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Hearts grow fonder and dangers grow stronger as Smallville returns with new characters, adventure and conflict. The longest-running “Superman” TV series continues with the release of Smallville: The Complete Ninth Season on Blu-ray and DVD and on September 7. In this multi-disc collection from Warner Home Video, Metropolis’s clock tower tolls our characters’ darkest hour as Clark Kent finally makes his first attempts to embrace his calling as a hero. Bonus features include cast and creator commentaries, unaired scenes and two never-been-seen featurettes: “Kneel Before Zod” and “Justice for All.”

Smallville: The Complete Ninth Season will be out on Blu-ray & DVD on September 7!

Check out www.smallvilledvd.com for more!

The Plot

The future of “Smallville” was probably never quite as uncertain as it was after its eighth year on the airwaves. After a strong start, the 2008-2009 season seemed to falter greatly in its final run of episodes, setting up a story arc that never really delivered on a year-long promise to give fans the battle royale they wanted to see between Clark and his most lethal enemy, Doomsday. I personally enjoyed all of Season 8. I recognized that “Smallville”, for all of its aspirations of grandeur, was still a modestly-budgeted production given what it attempted to accomplish every week, and that an epic-scale, city-wide fight to the death with a Kryptonian death monster was probably never something that was realistic to expect. I can certainly see why some did, though. It DID seem like it was going there for 21 episodes. But Season 8 always felt like something of a proving ground for all involved to me. Lex Luthor was out of the picture (a rather huge problem, dramatically speaking), and the show suffered a massive budget cut that year, which dictated that reliance be put more on character and mythology advancement than super-powers and larger-than-life situations. For me, it was a great retro step for the series as a whole, one that necessitated a look back to when things were more about the people who led incredible lives and who harbored these extraordinary destinies. It was where I think the show needed to go after being hit with the roadblocks it faced that year. So perhaps I wasn’t expecting what others were from Season 8 and it helped the pill go down a bit easier. What I was hoping, more than anything, was that the show could find its footing again and find a way to lead into a Season 9 that would pay off Season 8′s meandering promises and storyline setups – maybe with some interest. Four months after the audience-bemoaned “Doomsday” aired, “Smallville” fans thrilled to “Savior“, the very-appropriately-titled inaugural episode of Season 9. I’m pleased to say that keeping the faith over the summer was the way to go.

Season 9 did two things very right that “Smallville” had very nearly forgotten over its last several seasons. First, it managed to balance its character moments and action perfectly, something I don’t think the show had really done to this degree since maybe back in Season 6. Part of this was probably aided by a higher budget for 2009-2010, something requested by the creative team after being thrown into the “Friday night death slot”. It was generally accepted that Season 9, however well it was received critically, would be the series’ swan song. Shows aren’t put into that time slot without the assumption that they’re ending soon, and The CW, by all accounts, was making room for some new blood (quite literally, as it turned out). It’s a testimony, then, to the strength of one of the show’s absolute best and most well-realized seasons yet that Season 10 is now on the horizon, complete with a “Final Season” promotional push that any series with this kind of longevity deserves. Secondly, Season 9 did the one thing that I’ve been dying for “Smallville” do to consistently ever since I began watching it: it stayed on task. There are, by my account, only two throwaway episodes in Season 9 (“Disciple” and “Escape“). And that’s not to say I disliked those two entries, but I think it’s safe to say that you could have skipped them entirely and not missed anything truly vital to the season-long story arc. But pretty much every other episode is necessary and, even if the main story doesn’t push things along, there are things about the side stories that one needs to understand in order to grasp larger threads down the road. Some may point to the season’s third episode, “Rabid”, as another throwaway show, but many forget that that episode’s final scene planted the seeds of Zod knowing that another Kryptonian existed on Earth and led him to Tess Mercer’s character, both points that are absolutely essential for making the rest of the season work. Likewise, a show like “Roulette”, while not a fan-favorite, was needed both to explain Oliver’s return to heroism and to begin Chloe’s Season 9 character arc. Nothing was thrown in frivolously, and it was extremely refreshing to see that come together for a change.

Of course, it’s not just about tying everything together into a nice little bow. “Smallville” is, first and foremost, a show about Clark Kent’s journey to become Superman, and fans expect comic book goodness. Season 9 is a DC comic book fan’s dream, with characters both well-known and obscure showing up to pave the way for Clark to become the iconic Man of Steel. Fortunately, none of these increasingly-frequent cameos detract from Clark this time around. It remains Tom Welling’s show from start to finish here, and that’s a very good thing going into the final year of the series. All too often, “Smallville” has fallen into the trap of allowing the series to feel like “The Green Arrow Show” or allowing peripheral characters to drown out what is supposed to be the main thrust of the show. Season 9 avoids those perils as deftly as Clark super-speeding out of a burning building, and it does so with a level of fun and tongue-and-cheek humor that somehow keeps things afloat after all these years. Speaking of fun, Season 9 stretches its budgetary legs with tons of great action sequences. For a TV production, these scenes are really impressively staged and executed, and those watching “Smallville” for its bigger moments will be pleased at how many things go boom this year. Of course, bringing the Superman mythos to fruition also means that Clois shippers should have something to crow about, and there are plenty of Lois and Clark-centric episodes on hand to keep the romantics on the edge of their seats as well. Welling and Durance in particular seem to be having the time of their lives playing off of each other and, despite opinions elsewhere to the contrary, have an undeniable chemistry that permeates through every scene they share together. I’ve read another review of “The Complete Ninth Season” in which the reviewer questioned whether he still actually enjoyed this series anymore. A few lines later he admitted to looking forward to Season 10. My two cents on the matter is that any television show that can keep a viewer engaged on multiple levels for a full decade and still have them anticipating a fresh set of episodes is doing something very right.

The Video

After a bit of an unsteady visual start with its Season 6, 7, and 8 Blu-Ray releases, I’m thrilled to report that “Smallville” finally looks as good at home as I had always hoped. Season 9 has all of the crispness and clarity you’d expect to see in a new production, with very few of the minor quibbles from earlier seasons showing up to drag things down this time around. I suppose, as with Season 8′s obvious superiority to Season 7′s presentation, much could be attributed here to advances in compression methods over the last few years. But whatever the cause, Season 9 sports a more stable, solid image than any of its predecessors have on Blu-Ray. As I stated in my review of Season 8, one of the first things you’ll notice here is the stability of backgrounds and the heightened awareness of fine object detail over prior outings. One scene in “Pandora” features a computer screen that flashes by with Lois’s medical history in extremely fine print. Freeze-framing this shot, I was astounded to find that every last line was perfectly legible. This is a clear indication of this presentation’s advances over the over-air HD broadcast or iTunes HD versions, and a testimony to packaged media being far from the dying horse some might have you believe. Blacks, as with Season 8 before, are spot on, deep and inky as they should be. Colors are nicely saturated without bleeding, and the series’ increased production budget over Season 8 really shines here. Most importantly, though, the digital noise and compression artifacts that tended to show up every now and again on prior seasons of the show are gone this time, leaving us with one fine presentation of consistently colorful and undoubtedly demanding hi-def material. I can’t imagine this series looking any better than it does packing over four hours of programming on each of the set’s four discs, and for the first time, I think Warner has finally struck the perfect balance between convenience and performance. “Smallville” has always looked more cinematic than the average television show, but never more so than it does in Season 9. If you’re a fan of the series and, especially if you’ve been satisfied with prior seasons on Blu-Ray, you certainly won’t come away from this video presentation disappointed. Super!

