Over at SuperHeroHype, a site that charts comic-book movies and TV series, they have this little set of articles about Christopher Reeve’s guest appearance on Smallville. He’ll play a character named “Swann” who will give Clark Kent clues on his origin. Because of Reeve’s disability, his scenes were filmed in Brooklyn near his home. (The show normally films in British Columbia.)
About freakin’ time, I say. Reeve should’ve guested on Lois and Clark at least once, but… No word on if Dean Cain will ever stop by.
BTW, Curt Swan was the primary Superman artist through the late 60s, the 70s and early 80s till he was moved out by John Byrne. I guess the character’s name is an homage, but it could also be a coincidence.
I saw a few epsiodes of Smallview last season, and wasn’t terribly impressed. The characters are pretty good, and I like the reaching meta-plot, but the monsters of the week were dumb.
The last few (John Kent in jail, Martha and Lionel are hostages) were great. Improve the “casework” episodes, and keep the mythology episodes strong, oh, and make the dialogue stronger, while we’re at it.
Btw, how did Lionel go blind? He was sighted when the series started, right?
Looking forward to Reeve, but the should have made him Jor-El (in a hologram or something, maybe just the head).
Lionel was severely injured in the tornado that ended last season and opened this season. Lex had two doctors, one suggesting they operate immediately to avoid further damage, the other suggesting they wait for the patient to stabilize further. Lex told them to operate right away.
It may have saved Lionel’s life, but it damaged his optic nerves. Of course, Lionel wasn’t grateful for the save, he just told Lex he’d made another incorrect decision.
Niiice. Christopher Reeve is amazing, and I’m not some weepy-eyed, cause celebre, movie-of-the-week type of gal. Sure Smallville’s pure camp- the Kryptonite villains of the week, the homoeroticism between Lex and Clark- but that’s what makes it great. From what I’ve seen, Reeve’s got a sense of humour and will probably fit right in.
I agree that the last two eps were indeed outstanding. The prior eps, though… ick. Lana was annoying me every ep, and I was apathetic towards the rest of the cast save for Lex. I was at the point where a celebrity guest appearance to give the show a boost would have been welcomed.
Michael Rosenbaum was on Carson Daly last night. He’s cool.
And you all know, of course, that the actress Annette O’Toole who plays Martha Kent in Smallville also played Lana Lang in one of those Superman movies, right?
I don’t know, I may be an innocent babes in the wood type but where do you see this? I thought it was more of a big brother, little brother type relationship.
Oh, and does anyone know what the deal is with Lex’s “brother” next week? I was watching with some friends and one of them completely flipped out seeing him. The actor was apparently in the short-lived “Wolf Lake”, but I don’t know if the friend was just glad to see a (good?) actor getting work, or if there’s some connection between his old character and this new guy.
Just a little over an hour to go here. I know he’s playing a scientist who has some clues to Clark’s origin and all, so I hope this is well done and that it fits in with the show’s mythology and isn’t just a “hey, here’s Christopher Reeve!” kind of thing. We shall soon see…
Just saw it. Great episode, except for the teen angst. I wish they would have made it a purely meta-plot episode where they explore Clark’s past more.
I got a chill when Reeves appeared and when he read the first part of the message to Clark. Also when the score from the original movie played, it gave me goosebumps.
Wonder what was up with the message in the ship? It totally contradicted the message that Swann gave him. Why or how would someone put that in the ship if it wasn’t Jor-El or Lara? And if it was them then why?
They revealed a lot. Clark’s real name, his home planet, the fact that his home is gone, and (perhaps) Jor-El’s intentions in sending him to Earth.
How did Schwann find that there’s no Krypton?
First off, I guess this means Kal-El was placed in suspended animation while the ship traveled only at c or just below, since it went billions of miles and got here at the same time as a radio signal.
Secondly, how can Schwann know Krypton’s not there? We don’t know for sure that there are any planets on any star besides are own (logically, there must be, but we’ve never seen them), right? How can we expected to see any one planet?
Actually, we do know that there are planets orbiting other stars – over 100 have been discovered. One of the biggest science stories of the past century. Of course, the only ones we can detect now are gas giants, but with more sophisticated instruments in orbit in a few years, we’ll be able to detect Earth-sized planets. (If they’re there. God, I hope so.)
You can’t really expect rigorous, realistic science from anything based on a comic book. Also, I wasn’t clear on whether the radio signal was sent directly from Krypton, or was broadcast by the ship itself en route. (“Billions of miles”, of course, would still be within our Solar System; a lot of tv writers can’t seem to understand the numbers involved in talking about interstellar space.) I wonder if they’ll start calling the “meteor rocks” krptonite now.
Good episode, anyway, and I hope we’ll be seeing Christopher Reeve’s character again.
Given the other shout-backs to the original movie (the score, Swann’s message), I think Clark just got the translation wrong, and that the message actually reads more like the “They are a good people, Kal-el” speech from the movie.
Menocchio, I’m sorry for my pedantic tone; it’s just that the discovery of extrasolar planets is so exciting, I like to bring it up whenever possible.
What if Clark does decide to conquer the whole planet, and Lex Luthor saves the world? Okay, not gonna happen, but it’s a fun thought. Good thing little Clark wasn’t adopted by Lionel Luthor. Yeesh.
I watch the show occasionally but I made sure to catch this one. I thought it was a great episode. I found it electricfying when they started in with the little music cues from the Superman movie.
My “science” objection to the missing Krypton discussion concerned Swann’s explanations. <paraphrase>**There could be many reasons: war, famine; disease…**paraphrase>
All right. I’ll give you war. But how would disease or famine cause a planet to cease to exist?
And Chloe said the address was the “NY Observatory” or some such. And the lead-in shot was of a skyscraper - the Empire State Bldg? Struck me as odd.
I’m starting to like this show more and more. My 11 year old daughter turned me on to it, and my 13 year old son is getting into the whole “history” of Superman. Gotta rent those flicks one of these days. Brings back pleasant memories of Steve Reeves reruns VERY early on Saturday mornings.
