[NAS] Tempus Fugitive

TV Programme: The New Adventures Of Superman
Season: 2
Episode: 18
Date I watched this episode: 19/09/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 20 days.

Well, I was recently complaining about lack of mythology in this programme. But this episode just blew me away by being the most mythology-related episode this show has seen so far. Many things were foretold, such as Lois's marriage to Clark and Lois's blindness to see that the "mild-mannered reporter" is actually Superman. We even got to see the original story of the Kent family finding Clark's spaceship, which wasn't seen in the pilot episode. This appearance of the Kent family was not too dissimilar to John Crichton meeting his own mother in [FAR] "Kansas", and made for a very emotional scene between Clark and Jonathan/Martha.

In fact, this episode really did focus on Lois, more than it had to, and for that I give it a lot of credit. It was really great to see how Lois "would" react to finding out Clark's secret, along with the fact that in the future she would be as highly revered as Superman himself. She was understandably annoyed for a time, but came to terms with it as we all knew she would. It's almost a shame that this piece was erased from history, but I'm still left wondering just how much Clark knows, as he found the envelope at the end and didn't seem too surprised by it.

The characters of H G Wells and Tempus were both very good characters in their own ways, and captivating from the moment we first saw them. In particular Tempus's use of irony was good, as he tried to give people "appropriate" deaths and played the ironic laughter really well. Wells was the typical quaint Englishman.

The episode gave a unique insight into the interpretation of the Superman mythology by this show. Classically, Superman is the true persona, while Clark Kent is a disguise which he employs. But more and more in recent re-enactments of the mythology, Clark is the real person and Superman is the disguise. This is confirmed in the line "Superman is what I can do, Clark is who I am." It's an interesting contrast with Smallville, whose entire premise is Clark struggling between these two personas. It's really true what Wells says about this story being timeless - it is told by generation after generation in the real world, and shows no signs of letting up.

As is usual with time-travel episodes, the sets/costumes were pretty important to make it believable, and they didn't disappoint. To see Lois and Clark running around in 1866 was really a fresh departure for the show, and everything about the setting showed the time and effort that had been put into this episode.

And that really is the key thing. It's clear that this episode was key in the story of the show, and a lot of work has been put into making it great. It paid off, and this was a great episode, definitely the best of this season.