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When water-woman Linda Lake threatens to go public with Clark’s secret unless he gives her a scoop on all of his superheroics, he decides to scoop her by having Lois tell his story first. He becomes an immediate celebrity, but soon reporters are hounding his friends and family, and the government is trying to take him into custody for some “tests.” Then Linda tells the world on TV that Clark killed Lex and is the first member of an alien invasion fleet, and all hell breaks loose. The only way Clark can fix things is to go back in time with the ring the Legion gave him, which he does. This time, he stops Linda before she confronts him, and writes his own story about all the murders she’s committed.

Linda Lake has got to be my least favorite of all the meteor freaks in eight seasons of this show. It’s made all the worse by the fact that Tori Spelling is one of my least favorite actresses of all time. The Rita Skeeter rip-off character was so annoying that I had a difficult time just watching her. Luckily, she mainly served as the catalyst for Clark to out himself and we didn’t have to see her much. I have to admit, it was disturbingly satisfying to see Davis smother Linda Lake with that pillow at the end. When I really think about it, if I was a writer on the show, I might very well have brought back the character just to do the same scene.

As much as I admittedly love time travel/alternate reality stories, this one didn’t do it for me. When Clark went public and everyone was asking for his autograph and swarming around him, it seemed much more like a dream. In fact, I thought for sure it was a dream, and he was going to wake up any second. The scenes had a definite cheesiness to them that didn’t seem like reality—at least, as far as reality goes on a show about a super-powered alien from another planet.

The other problem is that it’s all been done before…multiple times. Someone learns Clark’s secret, threatens to expose him, then is either killed or gets amnesia; or, alternately, someone learns Clark’s secret, something bad happens, then he goes back and hits the reset button and they don’t know any more. And this episode had both versions.

Having forgotten about the Legion ring, I couldn’t figure out any way he was going to get out of this one, and then when he mentioned the ring, all I could think about was what a lame cop out it was. On the one hand, I’m glad he destroyed it at the end, but on the other it would have been cool to have it around so he could travel to the future at some point. Having a “Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes” moment in the future without worrying about messing up current continuity would have been great.

The Davis/Doomsday storyline might be better if it wasn’t so predictable. We all know that it’s going to build until the season finale, they’re going to have a big battle, and Clark will probably be killed, just like the comic book. I haven’t read any spoilers, I’m just guessing—but I’d bet big money that I’m right.

And that’s the difference between this show and shows like Battlestar Galactica: everyone loves being surprised, and this one just doesn’t have enough of it.

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