now we’ve seen the events that took Clark there. There’s symmetry in that.
Clark had a hell of a choice at the end of the episode. Either save Lana or reveal his secrets to Luthor. Given what he’d seen in the alternate timeline as well as his knowledge of Lex, he chose the lesser of two evils. And what was happening to Kara at the end? Was Brainiac’s programming to kill Clark (mentioned in the parallel world) kicking in?
Finally, there is the foreshadowing of affection being shown between Clark and Lois. If Lana is saved, given the fact that she’s only a part-timer for next season, it’s likely the Clark/Lana relationship will be done and the Clark/Lois relationship will start. They’ve even given themselves an “out” by having Lois refer to Clark as “Smallville”. In doing so, the series becomes about Clark rather than the town he grew up in. If the creators wanted, they could move him to Metropolis next season and still keep the name.
While it was predictable, this was a good episode. It showed a lot of progression and the pacing felt correct for the most part. That is one of the benefits of parallel world stories. They can make the characters move forward without anything actually happening.
WarGames 2 Movie Trailer
And you thought The Lost Boys direct-to-dvd sequel looked bad… take a look at MGM’s direct to dvd sequel to one of my all-time favorite movies - the classic 1983 sci-fi hacker film WarGames. And sadly, NO, this is NOT an April Fools Day joke…
WarGames: The Dead Code stars Matt Lanter as a computer geek named Will Farmer who engages a government super-computer named R.I.P.L.E.Y. and enters in a game of online terrorist-attack simulation (yes, instead of global thermonuclear war from the original movie). But apparently the game is actually part of a sophisticated piece of government spyware designed to find potential terrorists. Homeland Security, now believing Farmer is a terrorist, sets out to apprehend him. And the computer, of course, forgets that it’s just playing a game.
If that plot description doesn’t sound bad enough, watch the trailer below. It looks like it takes all the horrible computer visualization from Hackers combined with a story which barely resembles the original film starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy.
Discuss: What did you think?