Jenny and I have been catching up on our Smallvilles lately. I've enjoyed this show from the beginning, but the hemming and hawing around the lame-o Kent/Lana love stuff pesters me like a gadfly. Anyhow, on to my witty observations.

Of course, the premise of Smallville depends on inside jokes. The show works well because we know that Lex and Clark will become the most bitter of enemies, we know that Lois will end up being a reporter and that Clark will end up as Superman. All this outside knowledge layers the show in ways deeper than the glamorous press photos would suggest were likely. In doing so, the show helps illustrate Steven Johnson's notion that more recent tv and games work by encouraging a wider net of textual knowledge. Smallville rewards viewers for knowledge of the Superman universe.

Grand media theories aside, the show's writers seem to enjoy building elaborate ways to make inside jokes about the future of Superman. Two prominent examples from earlier episodes are the S for Smallville written on Clark's chest when the school bullies tied him up in the cornfield and the pentagon-shape of the letters in the kryptonian language. Here are some jokes I noticed from this season.

1. One episode this season revolved around Aquaman's visit to a Kansas farm town. Toward the end of the episode, Aquaman remarks that he and Clark should team up and form the "Junior Lifeguards Association." Clark responds that he's not ready for The JLA just yet. Ha Ha!
    
2. The show also features James Marsters as "Dr. Fine," a history prof with a hard-to-get-used-to American accent (I know, I know, he's American, not British). In an episode involving a strain of rabies that gives people vampire-like powers, he and Clark discuss the evil sorority full of vampires. He says "There are no such things as vampires, Clark." Ha Ha!
   
   Bonus meta-humor: the sorority president's name is Buffy Sanders. (At one point, the show implies that Chloe selected the name as an alias for a newspaper story she was writing, in which case we have a notion that Chloe watched Buffy and chose an amusing pseudonym intentionally.)
    
3. One of the most recent episodes featured a guest appearance by Tom Wopat, formerly of Dukes of Hazzard. The other Duke brother, of course, was played by Jon Schneider, now employed as Jonathan Kent. Among the panoply of inside jokes in the episode were: 1. Wopat's character drives a 1969 Dodge Charger (blue, not orange) and 2. zooms around skidding to a stop and throwing gravel everywhere. 3. The passenger door is stuck so he (not kidding here) jumps in through the window. 4. At one point the car flies over the camera in classic DoH style.
   
   Bonus: as we watched, Jenny commented that Tom Wopat looked a lot older than when he appeared on Jane Doe. I insisted it was still him, but was also a bit confused about the difference. Turns out the man I thought was Tom Wopat was actually Joe Penny. I ask you, dear readers: was I crazy to see the similarity? 

Tom Wopat 1980s	Joe Penny today	Tom Wopat today