THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 6
Score: 7.8 / 10 
8: Supporting Cast-less in Seattle
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.
Superlad has seen a vision of the future and it's all Phantom Zoney. He's of the opinion that if he's going to be fighting superpowered villainous types, then they should be escapees from the Phantom Zone. Unfortunately for him, everybody else is locked in the age-old Smallville kryptovillain rut. Superlad refuses to bow to majority opinion, leaving us with an episode cleaved messily in two.
More of that later. For now, let's start at Luthor Mansion. Lana's in bed, trying to sleep, so Sinead decides to pop in to declare his love. "Lana," he says. "I know you've had your doubts about me and wonder whether you can trust me or not. I give you my word that you can."
Lana doesn't call him on the potential paradox, so Sinead continues. "You have no idea how much you mean to me," he says, clarifying no further.
There is an awkward pause. "In an ideal world," says Sinead. "You might have responded to that. Still, it's late. You're tired and self-obsessed. It's okay."
Before Lana can respond to this guilt trip, the Awkward Moment Alarm goes off. Security rushes in. Boy, when somebody tries to, y'know, kill Sinead, they're nowhere to be found. When there's some humiliating scene going down, they're there in a flash.
"Quick!" they say. "To the Panic Room!" For Sinead has rooms for every emotional state. My favourite? The Contempt Annex. But before they can get there, Sinead turns into static and disappears into some kind of ghostly static dimension. Lana screams. "Save that for the Screaming Corridor," order Security.
After the opening credits, Security is reporting Sinead's disappearance to Porthos. They're interrupted by Lana, who is as full of herself as ever. She accuses Porthos of a cover-up.
"You'll have to be far more specific," he says.
"Security won't let me see any footage of Sinead's disappearance," she says. "They tell me I must have imagined Sinead turning into static."
"Turned into static, you say?" says Sinead, pushing a 'there's a crazy person in here' button under his desk. "Can you give me a clue to any top secret projects he might have been working on?"
"Sure," says Lana. And does so. Worst. Girlfriend. Ever.
"... why don't you go run a comb through your hair back in the mansion."
"Excellent," says Porthos. He rubs his hands together in not too subtle glee. "Now why don't you go run a comb through your hair back in the mansion. Maybe you can generate enough static electricity to rescue Sinead all by yourself."
Lana instead hijacks TIAC away from her job and takes her back to the mansion. "Here's a comb," she says. "If there's some kind of static monster about here, you should go first."
Sinead sees them from his static dimension. "Lana," he says. "Where did you get that comb?" For he has decreed all hair-grooming products off limits in his mansion.
Lana ignores him, of course. Sinead knows this isn't just her usual bitch antics, because TIAC ignores him, too. And her manners are peerless.
"They can't see me," says Sinead, to help some of the slower viewers along.
TIAC rejects Lana's comb. Instead, she proposes they hack into the mansion security cameras. "Do you know Sinead's password?" she asks.
"Probably 'Lana's so pretty!'" says Lana.
TIAC tries it with and without the exclamation mark. But to no avail. She instead downloads the footage from all the mansion security cameras onto her thumb drive, vowing to crack the password later, maybe during one of her scheduled work breaks.
Lana doesn't take the hint. "Let's talk about what it might mean if Sinead is gone forever," she says.
TIAC looks at her watch and sighs. Looks like she's going to miss deadline again. Lana waffles on about her doubts and her suspicions and how she'd like to see his face again, ideally with more hair, because really? The bald thing? It's old. She goes on to wonder about the status of his will and how recently he updated it.
"I love you so much," says Sinead, for he knows he can't be heard.
TIAC and Lana leave, to be replaced by Frequency Kenneth, the one responsible for Sinead's disappearance into the static dimension. He taunts him for a bit. Sinead returns fire, accusing Frequency Kenneth of stealing his look from Michael Douglas in Falling Down. Frequency Kenneth harumphs and disappears.
Back at Daily Planet Rebel Headquarters, Jimmy-James has been psychologically manipulated into helping TIAC out. "Boy, I wish Superlad were involved in this plotline, so he could help me," she said.
"I'll help you," says Jimmy-James. TIAC smiles. Sooo easy.
Lana shows up. Jimmy-James tries to make small talk. Lana dismisses him with a wave of his hand. TIAC tells Lana that she's cracked the password. "It was 'Lana's smokin!'" she says.
"Of course," says Lana. But secretly wonders. Has Sinead seen her bumming cigarettes from the gardener?
TIAC pulls up the video footage of Sinead turning into static. She's spent several hours attempting to digitally enhance the footage enough to see the vague, shimmering outline of Frequency Kenneth zapping Sinead.
Lana takes a phone call instead. It's Frequency Kenneth, who tells Lana they need to talk about Sinead. "I have to go," says Lana to TIAC.
"Don't you want to watch this?" says TIAC. "It'll only take ten seconds."
"There's no time," shrieks Lana. She applies some fresh makeup, makes herself a coffee and leaves.
"Fine," says TIAC, and uploads the similarly enhanced Lana-Sinead sex footage to YouTube.
