THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 4
Score: 7.5 / 10 
8: Charmed, I'm Sure
Starring Clark Kent (Tom Welling) as Superlad, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) as Sinead, Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) as TIAC, Jonathan Kent (John Schneider) as Bo, Martha Kent (Annette O'Toole) as Boring Old Ma, Lionel Luthor (John Glover) as Porthos, Kara Kent (Laura Vandervoort) as SBH and Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) as herself. For more information on these people and more, consult the scorecard.
One of the things I admire most about the Smallville writers is how they don't simply confine themselves to the thematic or logical limitations of their own little show. You'd think at first that chronicling the tales of an alien running around a small country town embarrassing everybody with his antics would be sufficient fodder for a neverending litany of tales.
But, heck, apparently not. So why not take a rejected Charmed script and recycle it?
Exactly.
So we open with a documentary about a trio of witches being burned at the stake in the 1600s. One of the witches looks alarmingly like Lana, which is no surprise as she is apparently being portrayed by a 17th Century relative of Kristin Kreuk. The Lana-witch spits blood on a book, possibly because it was written by Sidney Sheldon, and then we segue into the present where modern Lana touches said book and is infected by historical 17th Century Lana-witch.
So that's no good. But what is good is that Lois is back! Hooray! She's shown up at the Kent barn to hijack it for a surprise birthday party she's throwing for TIAC.
"TIAC's birthday's not for four months," protests Superlad.
"That's why it will be such an effective surprise!"
"But Bo and Ma have been written out of this episode for the most part as they have no Charmed counterparts," says Superlad.
"Excellent! No parents. Bonus."
Superlad tries one last time. "But Dean PlotDevice is coming in from Princeton tonight."
"Don't sweat it, Smallville," says Lois, flashing dimples like a banshee. "This will just be a small gathering of friends. The party won't be a wild, teeming mass of debauchery by any means."
Now, seriously, when has such a claim ever turned out to be true?? And yet, Superlad believes. Oh, Superlad, you're such putty in the face of Lois.
Anyway, Lana, now possessed by witchery of the highest order is responding in a perfectly logical way. She's putting together some kind of spell. She needs a hair from two virgins.
"Lois is apparently as loose as a moose"
She plucks one of her own, then goes scouring for another. She tries Lois, but Lois is apparently as loose as a moose so she moves onto Superlad.
"Superlad, I hear you're a virgin," she says.
"Nuh-uh," says Superlad. "There was this girl that I met one time in Canada."
"Sure there was," says Lana and tries to cut his hair with scissors. That doesn't work at all, simply resulting in a pair of broken scissors (a result that Superlad explains away as being due to sunspots), but Superlad, amiable doofus that he is, simply plucks a hair from his head and hands it over.
"Now, don't you be casting no spells with that," says Superlad.
Lana ignores him and heads over to visit Sinead, who is playing Heart and Soul on the piano. Lana tricks Sinead into giving her a bottle of 17th Century wine to drink, because, heck, it's not every day that it's four months before TIAC turns, um, thirty-six, according to IMDB.
Then Lana sees Sinead's documentey map thing that he got a few episodes back. She gets shirty about this and magics it up for a bit, zapping the map and forcing Sinead to play Heart and Soul non-stop forever. (Although he is allowed a Chopsticks break for five minutes every three hours.)
So her spell's complete and she makes Lois and TIAC drink the magic potion (she tells them it's vodka and lime) and now they're possessed by witches too!
Ow!
They all dress up saucily and head off to the barn.
"What are you doing?" says Superlad to Lois. "Dean PlotDevice will be here any minute!"
What? No mention of the low cut cleavage? For that, young Superlad, you must pay. The witches cast a spell and soon everybody is naked (or as naked as the television censors will allow, ie in underwear) and frolicking with abandon.
And wouldn't you know it but Dean PlotDevice chooses this moment to show up!
"Superlad Kent?" he says.
"Yo, dude," says Superlad, clad only in blue boxers with a big S covering the little man of steel. "Join the party."
And he does!
Actually, no he doesn't. He storms back to Princeton.
So the next day Superlad's off to Luthor Mansion.
"Hey, Sinead," says Superlad, oblivious to Sinead's incessant piano-playing. "Can you wield your billionaire powers and get me into Princeton?"
Sinead continues to play.
"Fine, be horrid then," says Superlad, and pouts.
Sinead changes key, which perks Superlad up. He goes and looks at Sinead's fingers to see how such a transposition took place and notices the blood streaming from the Sinead fingertips. He shoves the piano away with one hand but Sinead is too in touch with the music to notice or care.
Meanwhile, Lana has caught WM2 looking in the Sidney Sheldon book that contained her soul. This makes her furious and she magically hurls him around the room for a bit.
Superlad pops his head in. "Oh, I see you're busy," he says. "I'll come back later."
"This then fades and is replaced by a commercial for Pepsi Max ..."
Lana hurls WM2 through a window so Superlad sighs, dashes down the stairs and catches him. He looks back up at the walls where it is written in purple SFX - "Meet me at the barn at midnight for a climactic duel". This then fades and is replaced by a commercial for Pepsi Max, who is apparently the witches' sponsor.
So the girls meet up with Superlad at the barn. They magically fling things at him and he zaps them with his heat vision.
"Oh," says Lana. "So you're a sorceror."
"I'm not a saucer!" says Superlad.
"Sor-CER-or," says Lana. "Sor-CER-or. Oh forget it." And they zap him, tie him up and suck the powers out of his body.
"Now," says Lana. "Where's the other magical stone that you stole from Sinead's plane?"
"Huh?" says Superlad.
"Back in Episode One of this season," clarifies TIAC, still a script Nazi despite her witchey ways.
"Ahhh..." says Superlad. "Not telling."
But Lana kisses him and sucks the information out of his mouth by doing so. Which is a neat trick and one that I bet Sinead wishes he'd thought of.
The girls head off to the caves. WM2 shows up at the barn and unties Superlad.
"We have to destroy the book Lana's carrying around with her. That will depossess her," he explains, presumably because he's found TIAC's scripts. "Any idea where the girls have gone?"
Who wants to guess whether Superlad tells the truth or not? That's right, he does not. "Try the school," he suggests.
He dashes off to the caves, with no superpowers but armed with a shotgun. Lana laughs at him, hurls the shotgun away and then picks up the magic stone. But she drops it, it flies into Superlad's hands, he regains his powers and burns the book with his heat vision.
The girls all collapse and then wake up with amnesia. Y'know, just for once, I'd like to see somebody possessed and not wake up with amnesia. And remember Superlad's brazen use of superpowers against them. Would certainly make for some fast-talking lies from Superlad, I'm sure.
But that's more or less it. Bo and Boring Old Ma return from Metropolis and find a lacy bra in the barn.
"What's this, then?" says Bo, worried that Superlad may be expressing his feminine side in ways not befitting a Kansas farmer.
And Superlad tries to summarise the episode for him. As anybody who has read this far knows, it sounds monstrously implausible and absurd, so naturally enough, Bo doesn't buy a word of it. "That sounds like a completely different show to me," he says. "Now you go to your room and think about what show you're on, young man."
That's that. A perfectly excellent episode of Charmed. But if I wanted to watch Charmed, I'd turn the sound down and do so. This is Smallville, people. Let's shape it up. Still, nice to see Lois back and buxom, even if she was just making up the triad numbers.
Next week: Sinead's murdering people, apparently. Good for him.
Begone,
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