The Audio

My complaints about the absence of a lossless Dolby TrueHD track aside, the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track provided here is, as stated in my Season 8 review, really quite strong for what it is. Again, I think Warner is trying to strike a balance between convenience and performance. The inclusion of lossless audio (while I certainly would have preferred it), would undoubtedly have led to either more discs in the set or a compromised visual presentation, so I reluctantly digress on the issue. Taken on its own, the Dolby Digital (at a healthy 640kbps) seemed to me to pack more of a punch than that on previous releases. Again, this could be because the show had more of a budget than in Season 8, I’m not sure. But I’ve just watched that season recently, and it just didn’t impress me as much as the audio does on Season 9 (frankly, had I seen both sets together, I probably would have reduced the score of Season 8′s audio by half a notch, making it a 3.5 and this a 4.0). There’s a fairly consistent level of envelopment here, especially for a TV show. Perhaps the sound design simply improved this past season, but I definitely found the audio quite pleasing, with always-intelligible dialog and deep, full bass when it was called for. That said, I would certainly urge Warner Bros. to consider a TrueHD track next year for the series’ final season to give the fans at least one collection of lossless scores by the great Louis Febre. His work in Season 9 was exemplary, and a huge part of why the show works so well emotionally. Given the subject matter of the series, the audio component is nearly as vital to the show as the visuals, and I was pretty happy with these episodes aurally, lossy though they are. In any case, this is how the series was originally broadcast, so the purist in me really can’t scream too loudly.

The Extras

“Smallville: The Complete Ninth Season” comes in an outer slipcase, housing the same slim line case as Season 8 did, so if you own that set, you’ll know what to expect here. There’s a very nice booklet included (again, par for the course for this show), and a few great behind the scenes shots accompany the artwork. There are a few minor deleted scenes interspersed through the episodes, marked in the booklet, as before, on the episodes for which they are offered. I was a bit surprised not to find any deleted scenes for the season’s eighth episode, “Idol”, as, being the uber-fan that I am, I know of a few entire sequences that were filmed, but eventually cut from that particular episode. It’s the same kind of confusion I felt at not seeing the alternate footage of Lex discovering the fortress that was shot prior to the writer’s strike for Season 7′s Blu-Ray set. It just feels a bit like a missed opportunity. Commentaries are offered on “Kandor” (Callum Blue with writers Turi Meyer and Al Septien) and “Idol” (Erica Durance and Exec. Producers Brian Peterson and Kelly Souders). Both tracks are, as expected, going to be far more interesting and engaging for us hardcore devotees than the uninitiated, but really, who else is going to be listening to these? Personally, I don’t think anything can really top the self-deprecating girls-only commentary that graced the Season 4 DVD presentation of “Spell“, but one can’t realistically expect lightning to strikes twice, I suppose. Two featurettes are also included in the set. The first, “Kneel Before Zod – The Evolution of a Classic Evil Character”, is surprisingly engaging given its brief (around 15-minute) running time, with Terence Stamp, director Richard Donner, and Callum Blue all giving their takes on the various incarnations of Superman’s infamous foe. The next featurette, “Absolute Justice: From Script To Screen – Introducing Venerable Justice Society of America Heroes into Smallville’s Universe”, runs about twice as long as the Zod featurette, and is pretty much what one would garner from the title. Pretty much everything about the 85-minute super-episode is covered here, though, and I can’t imagine fans coming away feeling let down by the piece. With nary a negative comment to be found here, one might wonder why my “Extras” score is so low this time around. The score doesn’t reflect on the quality, but rather the quantity of what’s to be found here. Excluding the commentary tracks, one can breeze through the extras on this set in less and an hour and a half, and they’re not ones you’re likely to watch again and again. It just feels like a series that is about to become the longest-running science fiction program in North America deserves a bit more loving care than a couple of relatively brief featurettes and some minor cut scenes that really don’t add up to much in the end. I know there’s very little chance in our getting some mega-deluxe set of Smallville extras, but I’d personally love to see Warner Bros. go all out for Season 10. Give us lossless audio, spread the show out to as many discs as necessary to maintain the technical quality we’ve got here, and at least a full disc full of some really worthwhile extras. A series-spanning documentary would be most welcome, as would a new gag reel and episode promos. A bit more effort would go a long way toward tipping the scales and making a decent set into something really worthwhile for the fans who’ve stuck around and supported this great series for nearly decade.

Video: 4.5
Audio: 4.0
Extras: 2.5
Overall: 4.5

Also available at DVD Authority.

Lois, I just don't know if I'm ready to commit to something this iconic and perfect.

The pre-credit sequence has Clark searching the farm for the Book of Rao.  While the Kent Farm probably hasn’t seen this level of intentional destruction since Clark got ticked off with Phelan back in Season 1, and needless destruction can certainly be entertaining, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point was of this search method.  Doesn’t Clark have x-ray vision?  That certainly looked like wood he was punching through, not lead, so I just didn’t see the reasoning behind it.  We see that Chloe is dealing with the aftermath of the Watchtower damage caused in “Sacrifice”, and Clark mistakes Lois for an intruder.  Now forgive me, folks, because it’s not in my nature to nitpick my favorite show, but some things just call out to be questioned.  Again, I have to ask, doesn’t Clark have x-ray vision?  Why would he have to creep around a corner to see who an intruder was?  Sure, there’s the argument that he wouldn’t have any reason to be afraid of the tactic, either, but it just seemed forced to me.  Clark and Lois have a conversation about their relationship and Clark succeeds in sticking his foot squarely in his mouth at virtually every turn.  This bothered me somewhat.  I know that it’s hardly unprecedented for Clark to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, but here he just seemed pretty clueless.  When the woman you’re dating tells you her life’s falling apart, “give me a break” has got to top any list of worst responses.  Clark even tried just walking away from the conversation more than once.  I know he’s had a lot to deal with in the past few weeks with Zod and the Kandorians, but I just don’t see Clark as this insensitive, especially not where Lois is concerned.  Again, it just felt a bit forced.  It was as if the writers just needed an excuse for the two to break up and gave Clark the unenviable task of being just buffoon enough to facilitate it.

Hey, have you guys seen a robot that looks like a metal grasshopper?

The scene ends with the reintroduction of Martha and her now-boyfriend, Perry White.  As cute as the entire intro to “Hostage” was, I was probably most let down with this exchange.  The introduction of Lois Lane to Perry White should have been something historic.  It’s every bit as significant to the Superman mythos as Clark kissing Lois, the discovery of the fortress, Jonathan’s death, or any number of other milestones that are beginning to bridge the gap between this series and the mythology we all know with ever-greater frequency now that Season 9 is drawing to a close.  The trouble is, all those other moments were done justice.  In fact, they’re some of the most memorable scenes in Smallville history.  This one just felt contrived.  Lois has been at The Daily Planet for quite a while now, and it just seemed logical that she’d have met Perry there.  Instead, the choice is made here to have her meet Mr. White during one of two episodes she finds herself unemployed.  I can’t say I’m a huge fan of that decision.  All the same, the scene was fine for what it was, even if it wasn’t what I was personally expecting.  The “awkward dial being turned to 11” feeling of the sequence is just great, and I believe it came off as it was intended.

