Superboy

You know, this season of “Smallville” over on the kids’ net (WB) is totally kicking ass, finally, after a couple seasons of patience-taxing dreck.

This can be attributed directly to two things: One, they’re finally beginning to embrace the canon, the Superman mythology; and two, there’s considerably less Lana Lang. It’s always time for a bathroom break when Clark and Lana have one of their dumb-ass, rote, teen-angst scenes together, and this season she’s been absent from entire episodes!

It’s not that the writers don’t handle romance scenes well, it’s just that the Clark/Lana scenes have zero resonance because we know she’s a dead-ender. We know she isn’t gonna make it and that Clark’s gonna end up with Lois. In spite of the fact that the girl playing Lana is pretty and can sort-of act, she’s necessarily given nothing to do.

It’s been leaked that they’re fixing to kill off a major character this season, but I’m pretty sure vapid Lana Lang will be spared. They’ll probably whack Clark’s buxom blonde galpal Chloe, who a) knows his secret, and b) doesn’t appear anywhere else in fifty-plus years of Superman storylines. Besides which, people on this show who stumble across Clark’s secret tend to meet grisly fates that ensure their discretion.

“Smallville” has always been at its best when it’s been about the relationships between the men (maybe because it's written by men?). Clark and his dad, Clark and Lex and Lex and his dad. The women are window dressing and plot devices. Actually, Lois is beginning to grow on me. I like that she’s not the archetypal damsel-in-distress on this show. She kicks major ass (literally) and really knows how to fill a bikini. She’s definitely growing on me.

And finally, finally Lex Luthor is finally starting to turn evil. Finally! The writers have run from the Superman mythology for way too long and now that they are turning to it in earnest, the show is beginning to realize some of the promise it exhibited in a couple of its earlier seasons.