Superman on Television

Smallville: Episode Reviews

Episode 2: "Metamorphosis"

Reviewed by: Neal Bailey

It's the best thing so far that Lex Luthor is not the big villain here, but rather Whitney the Jock. This is the crux of Smallville, the folly of youth juxtaposed with knowledge of the future. In this, you will find that this episode is not only NOT lacking, but extremely well written and executed.

Commenting on general things:

The Fortress of Solitude. That was just too much. Great. I laughed through several of the next scenes, and my friends had to tell me to shut the hell up. Yes, that's right. I said friends. Not only do I have friends, hard to imagine in a fanboy, yes (JK), but I made them all discard their precious time to come watch this show with me. And it speaks to the show that not one of them complained.

Continuity is excellent. Unlike several shows which I watch regularly (and love, don't get me wrong (COUGH COUGH, ENTERPR-COUGH COUGH -ISE)), the things which happen in the last episode affect the next one, and propel one on to the events of the current episode. The necklace is obviously important, both as an object of affection representing Lana, and an object of weakness, representing Lana.

A few beefs...Lana is obviously cookie cutter. The Lois of this series. And the necklace, while important to Lana, loses its weakness-importance when one notes that Kryptonite seems to be damn near everywhere. But these are both easily overlooked, in my opinion. I had to dig to come up with them.

The villain is cookie cutter, but what villains aren't, really? And the important thing is that Lex lurks in the background as the real villain. This is the important thing that Lois and Clark (mostly) lacked at times, and it's good to know that it's set and solid here, waiting to be exploited.

And then, the OTHER continuity. The fact that no, Smallville in the comics wasn't covered in Kryptonite, and Luthor was nowhere near there, save in older continuity. There are things here which are wrong. Luthor showing Clark the Kryptonite and seeing him crumple sticks out. That all of these people see Clark rescuing a bunch of people, through small-town networking or the newspaper. More on this as it develops.

But all in all, one hell of a show, with one hell of a finale, utilizing special effects that truly impressed me. Maybe they're standard now (I don't watch much tv these days...too much school), but I sure haven't seen special effects this good in a while, and when I watch other shows (COUGH COUGH, ENTERPR-COUGH COUGH -ISE), such special effects seem to be lacking in favor of saving money.

I give this show 5 of 5, for continuing the momentum of the first episode, and living up to a hard to follow premier's quality standard.



Back to the "Smallville: Episode Reviews" Contents page.

Back to the main TELEVISION page.