Whew! I got through an entire episode without my cognitive skills impaired.

After the credit sequence, we get a scene with Clark and Martha in the barn where she confesses that coming back to all the memories there isn’t easy for her.  I really liked this explanation.  It really goes a long way toward resolving why Martha would have stayed at such arm’s length from Clark.  Even with her responsibilities as a senator, I found it odd that she wouldn’t be a bit more involved with what was going on during some of the hardest times Clark had ever faced, so I’m glad more of a reason was provided for it here.  Back at the house, Perry and Lois start piecing together an apparent connection in their respective stories.  Is this contrived?  Just a smidge, sure, but all is forgiven by how incredibly well Erica and Michael played off of one another here.  I’ve said it before this year, and I’ll say it again: Erica Durance has grown on me leaps and bounds during the last two years.  It’s hard to believe this is the same actress that joined the cast in 2004.  She owns every scene she’s in, makes it fun, accessible, and indispensable.  It’s the little moments that push an otherwise average “hey, we’re working on the same story” scene into “something more” territory.  Moments like Lois’s little smile when Perry goes for her picture of the Book of Rao.  She’s so playful with Perry, and it’s easy to see how he’d be immediately taken with her tenacity.  Whereas Chloe was simply in awe of Mr. White, Lois is reverent but she’s also undaunted and fearless.  This is beautifully played, and it really drives home why this life was more suited to Lois’s no-nonsense sensibilities.  It even puts into clearer focus why Lois has been portrayed as so tough and spunky over the years in this series.  She’s the kind of woman now who can stand toe to toe with someone like Perry White and still hold her own.

Seriously, Glen, this is the forty-third take. This isn't even make-up anymore.

Perhaps it’s because the opening of “Hostage” has such a uniformly welcoming, disarming feel that the next scene with Tess waking up to an oddly fortified Luthor Mansion and a larger-than-life Maxwell Lord beating her senseless comes off so jarring.  The cinematography is shaky and the camera angles are quite unorthodox and off-putting.  This shooting style was really effective at evoking a sense of “something’s not quite right here” without making it blatantly obvious just what that something was.  I have to admit, I was pretty confused when I first saw this scene, but then I think that was the point.  Maxwell’s really portrayed as an out-and-out monster here, and I really felt for Tess.

I know I left the carrots in the strainer, Lois. I wanted them there, okay?

Back at the farm, we get a nice scene with Lois and Martha which, though it’s essentially episode filler and doesn’t really advance anything per se, somehow managed to be one of my favorite scenes in the episode.  I really loved the story that Martha told about how she found her purpose on the farm with Jonathan.  But then, I’m pretty much a sucker for any scene that makes you want to go back and re-examine characters that you thought you knew and see them from a different perspective.  It reminded me in a way of a scene from “Before Sunset” when we learn that the Jesse character had once been in a band.  That’s a character trait we weren’t let in on in the previous film, and it makes that first film richer in a way because the next time you watch it, you know that bit of extra information about the person, even though it’s not given explicitly.  Hearing Martha explain why she was so drawn to her life on the farm makes you more fully appreciate not only her character in “Hostage”, but her arc throughout the series.  It makes so many things resonate differently.  Her being initially unsure about leaving behind the life of a law school student with high aspirations makes us more fully understand her willingness to work with Lionel, for example.

Widow-dating etiquette 101: never help yourself to random articles of clothing.

The next two scenes are a pair of oddities for me.  The first is one in which Perry informs Clark of his intention to ask Martha to marry him.  Clark’s assumption that she wouldn’t likely give Perry the answer he’s looking for was peculiar to me in a way.  I know we had the scene earlier where it’s made pretty clear that Martha’s still grieving on some level, but it’s also been four years, and this is her first trip back to the farm after an extended time away.  Naturally, she’d be dealing with her share of old ghosts.  That doesn’t in and of itself mean that she’s unready or unwilling to move on with her life or that Perry’s not someone with whom she’d be willing to do so.  Clark obviously doesn’t know much about their relationship aside from where they met, so this just felt like an odd response to me.  In the build-up to dinner, we get a cute scene with things coming to a head with Lois and Clark, followed by one the strangest moments I can recall on the series.  Perry coming in wearing Jonathan’s jacket may have worked better on paper, but I couldn’t help but wonder why in the world he would have taken it upon himself to just throw on a jacket that was lying around in a widow’s barn.  Could it have been Clark’s jacket?  Sure, it’s possible.  But a 50/50 chance is a pretty big one to take with someone you’re thinking of marrying.  Best case scenario, you’re still being a bit presumptuous in taking something that doesn’t belong to you in the first place.  It just felt contrived to me, and I think that’s really my main gripe with “Hostage” as a whole.  Things just happen, but there’s no real reason for them to happen, and no context given as to why they’re playing out that way.  A simple scene showing Perry beginning to chop wood, getting cold, calling out once for Martha, and then noticing the jacket and deciding to just wear the thing rather than bother walking all the way back to the house or bothering anyone would have gone a long way toward making me feel better about this scene in general.

Sadly, Clark's training hadn't covered the Heimlich and he had no clue how to respond.

The dinner scene, on the other hand, is one I really can’t fault at all.  The interplay between characters is just priceless, and I love how things are played out like this huge train wreck that’s just going to happen no matter what.  Having Lois and Perry on one side of the table and Martha and Clark on the other was also inspired.  It let those two sets of characters share looks that would only have made sense from their respective points of view.  It also effectively drew a line down the middle of the table between those who knew about Clark’s secret and those who didn’t, which was pretty clever.  The shout back to the engagement announcement from “Persuasion” was absolutely perfect and just made a bad situation that much worse (and kudos to Erica for the method acting in actually choking on the potatoes – that’s dedication to your part, people).  Martha and Perry’s faces as things imploded with Lois and Clark were pitch-perfect and you really get the feeling that they had no clue how to respond to the scene unfolding in front of them.  I also liked seeing how Clark has matured here.  He initially follows Lois, but lets her go when she asks him.  He’s putting her first, not himself.  That’s the Clark Kent I know with Lois Lane, and again, it isn’t the Clark that we saw when this episode began.  Martha discovers that Perry’s following a lead on the Book of Rao via the slight contrivance of his papers falling on the floor.  Sure, it’s a bit of a cheat, but it gets the job done.

I was only kidding, Tess. Those pants look fine on you. Really, they do.

Up next, we get another, equally disturbing scene of Tess held captive by Lord, this time with the introduction of Oliver to the proceedings.  A lot of things about this sequence are pretty inexplicable (such as Tess removing Ollie’s bandage for apparently no reason), but only without the later context of it all being part of Maxwell’s mind game.  Subconscious sequences don’t tend to make sense once you’re watching them from a lucid perspective, and this one’s no exception.  Back at the farm, we get another scene with Martha and Clark in which she tells him that if he wants to be with Lois, he’s going to have to come clean with her about who he is.  I thought this scene was really effective.  It managed to present a real contrast with his reaction to Lana and how he was so sure that he wanted to tell her who he was, even if it might not have been the best or safest course of action for her.  With Lois, the decision is made harder for him, if only because she’s far more selfless than Lana was.  She understands Clark’s need to protect his identity – even from her – perhaps more than even he understands it himself.  That’s a great characteristic for Lois to have, and I’m glad that Clark’s not just thinking of himself anymore.  Lois is too important to him to put his own happiness first this time around, and that’s great to see.

