THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 7
Score: 7.8 / 10 
1: Getting Better All The Time
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.
Enough idle cruising. Let's check in on the Smallville Season Seven opener, shall we? As we recall, vast chunks of the cast are presumed dead (and/or on their way to Washington) from last season's finale. Also, Sinead's arrested, Porthos is missing, the Martian Manhunter's off planet healing himself and Superlad has a Bizarro clone of himself flying around in an evil way.
So, of course, we open with a father forcing his son to fish over on Smallville Creek. "I hate fishing," says the brat. "I wish I was dead."
And, because it's that kind of day, his wish comes true. The dam on which most of last season's finale took place bursts and water comes gushing out. It surges out, sweeping all manner of things (eg bridges, police cars, Nazgul) aside with its unbridled power.
The brat's dog starts barking.
"What is it, girl?"
The dog barks some more.
"A damload of water surging through the trees to drown us, you say?"
The father grabs the brat and runs off, before stumbling to the ground in an unconvincingly clumsy fashion. Just as the water threatens to drown them, however, Superlad races in and heat visions it all into steam, which scalds the criminy out of a passing owl.
After the new season opening credits, we head back to the non-steam portion of the dam, where Sinead is drowning in a police car, handcuffed. He hits the windows a bit, but can't break them. Just when all looks hopeless, he is rescued by a blonde Kryptonian hottie, who flies off after dragging him to shore. This is, of course, also how Harry Houdini performed the exact same feat in 1907. A touching centennial tribute.
Meanwhile, Bizarro Superlad has got himself stabbed on a powerline as the result of earlier horseplay. He pulls himself off the powerline and, for the hell of it, incinerates a passerby who offered to assist him. Ha ha ha. Take that, you stupid do-gooder.
Lois, meanwhile, tries to drag TIAC to safety. She bumps into the brat from the opening scene. "Hey," she says. "Which way to the hospital set?"
The kid ignores her. He's not even supposed to be in this scene. He just got lost on the way off-set. Instead, Superlad bursts through the wall (he claims it was 'about to crumble anyway', an explanation Lois finds entirely plausible) and demands to know what's going on.
"What's her problem?" he says, pointing to TIAC.
Lois shrugs. "Dead, maybe?"
"Better get her to the hospital set then."
"I know." And they squabble a bit.
"We cut to doctors trying to heal TIAC with all kinds of machinery and/or medical jargon."
We cut to doctors trying to heal TIAC with all kinds of machinery and/or medical jargon. After the thirteenth 'stat', Lois drags Superlad outside.
"So, do you wanna hear what happened to me in last year's finale?"
"Not particularly," says Superlad, looking around for Katherine Heigl.
Lois ignores him. "I was totally stabbed in the gut but now I'm okay."
"Then what's the problem?" says Superlad. Huh. Chicks.
Back at the barn and Bizarro Superlad is healing himself with a combination of kryptonite and gratuitous pec shots. At no point does he say 'stat'.
Meanwhile over at Luthorcorp headquarters, Sinead is pondering life and, y'know, what it's all about, when he is interrupted by a sexy henchwoman who tells him that a helicopter is on its way.
"I was dead," says Sinead. "And now I'm not."
"Then what's the problem?" says Helicopter Chick. Huh. Bald billionaires.
"I was saved by a flying blonde hottie," he says. "Why would she save me of all people?"
"Sir," says Helicopter Chick. "We don't have time to discuss your flying blonde hottie. We need to get you to a country from which you can't be extradited. You're wanted for Lana's murder."
"Hmmm?" says Sinead. "Oh, that. Don't worry about that. It's Lana. She'll be alive again before we know it. Possibly even by the end of the episode. No. A helicopter trip won't save me. My only chance of truly escaping her is to turn myself into the police."
"You're going to turn into The Police?" says Helicopter Chick, suddenly impressed. First, Sinead matches Houdini. Now he looks to top him. Although, to be fair, the Houdster did die a quarter of a century before Sting was even born. Still, worth hanging around for. She takes a seat.
Lois has broken into Luthor mansion by now, in order to have a randomly idiotic scene with Bizarro Superlad.
"You're smoking hot," says Bizarro Superlad, copping an eyeful of her butt.
"Well, duh," says Lois. "But this isn't the time or place for you to be checking out my caboose. There's important, uh, skulking for me to do."
So Bizarro Superlad cops a handful of her butt instead. Does the evil of this unholy monster know no bounds? He wanders off.
By now, despite the best (or near-best - one can't be at the top of one's game every day) efforts of Smallville Hospital's medical staff, TIAC has finally croaked. "Time of death, season seven, episode one," they say. And they tag her, chuck her in the morgue and head off for a burrito.
