Smallville 1.20 - Obscura

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This is the penultimate episode of the first season. It opens with a long shot of two people riding horses through a field, then zooms in to show that it's Lana and her boyfriend Whitney. This is reminiscent of the opening scene of "Hug", the 11th episode, when Lana was riding with Clark and Chloe. When Tom Welling's wife saw the long shot she recognised Lana immediately, but asked if the man was Tom. I'm glad to hear that she's watching the episodes again. If my wife had been in a major television series before we'd met, I'd want to watch every single episode repeatedly.

Whitney is a background character in the series, the other guy, with only a few lines of dialogue, but this is the episode in which he has the most screen time, apart from the 13th episode, "Kinetic". In the podcast Michael and Tom praise the actor Eric Johnson. He didn't have much to do, but he still took his role seriously and acted as well as he could. He was a true professional.

They see an explosion at a distance. They ride to examine it, and they find there's been a gas line explosion in Miller's Field, a field near the Kent Farm. They arrive at the same time as the police. There's a second explosion. Lana is thrown through the air, and she's covered with dirt and meteor rocks.

The first to reach her is Deputy Gary Watts, shown in the middle. Whitney and Deputy Michael Birdego arrive immediately afterwards. Gary is a policeman who has a second job as a security guard in a carnival. That's disgusting, in my opinion. No policeman in Germany would have to do a second job to make ends meet. Something's wrong with America.

Meteor rocks? You guessed it, this is another freak-of-the-week episode. What makes it different is that the freak is Lana Lang. As a result of the meteor rocks she has a psychic connection with the first person she encountered, Gary Watts. She has sporadic visions, seeing through his eyes.

That wouldn't be such a big deal if Gary were a typical hard-working sheriff. The problem is that he has ambitions, and he's willing to break the law to get what he wants. He kidnaps Chloe and buries her underground near a windmill, maybe the same windmill we saw in the 15th episode, "Nicodemus". He doesn't intend to harm her. He wants to discover her and be promoted for his success. More money means he'll be able to give up his second job and have more free time. Unfortunately, when he goes to dig her up, Clark is already there, warned by one of Lana's visions.

In "Obscura" two guest stars return. The first is Tom O'Brien as the Metropolis Inquisitor reporter Roger Nixon. We last saw him in the 12th episode, "Leech". I regret not seeing him more often. He's an interesting character. He visits Lex to tell him that there was a man who witnessed a spaceship fall to Earth at the time of the meteor shower. Eddie Cole was a crop duster whose plane was almost hit by a ship. Lex and Roger visit Eddie, who tells them that the ship fell in Miller's Field. Lex tells Roger that it's just the delusions of a crazy old man, but you can never trust what Lex says. After this he buys the field, so that he can examine it himself.

The other returning guest star is Joe Morton as Dr. Steven Hamilton. He's a wonderful actor, my favourite guest star in the first season. He was last seen in "Nicodemus". He's working for Lex at Cadmus Labs, researching the meteor rocks. A team from Cadmus comes to the field, because it's a major site of the meteor rocks.

Dr. Hamilton finds a small metal octagon with strange inscriptions. After examining it, he tells Lex that it's made of an alloy not found on Earth.

We find out a bit about Chloe's past with Clark. She moved to Smallville from Metropolis when she was in eighth grade. Clark was one of the first boys she spoke to. After talking to him for hours she kissed him on the lips and told him, "Let's get that over with, so now we can be friends". Wow! That's very precocious for a 13-year-old. Until now I've always thought of her as a shy girl. It must have put Clark's teenage hormones in overdrive. Is that really the best way to put an end to a potential romance? It would have had the opposite effect on me. I would have been lusting after her for years. Not Clark. He focussed all his attention on Lana.

Until now, at least. Chloe visits Clark to tell him that she's been given an internship at the Daily Planet. Clark awkwardly invites her to be his date at their school's Spring Formal. I admit that I don't know what that is, apart from what I hastily looked up online. The Americans like to have school dances where the children dress up in posh clothes. That's not for me. I've always been a jeans and T-shirt man. But the important thing is that the dance will involve close dancing, kissing and passionate embraces. I wish them both a good time.

Now to the podcast itself. What's happened to Ryan? Has he shaved his moustache off and grown his hair?

No, it's not Ryan Tellez. He's feeling sick after spending three days in Las Vegas, so he's at home in bed. Someone needed to keep his seat warm. so he's been replaced by Jason Ronan Nelson (I hope I got his name right), the podcast's engineer. Michael Rosenbaum praised Jason for all the hard work he does behind the scenes. but he's not much of a talker. During the whole podcast he only said a few words, speaking when he was spoken to.

I personally considered "Obscura" to be one of the best episodes so far, but Michael disagrees. People have left comments on Twitter accusing him of shitting on the show. I wouldn't go that far, but it's true that he's always more critical of individual episodes than Tom and Ryan. Tom gave this episode a rose'n'bomb rating of two roses, whereas Michael only gave it one rose. I don't give ratings, but one rose isn't enough. I understand him. He's expressing his personal opinion, and he wants to differentiate between episodes with varying quality. I just disagree. On the whole, I tend to agree with Tom's ratings.

Tom criticised the first season in general for not having more cliff-hangers. Well, that's also a matter of opinion. "Lost" had cliff-hangers every week, whereas the original series of "Star Trek" never had cliff-hangers. Both were good series in their own way. I just have one word of warning: don't let a season end on a cliff-hanger unless the next season has already been purchased by the television studio. That's a mistake that was made by "The Sarah Connor Chronicles". The second season ended with an exciting cliff-hanger. I could hardly wait to see what happened next. But then the series was cancelled. No third season. I hoped that the series would be picked up by Netflix, but it didn't happen. Many fans asked for a film to round off the series. Nothing happened. Now, 13 years later, we have to accept that the cliff-hanger will never be resolved. I enjoyed the series, but I refuse to watch it again on principle. I'll just try to forget it, as if it had never been made.

Here's my weekly update of the Talon's activities. Bebop Fridays? That's an interesting idea. It doesn't just have to be literature and poetry. The Talon is offering something for everyone. Jazz has gone through phases over the decades. When it began it was considered sleazy, music for the lower classes, but as time passed it became respectable. I wonder if rock music will ever become respectable. Probably not.

The Talon has become more popular now. It offers something for everyone, from sonnets to bebop. In "Drone", the 18th episode, Lana Lang suggested going topless to attract more customers. That hasn't been necessary. Am I the only person who's disappointed?

Next week is the season finale. It's been years since I last watched it, but I can remember what happened. It's an episode that stuck in my head.

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