Wait, I've got it! Five-star hotel?! Oh, I suck at this game!

Back at The Talon (seriously, show, it just makes no sense whatsoever for Lois to still be holing up here, even if we’re to willingly accept Smallville’s dubious-at-best geographic retcons), Perry and Lois arrive to find her room’s been ransacked.  I love the banter that these two have when working together.  I think Louis Febre’s score captured the feel of the two perfectly.  It’s a serious situation, but when they’re both on the case, things just can’t be but so bad or somber.  Now, I know that Lois obtained the cell phone in the Wonder Woman costume from Amanda Waller, but I’m not exactly clear on how Lois knew what number would be a direct line to Checkmate or, even if it were, how the person on the other end would have any way of knowing how they could find The Red Queen.  The whole point of The Red Queen up to this point is that she’s been a big mystery, even to Checkmate, so this, again, seemed a bit contrived to me.  In any case, it somehow works and she and Perry get a lead on where to meet her.  That said, I must admit that I wouldn’t have sacrificed the Taco Dan’s conversation for absolutely anything, so I suppose all is forgiven.

You killed my sis...oh, I just can't stay mad at you, Kal.

Across town, Clark meets up with Vala and asks for more information about the Book of Rao and how close Zod is to finding it.  Again, this scene just didn’t exactly work for me.  At first, Vala seems absolutely furious at Clark, accuses him of killing her sister, and attempts to superspeed away.  After he stops her and simply says “you don’t really believe that, do you?”, suddenly she’s cooperative to a fault and tells him everything he wants to know.  I just can’t understand this character’s motivations or comprehend her actions.  She’s either with Zod or she’s not.  She either hates Clark or she doesn’t.  Perhaps she’s being made to straddle the fence like this so she can be swayed at a critical moment in the finale, but that seems a role that would have been far more potent had Faora been allowed to carry it.  I’m also just not sure about how some scenes lead into others in this episode.  How did Clark even know where to find Vala?  And provided he did know, why didn’t he just know where to find Zod instead?  Again, it’s not in my nature to nitpick in my reviews, but this episode presented me with too many questions to simply ignore.  Also, this scene ultimately served little purpose for me.  Vala tells Clark that the Book of Rao is very dangerous and that it will destroy the Kandorians’ life on Earth.  All of this is information that Clark already knows.  She also plants the seed with Clark that Tess is The Red Queen, but she offers no reasoning for this belief or proof of what she says, so it just comes off as a planted reason for Clark (and the audience) to think it could be Tess.  And if you ask me, that’s just kind of a weak plot device to employ on a show that’s seen its share of far smarter bait and switch scenarios.

Cell Phone Tumors: Truth or Modern Myth?

Tess finally snaps out of Maxwell Lord’s mind manipulation and escapes (as, we’re later told, she was always meant to), after which Lord is evidently killed by some sort of high-pitched noise transmitted over his phone.  The implication is made later that Martha was behind this entire subplot and subsequent use of Tess to locate the Book of Rao, but I hope that some distinction is made between Martha’s Red Queen and the cold-blooded killer who just apparently short-circuited a man’s brain.  I can buy that Martha is acting to protect Clark, and I can even swallow her finding it necessary to adopt this alternate identity to do so.  But Martha becoming a straight-up killer in the name of justice?  That’s certainly not the character who left this series in Season 6.  And perhaps it isn’t meant to be, but it’s a bit of a stretch.  Martha’s moral compass was always one we could count on in the past.  But with Jonathan gone, and with what’s happened with Oliver and more recently with Chloe, I’m starting to wonder if the show runners are going to leave us with any traditional good guys by the time this year is out.  I certainly hope so.  This is Superman mythology we’re building here, not Batman.  It’s okay to have a clear-cut hero on occasion.  I have no qualms with a series – even one based in a world as fantastic as this – striving for a little verisimilitude with fallible leads, but must we have each and every one of them test the dark side waters?

Billboard heaving finally earns its rightful place at the Kandorian Olympic Games.

When we catch up to Perry and Lois, they’re staked out at the coordinates they were given to meet The Red Queen and, after she makes a brief appearance on a nearby roof, the pair spring into action ascending the most precariously-built fire escape ladder I’ve seen since “Final Destination 2”.  It naturally gives way and Perry’s hanging on for dear life.  This leads to yet another issue I had with “Hostage”.  One of the big plot points in this episode was Lois finding a bigger purpose to her life.  A greater meaning to what she’s doing.  She needs to feel like she’s making a difference.  And how does she get that sense of self-worth?  Well, if this climactic scene in “Hostage” is any indication, all she really needed was to pull someone to safety from the side of a building while a small group of “I’ll stare up in horror but do nothing to help” people cheer her on.  Now, trust me on this one, folks.  This reviewer doesn’t need much to jump blindly aboard the “Lois gets to do something significant this week instead of just being knocked needlessly unconscious” train.  But is this really the big cathartic experience that Lois needed?  They didn’t find The Red Queen.  Their story was a dead end, and all the pair really succeeded in doing on their first job together was to rummage through an apartment and climb up to a roof chasing what ultimately amounted to a wild goose.  I don’t know, I guess I just wanted (and expected) a bit more from these two.  Their scenes were fun, but the whole thing really just didn’t lead to anything that actually mattered or even really warranted inclusion in the overall arc.  Except, of course, that we needed an excuse to get these two characters working together which, again, is the very definition of contrived.  On the heels of this scene, we get to see Clark attempt to stop The Red Queen’s car (which I gather she had waiting just long enough for her to make a cameo on the roof and then make a speedy exit), but he’s straight away thwarted by Kryptonite.

This is the heart of the island, Chloe. You must never go into it, or you'll become a giant smoke monster.

The next scene is probably my favorite of the episode.  Chloe tells Clark that, though she’s gotten Watchtower back up and running, she’s just not equipped to handle what’s being asked of her anymore.  She knows she’s done things that she shouldn’t have done in the name of protecting Clark and everyone else.  I have to say, it was a huge relief (especially after the events of last week) to see Chloe coming to a sort of crisis of conscience here.  She’s been long overdue for one in truth, and I’m thrilled that the writers have finally seen fit to put these words into her mouth.  I articulated much of my concern about Chloe’s dark path in my last review, and seeing a scene like this makes me realize even more why her arc has concerned me so much.  I like Chloe as a character.  Or at least I used to before her motivations and subsequent actions got so dark gray that even I couldn’t tell whose side she was on at times.  This scene actually had me feeling for her again, which is something that I haven’t done for a while now.  I actually was beginning to dislike Clark if anything here.  The fact is, Clark doesn’t have the bird’s eye view of Chloe that we’ve had as an audience.  He doesn’t know just how far down the wrong road she’s gone in his name, and I suspect that if he had a bit better understanding of what’s truly become of his once wide-eyed sidekick from Smallville’s early years, he might have taken what she said a bit more seriously.  While I appreciate the pep talk he gave Chloe in this scene, what I feel she really needed instead was understanding and a reassurance that it’s acceptable not to be okay all the time.