Frequency Kenneth tells Lana about a secret lab called 33.1.
"Isn't that a number of some kind?" says Lana, on the ball.
Frequency Kenneth ignores her. "It's where they run experiments on kryptovillains. Like me. It's Top Secret. Nobody believes me - they all say I'm crazy - but it's there all right. Come on, I'll show you," he says, apparently missing the point of the whole 'Top Secret' thing.
He takes her up to the lab, but, of course, there's nothing there. "It's gone," he says, as if this was not in any sense predictable. "But it was all here yesterday!!"
Lana sighs. "They told me you were just some kind of crazy loon," she says.
"I told you that," says Frequency Kenneth.
"She makes the cuckoo motion with her finger to accentuate the point."
But Lana has no time for such piddling details. "I know you believe there was something here," she says, in a soothing tone of voice. "But you're crazy." She makes the cuckoo motion with her finger to accentuate the point.
Frequency Kenneth fades out and re-emerges back in the mansion. "What did you do to 33.1?" he says, in the Furious Den.
"Dude," says Sinead. "I'm trapped in a freakin' static dimension. I can't do jack shit."
But Frequency Kenneth won't hear of logic or any other kind of sense-talking. "Maybe I'll just kill Lana then," he decides, out of nowhere and completely without regard to Lana's immensely frustrating ability to escape death on this show time and time again.
Back at Daily Planet Rebel Headquarters, Jimmy-James Olsen has revealed he's a 21st Century boy reporter who apparently grew up in the 1950s. For he knows everything about ham radio. He explains how (in his 50s childhood) he used to chat with other ham radio enthusiasts all over the world.
"They used to call me Jimmy Olsen, Giant Turtle Boy," he reveals, inexplicably. He goes on to explain about how he's modulated the static frequencies heard in the video footage, trying to blend the narrow band frequency modulation with UHF modulation.
"But how," says Lana, "Do you make a radio out of ham??" The other two stare at her. "Seriously," she continues. "Do you force a transmitter down a hog's throat?"
Jimmy-James ignores her and goes on to demonstrate how he can tune in on Sinead's voice from the static dimension. He also has a theory that if he can somehow tune into Radio WKSM - Smallville ('All Perry Como, All The Time'), he might be able to use their radio waves and some dubious physics he's concocted to yank Sinead back to reality.
This sounds like a plan to Lana. "I'm getting my nails done tomorrow morning," she says. "But let's give this pig radio thing a try after lunch."
TIAC settles in for some further late night hacking of the mansion video footage. Porthos shows up to ridicule her ("You're not in high school any more, TIAC. So enough with the meteor rocks and the padded bra") and format her hard drive ("FORMAT C:\"), before whisking off elsewhere.
Lana, meanwhile, has discovered her nails appointment has been cancelled. She has a long, sobbing scene alone in the mansion, where she lets spill to Sinead (and, indeed, any other ghostly occupants of the mansion) that she is totally up the duff.
Frequency Kenneth interrupts this senseless hormonal outburst and holds a knife at her throat. He shouts some more about 33.1, until Jimmy-James and TIAC show up and kick him around a bit. Sick of this, Frequency Kenneth disappears into the static dimension, along with Lana. Oh, and the knife.
There's some scuffling between Sinead and Frequency Kenneth, while Jimmy-James tries to pick up WKSM back in the real world. Eventually he succeeds, but not before Sinead guts Frequency Kenneth like a hog.
"Did you learn that making ham radio as a boy?" says Lana.
Sinead smiles grimly. He so hopes the kid gets his brains.
TIAC and Jimmy-James investigate the remains of 33.1. Lana shows up, late as always. "I think Frequency Kenneth was telling the truth," says TIAC. "I think Sinead was conducting secret research on kryptovillains here."
"Well, I'm certainly not going to take the word of a homicidal maniac over Sinead," says Lana. 'Better the homicidal maniac you know' having long been a standard credo of hers.
Porthos and Sinead then have another of their strategic pow-wows. "Obviously, even the most dimwitted of viewers knows that I moved 33.1 to a newer, secreter location," says Porthos. "Let us be untrusting partners on this project." He offers Sinead kudos as a sweetener.
Sinead accepts. He's always been a sucker for kudos.
While this entire plotline went on, poor old Superlad was left to do his whole Zoner plotline by his lonesome. So he ducked down to Seattle, formed a grunge band about fourteen years too late, visited Frasier, pretended to be a medical student, fought a spine-sucking monster, was saved by a more impressive hero (possibly the Martian Manhunter, possibly Space Cabbie). None of it made much sense, but it kept him busy, and that's all we can ask, surely.
And Sinead ends the show by lying overtime to Lana, and then proposing to her in a room that, at first glance, appeared to be lit entirely by kryptonite but which, alas, wasn't.
No word on her response yet. It's probable she wasn't even paying attention.
Next week: Let's hope everybody can all get their heads together and work out where the villains are coming from. There's no 'I' in 'Superfluous supporting cast', Superlad. Especially not the way you spell it.
Begone,
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