Superman on Television

Smallville: Episode Reviews

Episode 11: "Hug"

I always expound on how good the special effects are on this show, but the opening "teaser" part, where the guy leaps to his death, that was amazing. I'm not prejudiced, or against hippies or anything, but man, oh, man, living up where I do at a very liberal college, there are a lot of hippies up here, and they're an easy target. So I have to say, at risk of being dishonest, that my first thought when the guy who was crusading against the villain jumped out the window was to laugh. But what a special effect, huh? I mean, for television. For movies, that was pretty standard, but on television shows, you usually just hear a crash and then the camera shows the guy in the car, or whatever. A great attention grabber. Then cutting straight into the credits. Funny. Cool.

The villain was an ADULT! More progress! There is the Kryptonite angle, which is always detrimental, but it wasn't so horrible. At least there were no "meteor rocks" in this episode. Perhaps the guy who played Doctor Hamilton a few episodes back might be able to designate it Kryptonite sometime soon. Or maybe Clark will find out about his real parents, or something. But meteor rocks is cheesy.

The Chloe moment was priceless, but it also made me feel for Chloe. It's obvious that she pines for Clark, but that's never really looked into that much. That's too bad, because it would be nice to have Lana be jealous for a change. We have Chloe pining for Clark, Clark pining for Lana, and Lana pining for Whitney. And heck, knowing real life, Whitney probably pines for Lex, who pines for Chloe. Just kidding.

Two villains with the same power, with one who turns to good and the other evil is something that even comics hasn't covered, to my knowledge. It's an interesting prospect, and done well.

I like seeing Lex with a sub-machinegun, context regardless. And Clark getting nailed with bullets, that's pretty nice. Although I would say that bruises are inappropriate. If he can take a bus smashing straight into him, he can flinch off bullets. The only explanation for the bruises are the compressed power of a bullet. But even so, would a bullet penetrate something denser than a bus? Hmmm.

The "get in a suit and go flying" was far too forced, though funny. Business men get in a suit and go flying, yes. But the line made me and my buds cringe.

Another standard, mid-season episode. I wish for more epic occurrences, but for the middle of a run, it wasn't so bad. Entertaining, but nothing especially stuck out. Therefore, I give this episode 3 of 5.

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