Only one other person besides me knew about that pie recipe, Tess. I'm here to collect.

So our big reveal of Martha as The Red Queen has her obtaining the Book of Rao from Tess and warning her not to end up on the wrong side of the coming apocalypse.  This reveal, by the way, likely came as just about as much of a shock to anyone paying attention to this show as the fact that the use of the word apocalypse is a foreshadowing device.  Also, Lois getting her job back at The Daily Planet was kind of a canon necessity, don’t you think?  Seriously, though, I have a theory that both Smallville and Metropolis exist, to steal a patented Star Trek phrase, in some sort of temporal anomaly where normal rules of time and space just don’t apply.  I know there’s no accounting for time cuts, but Martha was positively everywhere at once in this episode.  She’s at the farm talking to Clark, then she’s on a roof throwing Lois and Perry off her trail, then she’s in Tess’s wine cellar, then back to the farm just in time to get that scrumptious cherry pie out of the oven.  That is one busy woman, folks.

Oh, come on, this is a Schick Quattro, not a Gillette Fusion! This ruins everything!

In our final scene, Clark tells Martha that he knows all about what she’s done.  There is a passing mention of “her people” tracking down the Book of Rao while she kept him home for dinner (now that’s how a mom gets things done), so I’m hoping that said people were behind Lord’s assassination and that Martha’s hands are at least somewhat clean.  She hands over the Book of Rao to Clark with the warning that it has the power to exile all Kryptonians from Earth, including him.  I know it probably seems like I hated this episode, but really, I didn’t.  I enjoyed a lot of it.  And, as I said, I’d still rate it higher than what I’d consider to be Season 9’s lower points.  I simply found there to be more glaring holes this time around, more things that called attention to themselves more readily upon a second viewing and, thus, more things to critique.  As such, my apologies for this review running a bit away with me.  I just felt that I had a lot to say.  I wanted to love “Hostage”, but instead found it to be merely “good”.  And this close to the end of what will likely be Smallville’s penultimate season, I don’t want a good episode.  I want a great one.  I think I might actually have enjoyed this show more had it been third from the end instead of second.  The Kandorian’s fly off from the fortress, Zod tells Clark he won’t be able to stop them, and next time we see him he’s at the farmhouse?  It just felt strange.  Too many things just didn’t gel for me in “Hostage” the way I wanted them to in a story that featured the historic first-ever team-up between Lois Lane and Perry White.  In truth, I’m a hopeless fan of Smallville.  And no matter what this show sells me, I’m going to buy it.  But for the first time in a while, I’ve got a twinge of buyer’s remorse.

I hate this mainframe, Tess. It's consuming my life. Here, let me shoot it with you.

It may seem a peculiar sequence to which to devote an entire paragraph, but I’d like to give kudos to the person on the writing team who came up with the idea of beginning an episode of Smallville with a real-life, down-to-Earth situation for once.  Having someone as familiar to us all as Chloe Sullivan walking casually along a street that she knows so well, interacting with a peripheral character who’s only been seen in a few mere glimpses this year somehow works in all kinds of ways for me.  It plants these characters that we all care about into a world, not just a generic Metropolis backdrop.  This scene at the coffee shop does nothing to forward the plot of “Sacrifice”, nor does it have anything to do with what comes after it, but it nonetheless establishes time, space, and indeed an entire world far more than all the “necessary” scenes in the world.  One thing Smallville has done consistently well this season is remembering that these characters are ones with histories so fleshed-out and detailed now that they occasionally warrant a moment to themselves as people, not just plot catalysts.  They’re more than what drives us from key scene A to Z.  They have lives in this world that go on even when we’re not there to see every moment of them.  I couldn’t always have said that about this series, but then, we’ve rarely (if ever) had a season as masterful as the one we’ve had this year.

Our plot proper begins with Chloe entering Watchtower via a ridiculously high-tech series of elevator security protocols.  While this did make me momentarily wonder what fail safes were in place for someone instead simply opting to take the stairs, the action quickly takes off as Chloe finds that Tess has infiltrated the building.  And wouldn’t you know it, she’s already stolen Chloe’s gun.  Now, there is one thing I’d like to address here.  What is it about people storing weapons in this manner once they get a bit of power and a fancy room full of things worth protecting?  A gun stored in a custom-made case might look pretty awesome sitting there on the shelf, but it’s not exactly practical.  This is something we’ve seen time and again in this series.  Going back to Lex himself, I’ve never stopped wondering why these people in positions to potentially need a weapon at any moment don’t make them a bit more accessible.  But no matter.  Faking Tess out with the old “that gun’s not even loaded” bit, Chloe manages to get the upper hand, but only for a moment.  Before long, she and Tess are forced to depend on one another to deal with the bigger problem.  A security lock-down has been activated, putting Watchtower in control and trapping both of them inside.

After the opening cut, we’re treated to another Clark and Oliver scene.  I have to say, while once I found the interactions between these two a bit on the dry side, they’ve really grown on me throughout this season.  I think much of this is due to Oliver actually understanding and more fully respecting the higher moral plateau from which Clark speaks.  Ollie has real-world demons in his past now, and they’re of his own creation.  I like that he’s now aware of this without being the tragic figure of “Roulette” any longer.  I loved that when Clark mentioned that he knew what Oliver was capable of, there was no argument, no snappy comeback.  And, in fact, this leads right into one of my favorite things about “Sacrifice” and the series as a whole as it’s recently been executed.  These people are facing serious decisions that simply don’t have a clear-cut solution anymore.  In this scene, we hear Oliver speaking the words of the audience.  We know who Zod is and what a danger he poses to Earth.  Clark knows this, too, but he’s too idealistic, too ready to believe in the good of everyone, and frankly, a little too selfish in wanting fellow Kryptonians on Earth with whom he can relate to fully come around to what Ollie’s trying to tell him.  And there’s a little tragedy in that.  It almost harkens back to the situation with Davis from around this time last year, only this time, Oliver’s more willing to see past his own agenda and give Clark the benefit of the doubt.  That the writers have found a way to make Oliver’s standpoint more right than ever now while also making his character more willing to follow what Clark wants to do is a terrific, tension-building twist that serves two ends.  First, it shows us a Clark that’s closer to becoming Superman than ever before.  Despite what believing in people has wrought in the past, Clark is still willing to try to save Zod and his people if there’s any hope of doing so.  Secondly, though, this dynamic shows us just how much Clark needs Oliver and the rest of the Justice League to ground his lofty aspirations for the rest of the world.  Clark’s simply too optimistic for his own good, too quick to save first and judge later.  But guess what?  That sounds a lot like the world’s greatest superhero.

