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Lois, Lana and the state of Smallville.

The following post was written via Blackberry while I was sitting on a plane. Due to our recent move, I was offline for a bit there, and this is a bit out of date already, as it refers not to this week's, but last week's episode. Still, I think the points are still valid, and think it's worth posting, outdated or not.

Read on if you're interested.

Since its inception, Smallville has always had an air of complete absurdity to it. Whether it's been the outlandish aspects of Lana's life (her occupations over the years just get sillier and sillier) or the muddled mythology the show's been crafting, there's been a lot of belief that needs to be suspended if you intend to watch the show on a regular basis. This season has gotten a little sillier in many ways, but the addition of Lois to the mix has created an interesting problem, that was perfectly displayed in this week's episode.

This week's show was a good one by and large, but it showcased the growing split between Lana and Lois. Within the story itself, I don't think there really is a split...I mean in terms of story relevance. In this episode, Lois and her story was the clear focus. And that was a good thing, as her storyline was interesting and entertaining. But Lana? Over the course of this season, she's gone from being an interesting love interest and frequent damsel-in-distress, to epitomising the worst aspects of the show.

I have a lot of problems with Lana this season: her disturbing (if apparently chaste) relationship with an older man, her generally whiney nature, and her living situation in general, are all a bit on the annoying side to me. The entire Countess Theraux subplot striked me as being simply weird for the sake of weird. I mean, does anyone really care if she's descended from a practicing witch? And even if it turns out that the late Countess has Kryptonian origins (as I suspect they may eventually do, if only as a way of making this subplot at least somewhat relevant to the show), was all this posturing really necessary?

Lana's problems are only made more annoying by the fact that everyone else on the show has been having a pretty good year. Lex (when he's not involved in the Lana plot, or throwing huge sums of money away for no reason) has progressed well, as has Lionel Luthor. Chloe was falling into a rut there (her confession about her relationship with Jimmy Olsen aside), but has totally bounced back in the last two weeks after finding out Clark's secret. Clark himself is having a pretty good year as well, especially after this week's moral dilemma (something I always like to see in any Superman story, regardless of format).

And I must say that I've been pleasantly surprised by the fact that most of the bad guys this season haven't been killed by Clark (either directly or indirectly). While there have been victims, it's nice to see the show emphasizing the significance of a loss of one life, let alone the three or four (or more) we used to see in previous seasons.

Smallville is never going to be a show on the level of Buffy, Angel or any other recent supernatural drama. I've long accepted that, but it is better than any previous live action Superman series (not that there's much competition from the likes of Lois and Clark or Superboy or anything). All I ask for is a solid storyline, and likable enough characters. And if that means getting rid of Lana entirely, I'm all for that. I'd trade Lana away to see Pete Ross return without a second thought. Pete was whiney, but at least he was a male friend of Clark's...there's nothing wrong with a teenager having several female friends (lord knows I always did), but Clark could use a guy friend who's not his father or Lex (or destined to be the Freak of the Week).

Posted by jason at February 18, 2005 11:20 PM | TrackBack | Read more: Sci-Fi , Superman , T.V.