Note: Started watching season 4 on January 23, 2012

Finally. After rushing through the first three seasons of Smallville in a month, I am at last to the season where Lois Lane (Erica Durance) gets introduced to the Smallville Universe and not a moment too soon. As mentioned in my season three review blog, I was getting sick and tired of the whole Clark-Lana angst so it was nice to finally get the new infusion of humor and blood that Lois brings.

It gives someone new for Clark to interact with and in a different way than he does with his parents, Chloe, Lex, Lana and Pete. There is no angst with his relationship with Lois just pure fun.

And honestly, Lois couldn’t have come at a better time. I laughed so hard in the first 15 minutes of season 4’s Crusade than I ever did in the first three seasons of Smallvlle. In fact, in the episode commentary for Crusade, the creators of Smallville, Al Gough and Miles Millar, mentioned that having Lois on the show injected some much needed humor and added romantic comedy elements to it especially her scenes with Clark. When I reflect back on the first three seasons that I had just watched, there really wasn’t any comedic moments that spring to mind.

I really loved the season premiere, Crusade, not only because we are introduced to Lois Lane but because we get to see Clark (Tom Welling) fly as Kal-El, see Superman’s film Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole) share the screen. And right off the bat in the very first episode, you can see the white-hot chemistry that Tom Welling and Erica Durance share. They just bounce off each other so well. And I love the fact that right at the very start Lois was checking Clark out. Another thing that I loved was that even though the WB Film division at the time forbade any romance between Lois and Clark, the producers pretty much hinted at their future romance right at the start. Not just her checking him out but Lois saying to Martha that she prefers nerds in glasses (which we all know will become the Clark disguise when he becomes Superman).

However, I don’t like the fact that the producers made Erica Durance add blonde highlights to her naturally dark locks. They did that so we could distinguish between her and Lana Lang. I thought that was stupid. I mean I think I can tell the difference between the two even if they had the same hair coloring. I actually like how Lois looks with her natural hair color.

And of course this wasn’t intentional but Martha not wanting to give up on Jonathan (John Schneider) when he was declared brain dead reminded me of season 10’s Dominion where Lois wouldn’t give up on Clark when he disappeared into the Phantom Zone. I think Jonathan and Martha’s relationship with each other does mirror what Lois and Clark have with each other especially in season 10 when Lois knows his secret.

I thought it was very interesting and pretty cool that they billed Erica Durance as a special guest star even though at the time of her casting she was a fairly unknown actress with few TV guest roles to her credit. Normally special guest star status are for the really famous like Christopher Reeve or Margot Kidder. I think Erica got that status because she was pretty much playing the most iconic Superman character outside of Superman/Clark Kent. I thought it was interesting that they didn’t make her a series regular off the bat but waited until season 5. I guess they wanted to see how people would react to her introduction. If I saw Crusade when it first aired, I would have loved Lois right off the bat.

What I love about Smallville’s Lois Lane is that she is sassy, is super funny, beautiful and can kick some serious ass and also never lets Clark be the broody self he tends to be. In the first four episodes that she was in Clark was pretty much non-angsty.

My love for Lois is further solidified in Gone. She was not only hilarious in this episode but you get to see that Lois is able to take care of herself but at the same time shown to be caring and loyal in her search for Chloe (Allison Mack). I also loved Gone because you get to see what a great team that Lois and Clark make when investigating something. As Clark says to Chloe 7 years later that he and Lois are good together. This is further strengthened in Recruit where they work together to clear Lois’ name.

What I loved about Gone is the off the charts chemistry that Tom Welling and Erica Durance had. It just keeps growing from the shower scene all the way to when they discover Chloe alive and well. And Lana finally did something right in my eyes, she is the first to notice a spark between Lois and Clark despite Clark saying he can’t stand her. The best ones always start that way, so says Lana and I agree with her. It was also there in the a deleted scene where even Chloe notices it. That same deleted scene had the three ladies in Clark’s life lined up in front of him in this order from left to right: Best Friend, First Love and True Love.

Facade is also a great Lois episode. First off Lois finds out that she has to stay in Smallville and attend Smallville High as her father informed her that she failed her last year of high school. Both Lois and Clark are dismayed that they have to spend more time together. I think it is funny that when Lois’ father comes back, he comes back to a very different situation between Lois and Clark because when he comes back in season 10’s Ambush, he almost catches his daughter and Clark about to have sex on the porch.

Anyways, Facade is the episode where the journalism fire is lit under Lois courtesy of Chloe. We get to see more of Lois and Clark working great together as a team and Lois and Clark saving each other from that demented plastic surgeon. My favorite scene of that episode is of course that last scene where Lois dunks Clark and you see them have a flirtatious moment. Then you see Chloe crestfallen as she realizes that Clark will never look at her in a romantic way because even though Lois and Clark proclaim to hate each other, Chloe could tell that they are clearly attracted to each other. In Devoted, Chloe, under the influence of the love potion, attacks Lois because she is afraid that Lois will steal Clark from her. I felt bad for Chloe here because she thought that now that Clark and Lana are over with she would have her shot but as soon as Lois entered the picture, Chloe really never stood a chance.