Our next scene finds Tess rather humorously emptying what looks to be an entire clip of ammunition harmlessly into a steel door.  Fortunately, Chloe has a great line about dying from a ricocheting bullet that makes that moment totally worthwhile.  In this scene, we find that Tess’s attack on Chloe wasn’t behind Watchtower’s automatic lock-down at all, but instead it’s something that Tess brought with her, most likely something planted on her by Checkmate.  Next, there’s a quick exposition scene in which we learn that Waller has enlisted the help of Stuart (referred to as “Agent Campbell” here) to get Watchtower into Checkmate’s hands by tracking Tess’s signal.  I’m not sure about this, but I’m fairly certain that I can’t remember a single season of Smallville that seemed as thought-out and meticulously paced as Season 9 has been.  I love how the smallest details and characters are actually fitting into the larger mythology and not being wasted solely on the episodes in which they first appear, never to be seen or heard from again.  It’s an extremely strong show that can weave a season-long story and have it all actually gel together in the end.  At first, I was worried that we’d get the Season 8 treatment again this year.  We’d have this phenomenal opening half of a season, and then when things got into Checkmate territory, they’d drop everything that came before.  Only that didn’t happen.  I love how Checkmate ties directly into the Kandorians, which in turn ties in directly with the first half of Season 9.  Sure, this type of storytelling might leave some viewers feeling a bit on the outside when they try catching a random episode, but it rewards the rabid fans who’ve been there from the beginning in spades, and it’s wonderful to see play out in this way.

Chloe and Tess locate the tracking device, which is apparently a mechanical contraption tied in with Tess’s bio-rhythms designed by Checkmate.  They determine that it’s impossible to deactivate while Tess is still alive, and we’re taken to the mansion where Oliver’s attempting to garner some intelligence on Zod’s whereabouts from Tess’s laptop.  Just a curiosity here, but how many people do you know who leave their laptops on their desks when they leave?  Isn’t one of the key benefits of owning a laptop the portability of the thing?  People in Smallville tend to treat laptops as desktops, and it’s a bit perplexing.  But this is, admittedly, a nitpick.  Zod shows up and interrupts Oliver’s investigation, and the two square off.  I really enjoyed how Oliver managed to get the upper hand on Zod.  Again, it reminded me a bit of last year’s Season Finale with Oliver shooting Clark with the Kryptonite arrow.  I’m sure glad Ollie’s back on Clark’s side this time around, because it’s extremely satisfying to see someone as conceited as Zod put in his place by The Green Arrow.

Next up is probably my favorite scene in “Sacrifice”, yet it’s also one of the most confusing and frustrating.  We get a wonderful scene here in which Tess and Chloe discuss their respective methods of “saving the world” and how the fine line between them has gotten progressively finer than either of them would like to have admitted.  I really enjoyed the way the writers tied these two people together here, and presumably gave Chloe a better understanding of the fact that Tess, misguided and misaligned though she’s always been, has always done the things she’s done from a real desire to serve some greater good.  Chloe’s position has been much the same, especially in these past few seasons.  As it happens, more often than not, Chloe’s decisions have led her to a higher path than Tess’s have, and they’ve had the net result of aligning her with people of higher moral standing, but they’ve really been no less dubious in their execution or motive.  I like that the people behind these episodes are at least acknowledging how blurred the line has gotten between good and bad in some instances.  And I like that Tess has become a better and more humanized character for it.  For all the clamoring for Lex to turn outright evil, the fact is that he was a more interesting character when he grappled with an internal conflict of whether or not to succumb to the evil that he had the potential for unleashing or to fight it within himself and become a better man.  That’s something that all of us can more readily relate to than a man who nonchalantly shoves his own father out of a window.  And as much as I miss Michael Rosenbaum’s portrayal of Lex, for my money, Tess is a far more relatable and nuanced character than Lex was in his last few years.

The reason I find this scene so frustrating is that it assumes that Chloe is seeing Tess in a new light (as, indeed, perhaps we are as an audience) for the first time.  It is certainly written that way.  And yet Chloe’s actions later in this episode really very nearly trash what this scene is trying to do, and that bothers me quite a bit.  But I’ll come back around to that.  Indeed, Tess even makes a few good points about Chloe’s relationship with Oliver and makes Chloe admit that she “lost her faith in people a long time ago”.  For Chloe, it’s become all about Watchtower, about saving everyone and knowing no one.  It’s turned into being all things to all people, yet tragically losing the ability to be anything substantive to any single person.  I think this informs the character of Chloe a great deal, and it even (partially) redeems her a bit for some of the detached, methodical actions she’s taken of late to serve some higher purpose that’s become just as dark and undefined as the one Tess pursues.  These characters are shown here not as light and dark mirrors of one another, but as two shades of gray, one only marginally brighter than the other.  That’s a very real way to present your characters.  And it’s this kind of thought-provoking duality with which Smallville consistently presents us in Season 9.  I do like the way this scene ends with Chloe actually having a moment of pause about destroying her work even though not doing so will mean certain death for both of them.  You can really see the indecision in her eyes for a moment, and it’s made clear that Chloe has begun to define herself only through what information she’s managed to store in a database.  A series of 1’s and 0’s has come close to stealing away Chloe’s identity.  I find it interesting that it’s Tess that has to snap her out of this no-brainer of a decision and remind her that two lives hang in the balance.

Our next scene is with Faora and Clark in the barn, and I have to say that I absolutely loved the way this was handled on every level.  Having such a long history with Zod, I just assumed that Faora’s character would do the cliché thing and betray Clark in the end, even after being faced with irrefutable evidence that Zod destroyed Krypton and must be stopped from doing the same thing on Earth.  It’s just the natural way these kinds of stories typically play out, especially with a child in play.  I thought surely this was where things were going, but again, the writers didn’t let me down with such an easy contrivance.  Instead, Faora’s shown here as a three-dimensional, sympathetic character who, while torn between her obvious love for Zod and the fate of her unborn child and Earth’s future, knows she really doesn’t have any choice to make in the matter.  That’s how a real person would react to news like this.  With sadness, but assuredness that the real choice was already made for them with stakes this high.  I’m so glad that Faora was given the opportunity to shine in this way.  It makes her far more interesting in the end.  I did find the shot of Clark using his super-hearing to listen to her baby’s heartbeat a bit funny.  It’s curious how Clark, in becoming more and more used to leaning on his powers, is losing a small part of his human intuitiveness in the process.  The Clark before super-hearing would have just known Faora was pregnant, but here he has to confirm it for himself before mentioning it or, you know, just asking.  That’s not to say that this makes Clark a more austere personality, just one who relies more on what he can do than what he can feel than he once did.  But then, that’s been an overriding theme of Clark’s all year.

Just as Chloe and Tess enter Metropolis General to get rid of the tracking device, Faora’s people are captured by Checkmate’s agents.  I really enjoyed how this scene tied in directly with the one earlier in which Faora told Clark that, while Zod had always been there to protect the Kandorians, all they’d ever gotten from humans was judgment and persecution.  You can really see how the Kandorians feel that they have no other choice but to align with Zod in this context, and it again makes the canvas of Smallville so much more intriguing that these people are presented as ones with a legitimate point of view that makes their decision the right one for them.  Zod may be evil, but he isn’t from their perspective, and it’s easy to see why their allegiance would shift from Clark to Zod under these circumstances.  The right road is rarely the easier to follow, and following Clark has, in their minds, done nothing to establish lives for them on Earth.  Checkmate, in attempting to circumvent a coming war with an alien race, is simultaneously providing all the motive the Kandorians need to deem a war necessary in the first place.  And sure, Clark might save them all from being captured, but the point has tragically already been made.

