What I’m Watching: Smallville

Smallville: Season 10, Episode 14 “Masquerade” (F)

I am not impressed. Just a few weeks ago, we had an episode where friendly faces appeared and were actually duplicitous recreations of the people, where people were actually still dreaming when they thought they were awake. I’m not overly familiar with all of the Superman mythology, but I do know that, even if this darkness stuff is rooted in comic book history, it still sounds impossible silly every time something about The Darkness is uttered by any of these characters. Oliver and Chloe stole their plotline right out of “Date Night,” and it works even worse here than it did in that disappointing film. Don’t they know that they’re main characters and they can’t be harmed so easily? That’s why they’re perfectly okay having a casual conversation about anniversaries while they’re hanging out in a trunk. Clark’s transformation into the bumbling, bespectacled, mild-mannered reporter as he prepares to step out of the darkness and become Superman would be far more compelling if it had occurred ten years earlier and if he was actually anything other than a bumbling, mild-mannered guy. All he needs to do is put on glasses; he’s got the rest down already, and he certainly did when he was back in high school and this show had a clearer sense of where it was going. At least there’s something to look forward to, as Clark gets ready to put on the suit (metaphorically and literally, to a lesser extent) and step into the role for which he is destined.