Smallville
Spoilers ahead. Be warned.
Last night's episode of Smallville was one of the best yet. It played on one of the themes that is essential to the Superman story:"With all my powers...with all the things I can do, I wasn't able to save him."

Back in the 60's, Superman had been Superboy when he was a kid and one of the most cherished Superboy stories by Superman fans, the story of how Ma and Pa Kent died. Ma and Pa Kent catch a rare disease and young Clark runs/flies all over the world trying to find a cure. In the end there was no cure. He stands at their bedsides as they died.

In the 1979 movie they worked the same idea in with the funeral of Pa Kent. Then, John Byrne re-wrote the Superman story in the 80's and one of his main changes was that Clark's parents never died. Old school fans were upset. He had taken away an important part of the myth: Clark dealing with death and the fact that even with all his powers, he can not save everyone. The new Superman had never dealt with that sense of helplessness. To this day, the modern comic book version of the character has always dealt with things that people can struggle against. Characters have died, but they've been killed by villains, not with something that Clark can't fight.

Last night, Smallville's Clark dealt with that story and it was done well. For a moment there, I was afraid that the producers would wimp out and let Clark save the day. I should have had faith. The producers of Smallville seem to have a better grasp of the character of Superman than most of the comic book writers. I'm sad that the character of Ryan won't be returning but I'm glad they did it.

Oh, and the show had some really neat foreshadowing of Lex's future. "The path to Darkness is a journey, not a light switch that can be turned on or off."