Back at MetGen, Chloe determines that the only way to get rid of the tracking device in Tess is to stop her heart.  Agent Campbell loses her signal and is thwarted for the time being.  Now, this is the moment that really bothered me.  At one point, after she realizes that Checkmate’s been thrown off of the trail and she’s in the clear, Chloe very nearly just walks away from the situation.  Seriously?  Is this how far they’ve taken the Chloe that I used to root for?  I know that part of the angle of “Sacrifice” is to compare and contrast the Chloe and Tess characters and establish that there’s perhaps not as much of a difference between them as there could be, but Chloe’s supposed to be one of the good guys.  She is still supposed to be on the right side of that line, for better or worse.  Going after a monster like Doomsday or a super-charged, power-hungry Zod for the sake of the entire human race is one thing.  Leaving a flesh and blood woman like Tess in a hospital room to die alone just to cover your own skin is quite another.  Here’s a character that Chloe was very nearly beginning to relate to and start to understand on a level more complex than straight-up good or evil a mere few scenes ago, and now she’s contemplating just leaving her to her death?  It makes me question why that earlier scene was even written at all, because it makes this even more heartless than it already is.  Is this the same Chloe that we’ve come to know over the years?  Is it the same Chloe that shocked us by taking a life in Clark’s name (when something was actually really at stake), and whose actions there only made sense to us once it was revealed that Brainiac was pulling her strings?  Surely I’m not the only one who’s thinking about that scene now in light of this one, wondering just how much of Chloe was truly being controlled at all.  It’s frightening what is being done with Chloe this year, and I can only hope that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for her character, because I can’t even imagine what Clark (or even the newly-redeemed Oliver) would have to say about this.  Fortunately, Chloe does do the right thing in the end and save Tess’s life, but as much as I appreciate how dark Smallville has gotten in Season 9, I prefer a little less anti in my heroes.

When we meet up with Faora again, she’s being questioned by Waller about Zod.  Faora vows to help Checkmate stop him if there is no other option.  Zod then shows up and hurls Waller into her own windshield.  Clark’s not far behind, though, and the two face off over Zod’s plans to attack Checkmate directly.  As Clark goes to check on Waller’s condition, Zod speeds away with Faora in tow.  It was here that I thought Faora’s determination would waver.  I thought that Zod would somehow convince her that his intentions were still good, remind her of their shared history together, and win back her allegiance.  I even contemplated the possibility that their child, though born of a different reality and circumstances, might somehow be Davis / Doomsday in another form.  The part human, part Kryptonian nature of the child would have worked brilliantly to that end, in fact.  But in the end, Faora doesn’t back down, and Zod takes both her life and the life of his child.  This really wasn’t something I saw coming, and it was pretty expertly done.  I’m just sorry that once Faora was actually given something worthwhile and interesting to do, that her character was killed off so quickly.

Now, the one thing I didn’t understand about the end of “Sacrifice” was the scene at Checkmate when Waller and Stuart meet up.  They arrive at headquarters to find that the place has already been pretty much decimated by Zod, their agents dead and their equipment lying in ruins.  I’m not sure if it was intended to be ambiguous, but I wasn’t completely convinced that Waller and Stuart died here.  I think they did, but it’s definitely a plot point that they could revisit if they wanted to.  I did like the shot of the heat vision from inside the eyeball, though.  It was very cool stuff, and seemed to me just like a page they’d draw in a comic book.  The thing I don’t understand about this scene is that Zod infiltrated Checkmate and slaughtered everyone there and Clark’s…at MetGen looking to see if Oliver’s okay?  This makes no sense.  Clark knew Zod was after Checkmate, and the last time he was in his presence, it was to save Waller’s life.  The first place that Clark should know to look for Zod would be at Checkmate headquarters.  Striking a blow to Checkmate and starting the war has been Zod’s goal for this entire episode.  And yet it never dawns on Clark that Zod would go there?  That bothered me a little.

After seeing footage of the burning Castle on the hospital television, Chloe tells Clark that Zod is assembling the Kandorians at The Fortress.  One thing I must say that I’m beginning to really love about Callum’s portrayal of Zod is that he truly doesn’t come across as though he believes he’s lying.  He’s being painted as such a thorough sociopath that he lies to himself and then convinces himself that the lies are the truth to justify his own actions, both to his followers and to himself.  This makes him far more dangerous in my view, because he is not only acting toward evil ends, but he genuinely believes on some level at the same time that his cause is just.  And that gives him far more of an arc and a determination than someone acting strictly out of arrogance or for a blind grab at ever-greater power.  Combine Zod’s charismatic demeanor with his belief, however sadistic and incorrect, that he is truly right in what he’s doing, and it’s not hard to understand why those banners at Luthor Mansion in “Pandora” were so closely modeled after Nazi imagery.  I thought that in borderline poor taste when I first watched that episode, yet seeing the monster of a tyrant they’re developing Zod into, I can see now what they were trying to accomplish with that kind of symbolism.  And it works.

Also noteworthy to me was how Zod’s now being referred to as a General by his followers.  I suppose fearful attrition is quite the effective way to ascend the ranks.  As the Kandorians flew off at the end, fueled by the anger of what had just happened to them with Waller, the dual tragedy of losing Faora and her unborn child, and the assurance that Clark had been lying to them and keeping them down all along, I had all I needed to buy into everyone’s motivations going into “Hostage” and “Salvation”.  I can’t remember when Smallville has taken the time in this way to develop each and every aspect of an imminent battle in such a way that every side is actually represented in a way that makes their respective motives understandable, but it’s fantastic storytelling.  Season 9 has been a monumental achievement, both creatively and critically.  And I absolutely could not be more excited to see how things end up in two weeks.  Somehow, I think the creative team has learned from the mistakes they made in “Doomsday” and will finally give us the finale we’ve all been waiting for.

Photos courtesy of Andreas

“Rabid” was directed by Michael Rohl, written by Jordan Hawley. It is the third episode of season 9, and will air on October 9, 2009.

BRIAN AUSTIN GREEN (“TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES”) CONTINUES HIS ROLE AS JOHN CORBEN — After being struck by a truck, John Corben (guest star Brian Austin Green) wakes up alone in an abandoned apartment as a man-machine with a Kryptonite heart. Corben realizes he now has superhuman strength and sets out to exact revenge on the Red-Blue Blur, who he perceives to be an irresponsible vigilante. Against Clark’s (Tom Welling) wishes, Lois (Erica Durance) involves herself in the Red-Blue Blur’s investigation, and winds up getting kidnapped by Corben.

Marizee Almas directed the episode written by Don Whitehead & Holly Henderson.

“Metallo” will air on October 2, 2009.

TV Guide

You’ve added producing duties this year. How does that change your role on the show?
When I started Smallville obviously I hadn’t done much acting. My goal was to learn everything I could. And along that road I just needed to learn everything about everything and then use that to make the show better.… There’s no bitterness or dark side when I say this, but I think I’ve been contributing as a producer for more than a few years. [Welling has directed several episodes of the series.] The title is the title, nothing changes for us in production. I don’t know if much has changed as what I bring to the table, but I do know that now I have [more] access… I’ve always tried to be open and collaborative and make the show better. I guess in the end one thing that has really changed is that there’s a lot more paperwork that comes to me! Now I literally have a stack of memos like this at the end of every day.

