Zod is Coming…

Clark Kent is back; armed with only super powers and flannel shirts, can he save the world from Zod…?

In season 5 of Smallville, Lana Lang and Clark Kent finally get it together. Clark, who has temporarily lost his powers, feels he can finally be honest with Lana. However, their happiness is be short-lived as Clark’s powers are restored, and he is forced into lying to her again. Needless to say, their on/off relationship is now off, again. But don’t worry too much about Lana - Lex is there to console her… Clark, however, has other things to worry him, such as Milton Fine, a liquid-metal shape shifter (T1000 anyone?) who is putting into play a villainous scheme to bring back Zod, Krypton’s version of a genocidal maniac.

Season 5, in my opinion, has tried to be to be a little bit different from other seasons of Smallville, and not necessarily to its detriment. Quite a few of the episodes are movie pastiches; the most blatant would be Mercy, which is an obvious pastiche of the Saw movies. There are many other movie tributes this season; for example, Carrie and Stir of Echoes are touched upon, to name but a few. I love movie references, personally: recognizing them is the only time that I, as a total movie geek, can feel superior to others, and it is also the only time when I know that all those hours watching low-budget horror flicks has not been wasted!?! But the homage does not stop at the movies for this season. One episode has a vampire called Buffy Saunders, who Lana just has to slay, and there’s a reference to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in another – very highbrow for what is quintessentially a teenage drama.

For those among you who aren’t distracted by allusions to other forms of popular culture, there is plenty to entertain in this season’s Smallville. Lex is as shady and charismatic as usual, Chloe and Clark kiss, and Lois is her angst-filled, no- nonsense self.

Like all the other seasons of Smallville, this show owes more to programmes like X Files than it does to the original Superman comics, with the supernatural rather than the extraterrestrial element penetrating every episode. But don’t lose heart, Sci-Fi fans: Zod is coming; therefore, I can only imagine that season 6 will be steeped in Superman mythology.