I think once Chloe finds out Clark’s secret, I think that she hopes that once Clark confides in her ins secret that maybe they would get together as a romantic couple, but that was dashed in Blank when she notices that Clark, with no memory, still fancies Lana. I hated Blank because of that. But on the other hand, I did like the conversation between Lois and Clark in the barn where he asked her what is gut tells about her to which he replied we don’t like each other every much.

Devoted we also get to see Clark’s football jersey, which Lois memorably wears in season 10 after she and Clark had made love the night before. Devoted was also the last episode that was supposed to feature Lois as originally she was to be in only four episodes before she was eventually cleared for more. By that episode’s end it did feel like Lois wasn’t going to come back and that the next time that Lois would see Clark again was when he would work at the Daily Planet but thankfully that was not the case. Again this episode showed that Clark and Lois are great together. They were so funny in their scenes together with Clark begging Lois to help him escape the clutches of the cheerleader. It really played out like a romantic comedy.

I take a look at Lois and Clark’s scenes together in season 4 and I do find it odd that they aren’t in love with each other as they are in season 10 specifically. I don’t like to see Lois and Clark not lovey-dovey but as I have said before, I am interested in seeing their journey from butting heads to becoming friends to work colleagues to finally falling in love. There was a scene in Devoted where Clark wondered if he would ever get over Lana and Martha told him that she knows there is someone out there that is right for him, I just wished that Lois would have popped up right at that moment.

So in season four we get a Clark who just wants Lois out of his life, which again I find odd considering I know how the show ends. Part of the journey towards them falling in love that I look forward to seeing is how Clark sees Lois as the One. I mean in Devoted, he asks Lex to get Lois out of his hair and life but in Ambush he proclaims to Sam that he doesn’t want a day to go by where he is not with her. I think all of this happens in season 9.

In season 4, we get introduced to Black Kryptonite that splits Clark’s personality from his Kryptonian. In the episode Gone, we are introduced to Lois’ nickname for Clark for the rest of the series: Smallville.

And we get introduced to Jason Teague (Jensen Ackles -who apparently auditioned for the part of Clark Kent). When I first saw him, I didn’t like him. I think his storyline with Lana is pretty boring and I don’t really care about it. It is only important because we all know that once Clark unites all three stones that we get the Fortress of Solitude. The only good thing about this storyline is that for the majority of the season Clark had very little to do with Lana.

In Run we get some foreshadowing with the introduction of Bart Allan (Kyle Gallner) aka Impulse in later seasons and the fact that Bart mentions that he and Clark should start a league or something for people like them. This alludes the Justice League to which Clark and Bart would become members of in the future.

Onyx we get foreshadowing of the villainy of Lex Luthor and also reveals that Lex is in love with Lana. Also, in Onyx, I am not quite sure what to make of Lionel Luthor’s conversion to good (which began at the end of Transference) but seems to end in this episode. In season 10’s Scion, Lois mentions how Earth 1’s Lionel changed his spots that it could happen to Earth 2 Lionel so I am interested in seeing how this Lionel changes from villain to good guy.

In Pariah, I love that Lois’ advice to Chloe about what to do with the knowledge of a friend’s secret will later become the advice she herself takes when she finds out Clark’s secret in Salvation and doesn’t reveal she knows until Isis. Also, in Pariah we see how Lois is able to calm Clark down and bring him back when he was so lost in rage. As he said in his wedding vows to her “when I’ve been lost, you have always been there to bring me back.”

In Recruit, Clark seemed to have the same rage when he confronted Geoff Johns in wanting to know where Lois is. He said it with such anguish like he didn’t want to lose her. And despite what he says, the way he reacts to when Lois was in danger, it really shows that Clark cares deeply about her.

Recruit was a great Lois episode. She was so funny when she is drinking the guys under the table and I loved how she did that all wearing her flannel PJs and bunny slippers. She was also hilarious in her scenes with Marcus. In the loft scene where Lois goes to thank Clark for saving her, the way Lois looks at Clark is with such love. She gives Clark that same look of love in Ambush during the morning after scene.

What I liked about Transference is what a good job that Tom Welling did at acting like Lionel Luthor in Clark’s body and John Glover being Clark Kent in Lionel’ body. I thought it was well done and you could tell the actors were having fun doing so.

There is a deleted scene in Jinx that makes me question why does Clark always go back to Lana. In it, Lana wants Clark not to spill the beans on her inappropriate relationship with Jason and Clark realizes that Lana is pretty much selfish and starts to not see her as the girl he supposedly knows. I mean if you watch that, you would hope that Clark would never want to get back together with her. It would be too much to hope that Clark would get together with Lois but we all know that the WB Film division forbade any Lois and Clark romance and also I think Superman purists would be pissed if they got together before they were at the Daily Planet as it is supposed to be.

