THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 5
Score: 7.5 / 10 
5: The Girls of Kappa Bram Stoker
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.
We open with TIAC seeking an internship with the Rebel Alliance, which has shifted headquarters from the ice planet of Hoth to The Daily Planet in Metropolis.
She is being interviewed by Princess Leia Organa. And when I say 'interviewed' I mean, of course, 'mercilessly decried as a hopeless and wretched entity of the least talented kind'.
"Last time you were here at the Daily Planet, you were clearly the worst writer we've ever seen, incapable of stringing together even the most inane concepts that passed through what I can only assume is your mind. Why don't you go write recaps of television shows or something? That's all you're fit for."
"Excuse me?" says TIAC, who doesn't yet fully feel The Force.
"We all hated you and tolerated you only because you were being sponsored by Porthos Luthor, who, to be fair is rich beyond all getout. But now that you're not, I would like you to go away and only come back if you have a ludicrous vampire tale to tell me."
TIAC heads off to look. At first, all she can find is a Penthouse Forum letter:
I've always wondered whether the letters to the Penthouse Forum are real or made up, it begins. But then the other day I had the most amazing experience. I'm a Pizza Boy by trade, so when I went to deliver a pizza to a sorority house, I didn't think anything of it. Until, that is, the door was opened by five hot sorority sisters, all scantily clad and ready for it. I couldn't believe my luck when they suggested I stay awhile and hang out in their spa...
The letter goes on in some detail explaining how the sorority sisters all changed into bikinis and started to make out with him in the spa. Oddly, it mentions not the fact that the sisters all turned into vampires and tore his throat to pieces.
"... even the Penthouse Forum has limits to the amount of credibility they want to strain."
Because, y'know, even the Penthouse Forum has limits to the amount of credibility they want to strain.
But not Smallville.
So off we head to Metropolis U with whatsername, Lana. Lana has decided at the last minute that she will go to college. Apparently all that talk last year about finding herself or surprising people or whatever the hell she was on about with skipping the college years has been forgotten. Perhaps the producers explained to her just how ironclad her contract was.
Would anybody like to guess which sorority she plans to pledge? That's right, Kirstie, it's Kappa Bram Stoker, the vampire sorority.
So the head vampire chick tells Lana that she's in - she's the newest pledge. Good for her. HVC then explains the sorority rules about laundry duties and utilities and then also adds the detail that as part of her rental bond she must give up her humanity and allow her blood - her very life essence - to be sucked from her neck.
Lana agrees to this as well. All that legal mumbo-jumbo makes her head spin.
So now Lana's a vampire. She parties all night, sleeps all day on TIAC's couch, gets into bizarre sorority undead wrestling matches and so forth.
TIAC's roommate is ornery about this. She also hates the fact that TIAC has transplanted her Wall of Weird™ to her dorm. TIAC's roommate is clearly a bitch of the highest order - what with her refusal to accept borderline psychopathic obsessions with alien mutations and the non-rent-paying undead.
"Bitch," mutters TIAC, by way of proof.
Back at Smallville Community College - or wherever the hell Superlad is undertaking tertiary education these days (I'm getting rather confused on this point) - Superlad continues to listen to Professor Spike-iac tell him what an evil maniac Sinead is.
"Sinead is an evil maniac," says Spike-iac, also by way of proof.
So that's kind of tedious, even with Sinead showing up to uncharacteristically complain about Spike-iac's slander and (much more characteristically) threaten to terminate Spike-iac's tenure. So tedious is it that Superlad runs down to visit TIAC and Lana.
"Hi Lana," he says. "Looking kinda drained."
"Drained of blood," says Lana, and laughs. "Hey," she then says. "Let's have wild campus sex on this chair."
"Can you wait until I leave the room, please?" says TIAC's bitch of a roommate.
"Bitch," hisses Lana.
Alas, Superlad's a complete super-weenie and wants nothing to do with the sex games. "Fine," says Lana. "I'll go hang out at my sorority with my scantily clad sorority sisters."
A day later and Lana hasn't reported in to Superlad, so he and TIAC decide to crash the sorority costume party and see whether, I dunno, Lana has a life of her own or something.
"It'll be perfect - you can put on a costume!" says TIAC.
"I hate costumes," says Superlad, trying desperately to be futurely ironic.
"I don't blame you," says TIAC's roommate.
"Shut up, bitch," says Superlad.
So TIAC and Superlad crash the party. Superlad is dressed as Zorro. TIAC is dressed as, I dunno, let's say Lois.
A scantily clad sorority bimbo opens the door. "Do you have invitations?" she says.
"Hummina hummina," drools Superlad. Because, really, 'scantily clad' and 'sorority bimbo' are only crude approximations to what he's gazing on.
"We don't have an invitation, but we're here to rescue Lana," says TIAC.
"Who?" says Superlad because, let's face it, Lana only dresses like this in dream sequences or when possessed.
Anyway, they're let in, Superlad runs around like a bit of a goofball, expressing keen enthusiasm for his cape while TIAC is bitten by Lana and taken to hospital by Superlad, who bumps into Professor Spike-iac there.
"What do you know about vampires?" says Superlad.
"Professor Spike-iac turns and stares at the camera, one eyebrow raised, so we all get the joke."
Professor Spike-iac turns and stares at the camera, one eyebrow raised, so we all get the joke. He then tells Superlad to go hassle Sinead about special experiment THX-1138.
Superlad does so. Sinead denies all knowledge of vampire experiments and George Lucas student films. "TIAC's going to die!!" says Superlad.
Sinead doesn't even bother to stifle his yawn.
Superlad shrugs. "Fair enough, I suppose. But so might Lana."
"Why didn't you say so?" says Sinead. And he pulls out a kryptonite vial of ACME Vampire Cure. Superlad falls over and breaks out in blackheads and tongue welts. Lana bursts in all vampirey and knocks out Sinead and attacks Superlad and sucks his blood out, then develops heat vision as a result. She takes him back to the sorority house.
"Let's put an end to him," says Head Sorority Vampire.
"Let's put an end to you instead," says Lana and explodes her with heat vision.
"No. Let's put an end to this godawful episode," suggests Superlad and stabs Lana with ACME Vampire Cure, which makes her all better and ends the episode.
That's more or less that. TIAC is cured. Lana is cured. TIAC's total bitch of a roommate moves out, which allows Lana to move in. Lana (staggeringly) remembers nothing about Superlad's powers. Sinead's game of solitaire snooker is interrupted by Professor Spike-iac, who is even better than Sinead at playing snooker with himself and who, by the way, has also stabbed one of Sinead's spaceship guards with an extensible arm of death stabbing. There was no clear reason offerred for this behaviour. But then, this is a Halloween episode of Smallville. Oh, and TIAC got a job with the Rebel Alliance, cleaning X-Wing Fighters.
And nobody mentioned that Lana used to be a witch, which earns this episode three bonus marks. Total score: 3/10.
Next Week: Lois goes undercover as a stripper for extra rating points in an episode critics are already proclaiming as the finest Smallville episode ever.
Begone,
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