How did you come to the decision to sign on for Season 9, and potentially Season 10?
Well when they brought it up, the first thing I said was, ‘What’s the story gonna be?’ And no one was really sure [at that point], and that’s why it took a little while to figure out, because I really didn’t want to engage in anything until I knew what I was gonna get myself into. So that took a lot of discussion and meetings between myself and [Warner Bros. Television president] Peter Roth and [executive producers] Kelly [Souders] and Brian [Peterson] about what next season was going to be. Once that took its form then the decision wasn’t so difficult. We have a great group, and I love everybody that’s a part of it. Their ideas made sense to me. What I don’t want to do, and what nobody ever wants for the show they’re on, is for it to dwindle out and lose its credibility. And I think this season, if anything, we’ve re-energized it.

Talk about that. I gather Clark will be in a pretty dark place. What is his journey for Season 9?
Well, in the past Clark has always been the reluctant hero. Everyone is telling him what he has to do and he doesn’t want to do it. With the events of Jimmy’s death [in May’s season finale], along with the eight seasons building up, he realizes that his view on humanity has been wrong. And he goes to Jor-El and says, ‘I messed up, what do I do now?’ Jor-El takes him in, and Clark starts his training. His training ultimately is what will prepare him to be who we all know he’s going to be in the future. So it’s him spending time at the Fortress of Solitude downloading all this information. At the same time, information is given to him that the fate of the world depends on Lois Lane’s survival. So Clark has to struggle between his destiny and his humanity. Especially in the first few episodes it gets in the way of the training, because he just can’t help but deal with humans and help people, when all Jor-El wants him to do is shut everyone off, forget about them, rise above them and be the hero he needs to be.

So he’s lost faith in humanity?
He’s lost faith in his role with humanity. I think he’s lost faith in himself and what he thought he was supposed to do.

You mean he feels like there’s only so much he can do?
Right. Not only is there only so much he can do, but what he’s been doing was wrong, and he needs to go and change directions. There’s a lot of isolation. But then of course, there’s the struggle and the drama pulling him back into these relationships.

What’s his relationship going to be with Chloe as she takes on the role of Watchtower?
That’s an interesting one, because even on set, scene by scene, we’re not sure what it is. Allison [Mack] is a tremendous actor. On set, in a very collaborative and positive way, there’s this sense of distance between Chloe and Clark. They’re both changed people. They’re not the Chloe and Clark who used to run around the Torch [in the first few seasons of the show]. They’ve both grown up and they both have better ideas about what they want to do with their lives. And they’re trying to figure out what their relationship is. But right now it’s rough seas.

Clark’s big enemy this season will be Zod, but he’s not the Zod we met a few years ago. Who is he when we first see him this season?
He’s trying to figure out why he’s here and who these people are with him. He’s not the only Kryptonian on Earth. There’s a whole gamut of them who will be making appearances throughout the season. It could be that he’ll find himself fighting some of them. I think this season will be about Zod searching for his destiny and why he’s here. I don’t think he’s necessarily evil off the top, I just think he’s got his own agenda, which he’s trying to figure out. And I don’t think he likes being on Earth too much.

I understand there’s going to be a love triangle between Clark, Lois an the Red Blue Blur.
There was a [production] meeting last year that I walked in on and the conversation was about how much Clark was in love with Lois. I sat there and I said, ‘Wait a minute, Clark’s in love with Lois? When did this happen?’ I said Clark doesn’t know he has feelings for her. If he does and people see it, that’s one thing, but he doesn’t know.’ … So last year Clark wasn’t necessarily aware of these feelings. There was something, there was a reason why he found himself next to Lois. And this year, that’s what’s beginning to change, he’s starting to realize he has feelings for her. But at the same time, to protect her life he feels as though he has hide the fact that he’s the Blur, and that it’s safer for her not to know that he’s the Blur.

Sounds like he’s going to be torturing himself.
Again, another year of torture for Clark.

In the clip reel we just saw Clark is wearing a dark outfit with the Superman symbol on his chest. What’s that all about?
That is the symbol of the House of El. I’ve gotten away for many years with the blue t-shirt and the red jacket. Very easy wardrobe for me, very simple, straightforward, very comfortable. This new wardrobe, the leather jacket is a little warmer, you have to learn how to not step on your jacket when you’re in a fight sequence. You learn that pretty quick—it doesn’t take many times before you figure that out! Anyway, he’s trying to establish a call sign for himself. Even though Clark isn’t putting his own face out there it’s his way of taking accountability for what he’s doing.

Will that symbol become known as the symbol of the Red Blue Blur?
Yeah. This year he’ll be known as the Blur. And there’s a circumstance in the second episode where he’s almost caught by Lois. And through some very interesting lighting we see the symbol, but we don’t see Clark’s face. And it’s a perfect moment for him to step forward and say, “Lois, it’s me,” but he doesn’t. Poor Lois. Because that’s all she really wants to know.

What was it like putting that costume on and having that S on your chest?
The thing is, it’s a show going into Season 9. We’ve covered a lot of ground. When we first started talking about [this season] my first thought was apprehension. At the beginning the show was ‘Before Superman,’ Clark Kent’s origins, and how he got to that point [of becoming Superman]. Now you can definitely see that it’s a new era for the show. People say, ‘Season 9? It’s been so long.’ It has, but at the same time every year is the only year, every year is a new show. Especially this year. We look at posters up in the office of Season 1, 2 and 3 and we were kids, literally. Looking back it’s like a whole other world. But that’s the way it’s always been on our show. And standing on set wearing a black shirt, with silver S, black leather coat, black jeans, black boots, and thinking about last year, it’s night and day.

The ninth season premiere of Smallville airs Friday, September 25, 8/7c, on The CW.

Check out the first photo of Brian Austin Green as Smallville’s latest villain, kryptonite-powered cyborg Metallo. He will appear in the September 25 season premiere as John Corben, a new Daily Planet reporter who becomes Metallo.

TV Guide – He was killed by a robotic assassin in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles last spring, and now Brian Austin Green is coming back to TV as a different kind of cyborg. In a two-episode arc on Smallville (beginning with the September 25 season premiere), Green plays John Corben, a new Daily Planet reporter who becomes the comic-book villain Metallo. In the aftermath of an accident, Corben is mysteriously outfitted with a heart made of kryptonite. Executive producer Kelly Souders won’t reveal the identity of his Frankenstein-esque savoir, but says Corben is turned into “a rough version of Metallo, a first attempt at the technology, and eventually he’ll get sleeker.” So might we see him again? “Well of course—it’s Smallville,” she says with a laugh. “We’re actually throwing some ideas around right now in the hopes that we might be able to bring him back for another episode.”

Question: A lot of rumors going around about Michael Rosenabum returning to Smallville this season. What’s the real deal? —Ethan
Ausiello: The real deal is there’s no deal. Yet. “We would love to have him back,” says Peterson. “But there’s no movement on that.”