After a commercial break, TIAC wakes up in the morgue. She's not dead at all. Oh, those zany Smallville doctors and their criminal lack of training. One of them comes out and talks to Superlad, who is watching a Road Runner cartoon.
"How's TIAC?" says Superlad, never taking his eyes off the television.
"I'm sorry," says Nurse Blabbermouth. "I can't tell you she's dead until I inform her immediate family."
"Okay," says Superlad. He tells Nurse Blabbermouth that she can find TIAC's mum either at the local nuthouse or Amazon Island.
But then he hears TIAC screaming in the morgue. He runs off and rescues her.
"Why am in a morgue?" she demands.
"Well, it's not because you're dead," says Superlad. "That's for sure." He winks at the camera like an idiot.
"If I'm not dead, why do I have a toe tag?" says TIAC.
Superlad removes it. "Voila!" He turns and winks again.
TIAC buys it. She gets up, puts a shirt on, grabs her death certificate and notices Lana's death certificate underneath. She scans it quickly.
"She blew up in a car crash?" says TIAC.
"Yeah," says Superlad. He shrugs.
"God," she says. "That's never gonna stick. She'll be alive again by next episode. Maybe even this one. We have to hurry."
Sinead's tribute to The Police, meanwhile, has not been the critically acclaimed triumph for which he'd been hoping. For one thing, he couldn't remember the words to Roxanne. For another, he broke into a cold sweat during Every Breath You Take.
"She'll be watching me," he whispered, over and over, until his lawyer took him away and promised to lock him in the deepest, darkest prison where Lana could never find him.
Before he can do so, Bizarro Superlad bursts in and pulls the lawyer's heart out.
"You killed my lawyer!"
"You killed my lawyer!" says Sinead. "So you're not completely evil."
"That was a lawyer?" says Bizarro Superlad. He swears under his breath. "Okay, show me where you keep your kryptonite. I need to kill the real Superlad to re-establish myself as the bad guy."
Elsewhere, TIAC's watching old YouTube footage of her and Lana on her laptop. She starts to cry.
"I can't believe she'll be back so soon," she says. "Couldn't she at least stay dead for three or four episodes one time?" She gets up and hugs Superlad. "I'm so sorry."
"Maybe next time, she'll die for real," he says, like the naive optimist he is.
"That's right," says TIAC. "Denial should be our friend right now." She slips into exposition mode. "The Phantom Zone monster used your DNA to become a Bizarro version of you. He's an exact opposite doppelganger - kryptonite makes him stronger." She gives a little sneer about Superlad's total pussy status around the K. "So, he's probably going to gather up kryptonite and kill you with it."
"Oh, wacko," says Superlad.
"Strange, though," says TIAC. "I always thought Bizarro creatures spoke in a very specific ungrammatical, opposite way. Y'know, 'Me am Bizarro. Me hate kittens'. That kind of thing. I wonder why your Bizarro doesn't have dialogue like that."
"That am fascinating question, TIAC," says Superlad. "Me not know."
And he heads off to meet up with the Martian Manhunter, who is all better now, thanks for asking. "Now," says MM. "In my absence, it seems you completely screwed things up, doing precisely what I asked you not to do."
Who is this dude? thinks Superlad. Bo? He changes the subject. "How do we stop a Bizarro monster who has all my powers and none of my weaknesses?"
"Think, Superlad. Kryptonite makes you weaker, but makes him stronger. So whatever makes you stronger will make him weaker. Now, Kal-El, what is it that you take for granted every single day?"
"Bad acting?"
MM pinches his nose. "No," he intones. "The yellow sun of the planet Earth. Now go! Give that Bizarro a sunburn he won't soon forget."
So it's back to the dam for the final battle. Sinead has shown Bizarro Superlad the stash of kryptonite. When Bizarro Superlad turns his back, Sinead picks up a magic gun. "Now," he says. "Time for some answers, muchacha."
But Bizarro Superlad has no time for answers. He punches Sinead out and kryptonites up. Superlad shows up. There's a fist fight. Despite the previous scene, Superlad completely forgets he should be fighting him in sunlight until Bizarro Superlad punches him into a wall. Sunlight streams in and Superlad, memory jogged, punches Bizarro Superlad into space, where (one assumes despite no evidence whatsoever) he dies.
And that's that. We end the episode with some moping. Superlad mopes about not being human. TIAC mopes about not being dead. Lois mopes about the fact Superlad no longer wants to grope her posterior. Sinead mopes about the lack of a Blu-Ray DVD player in his prison cell. Martian Manhunter mopes about the fact he's stuck on a show with so many mopey people. And, of course, we, the loyal viewing audience, mope about the fact that Lana is back, in China, wearing a ridiculous wig.
Next week: We stop moping and get to know that blonde Kryptonian cutie a little better.
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