Krypto has to be one of my favorite episodes of season 4, if not the entire series. Not only was the dog, Shelby, absolutely adorable, I loved Lois and Clark throughout the entire episode. They argued like an old married couple and I loved how Lois wanted to call Shelby initially Clarkie to get Clark annoyed (which worked). It seems that Shelby is not just Clark’s dog but Lois’ too. I also loved the smile on Clark’s face when Lois stepped in dog poo when breaking into the animal shelter. This episode does further cement that not only are they a great team but one with great chemistry too.

What I loved about Lucy, the episode and not the character, is we get to learn more about Lois and how she became is who she is because of having to act as mother to her younger sister. Because of this, Lois and Clark grow closer to the point where Clark admits that they are friends. Their chemistry was pretty great in this episode and loved the little look that Lois gave Clark as she is leaving the loft.

Worse episodes: Spell because I thought the dialogue was incredibly cheesy and the story a bit stupid as it really didn’t add to the story except to maybe introduce Clark to the fact that Lana has tattooed the mark of one of the Stones of Power that he seeks. Also there was not enough of Lois in the episode although she was funny in the scenes she was in. There was a deleted scene that I liked where Clark and Lois both jointly got Chloe a birthday gift and both put a lot of thought into getting her that particular gift.

Scare was also a pretty bad episode because it shows me how repetitive Smallville is getting. I am actually getting tired of Lana saying she wants honesty in her relationships especially since that is one of the reasons why it didn’t work out with Clark. And we get another conversation between Clark and his parents about how he can’t tell the girl that is supposed to be the love of his life his secret or even his best friend his secret and his parents saying that one day he will be able to share that with someone. Of course that someone would be Lois Lane.

Unsafe continues this trend of Clark wondering if he would ever find someone to share his life with. We met Alicia Baker (Sarah Carter) back in season three and Clark thought that she was the one as she knew what it was like to be different and keep it a secret. In Unsafe, Alicia returns. It seems to Clark that he can only be with someone that is like him or that he has to lie to them about his secret if they are not like him and he believes if that is the case then it is not worth getting into a relationship. He couldn’t share his secret with Lana, which is why they didn’t work. It does make me wonder though, because in season 9 Clark starts a relationship with Lois but does not tell her his secret until season 10 so what happens to change his mind about not wanting to start a relationship with someone if he has to lie about who he is.

So in Unsafe, Alicia comes back cured and ready to resume her relationship with Clark, which he wants too. But she puts a red K necklace on him and makes Clark all horny for Alicia that he proposes, they get married and are about to consummate their relationship when Alicia gets all Merope Gaunt and removes the red K so that moment would be real. Of course Clark comes to his senses. His proposal to Alicia was not romantic but more based on lust, he wanted to get some but Alicia wouldn’t unless there was some kind of commitment. When Clark proposed to Lana, he did so because he didn’t want to lose her as she was slipping away. Clark’s proposal to Lois is way more romantic and more planned as Clark proposes not because he thinks he is going to lose Lois or wants to get into her pants but because he genuinely loves her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her. I am just glad that Clark’s marriage to Alicia was not legal because they were both minors. And I didn’t like the fact that Clark said that Alicia made him feel normal and special at the same time. I though Lois was the only thing that made him fell normal. By episodes end, it seems that Clark and Alicia are still a couple. I really hate any woman who isn’t Lois that wants Clark romantically, the exception being Chloe.

Commencement was definitely an action-packed season finale which is probably why it was 90-minutes long. A lot happened and it concluded the season-long arc of the Stones of Power and the coming of the second meteor shower. Even though I know what happens in the show, the one thing that I was not aware of is that thing that Lana found in the field after her helicopter crashed.

Some closing thoughts. I love the fact that Smallville filmed in Vancouver over its 10 year run but there are some instances that using Vancouver took me out of an episode for a moment. For example, in Crusade, I thought it was funny that Paris looked an awful lot like Vancouver’s famed Gastown. In Bound, I thought it weird that they used our downtown Library as the courthouse. But I did think it was cool that they used the Center for the Performing Arts as a concert hall. It is a pretty cool venue that I’ve seen a lot of stuff in. Another thing that can take me out of an episode are the guest stars and so far in its first four seasons, Bound was the episode that had a guest star that took me out of it and that was Cobie Smulders. The future Robin Scherbatsky from How I Met Your Mother played one of Lex’s conquests out for revenge. I just couldn’t get past that this was Robin and not Shannon Bell the character she played. We had Amy Adams, Adam Brody, Shawn Ashmore, Jesse Metcalfe, Ian Somerhalder, Paul Wesley, Lizzy Caplan and the list goes on and on that have appeared on Smallville and even though they become famous later on for other roles, I was fine with their appearance on the show.

Also, season 4 is the first season in Smallville where they had a season-long arc, which was the Stones of Power, that was directly connected to Clark and his destiny.

I find myself now rushing through seasons so I can get to season 9, the real season where Lois and Clark get together romantically and fall in love. The way I am going through these episodes, I might just reach that point in April or May.