Superman on Television

Superboy: Episode Reviews

Season 1 - Episode 24: "Hollywood"

"Do me a favor; don't do me any more favors!" - Professor Zugar

Synopsis:

Professor Zugar has a failing experiment causing blackouts across the city, Superboy investigates and the professor asks for his help in getting enough power to get it going, Superboy uses his heat vision and manages to get what we now see to be a time machine working and the pair are sent back in time to 1939!

Clark is walking the streets of the 1930s Metropolis where he intervenes in a woman being mugged. The woman turns out to be a famous actress Victoria Letour the two build up a rapport and Clark explains that he's from Shuster U, they seem to take a shine to each other.

Superboy finds the professor who explains to him that a part of the time machine was damaged in the trip and they need a suitable replacement, the professor explains that with the help of the miracle calculator a recent invention in the times. Superboy helps him set it up and only has one hour until the trip back so he heads back to Victoria to say goodbye. When he gets there Victoria confronts him, saying that she has checked and there is no Shuster U. She asks Clark if he's a fake and Clark promises that he isn't.

Meanwhile the thugs that are stalking Victoria and want to kill her turn up on her movie set with guns and kidnap her. Clark gets shot on the set and takes a dive so he can turn into Superboy and fly to the rescue. A tussle ensues and the thugs fire on Superboy but the bullets just bounce off. He takes out the thugs and rescues Victoria. As Clark he says goodbye and they share a kiss.

Superboy makes it back the professor with seconds to spare and they are transported back to their own time. Lana and TJ are waiting for Clark to help with their coverage of an old actress that has died and left the University a large sum of money. Clark turns up and sees that it is Victoria that has died and among the pictures of her are pictures of them together from 1939. He quickly burns them with his heat vision so nobody sees. We see one final picture of Victoria as she was in 1939.

Rating - 4 (out of 5): As this is my first review I very well may be caught up in the nostalgia of this show but I did enjoy this episode.

This whole episode felt like a harkening back to the Adventures of Superman days like a proper homage to George Reeve's with Clark walking round in grey suit and trilby (which if I'm honest was far to big for his head, but hey!). The production value on this show has definitely improved from the earlier episodes with everything looking very authentically 1939. Gail O'Grady who portrayed Victoria Letour did a very good job playing the starlet from the 30s and you really did believe the chemistry between her and Superboy. Likewise Doug McClure did a good job at his 'Doc Brown' esque Professor, if maybe a little too manic!

From the beginning I definitely got some major Back to the Future vibes (parts 2 and 3 being released around the same time), with the whole part being missing and needing to figure out a way around it. But I love Back to the Future so no problem there! This felt like a true Superboy episode and you could really imagine hearing it on radio or reading it as a comic strip, as ultimately it was your classic race against time, damsel in distress episode.

It was a very good, self contained episode but I think with this one it could've benefited with being slightly longer, as it felt a little rushed. It could've created a lot of suspense and tension across 2 episodes with a 'how will they get home?' type of vibe. A nice moment came from Superboy being on a film set and mistaken for an extra in a sci-fi film, but then being told that the director didn't 'buy' him as an alien from another planet!

The only real problem with this episode was that anytime Clark did something as Superboy no-one seemed to bat an eyelid and seemed to carry on regardless. I'm sure with it being 1939 in the middle of a war with a country trying to create a race of 'Supermen' a man flying through the sky, carrying heavy objects like they were nothing and bullets bouncing off his chest would've raised a few eyebrows!

The end was nice, if a little bit of a quick fix with massive holes in it. We are meant to believe that she left the University the money because she remembered where Clark had come from, but he never told her that he'd travelled in time or anything else so she could've been giving her money to a random University with that name, but I suppose it was done in his 'memory'. Also out of the pics that are taken of movie stars it's a bit of a coincidence that Clark appears in two that they had, but maybe I'm just picking now.

All in all I did have fun watching this episode and writing my first review for this amazing website. Thanks to Steve for giving me a chance to air my views of this show!

Join me next time for the next episode 'Succubus'.

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