racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Here’s another reason to look forward to Thursday evenings (Friday mornings here in the Philippines). Smallville Season 7 has premiered! I know it’s no longer as exciting as the first seasons, and frankly story arcs tend to seem a little dragging. Still, the addition of new cast members (i.e., Laura Vandervoort as Kara Zor-El/Supergirl) might bring new interest to the series. We even get to see Dean Cain play the part of a villain. So that’s the second time a former Superman actor appears on Smallville (the late Christopher Reeve played the part of supporting character Dr. Virgil Swann in the earlier seasons).

Also, I personally want to know if this would be the last season, and if Clark Kent gets to fly in the end, and perhaps don the famed Superman costume once and for all, even if these are not in line with the creators’ no flight, no tights policy (after all, we saw a flying Kal-El in the second season finale).

Episode excerpt:

Clark confronts a bizarro version of himself and the ensuing fight causes Reeves dam to burst. Lex, who was arrested for Lana’s murder, is caught in the flood of water. Before he can drown, Lex is saved by an unknown girl who he later believes to be an angel giving him a second chance at redemption. Lionel’s body is taken by an unknown person. Chloe is pronounced dead at the hospital, but she resurrects herself in the morgue. Clark discovers his doppelgänger’s weakness, the yellow Sun, and exploits it with the help of Martian Manhunter (Phil Morris). Lana is revealed to be alive and living in Shanghai, China. -Wikipedia

Smallville airs Thursday evenings on the CW. Given the popularity of the series, you can usually find torrents seeded just a couple of hours after airing. Try mininova.org or torrentspy.com. I only download because I’ll probably get to watch this season in local free or cable TV here in my country by next year or so!

You can check out season spoilers on Kryptonsite.

I just finished watching Episode 4 of Smallville Season 6. Arrow is, IMHO, one of the more exciting Smallville episodes because it doesn’t deal with a meteor FOTW (freak of the week), and because it tries to explore the beginnings of what would be the future Justice League (sneak peeks were also shown when Aquaman and the Flash guested in earlier seasons).

This time, the guest hero is Oliver Queen, a.k.a. the Green Arrow. Oliver Queen’s character will be around for quite some time in this season as I’m looking forward to more action. Guys will love Ollie’s gadgets and vehicles, while girls will, well, probably love Justin Hartley.

In this episode, we get to see Clark’s first encounter with a Phantom Zone escapee (aside from Zod, that is). Yes, all 5 milliseconds of it. If you’re dying to see Chloe and Jimmy make out (finally, no more wishy-washy-over-Clark moments), the tension between Clark, Chloe and Jimmy (love triangle?) or Justin Hartley’s abs, then do watch this episode.

I was able to find YouTube uploads of Smallville’s Season 6 Premiere, Zod. Episode 2, Sneeze, wasn’t available on YouTube yet, though since it just came out last Thursday on the CW network. I hear Studio 23 probably won’t be showing it here in the Philippines until a few months after.

The solution: BitTorrent.

In this episode, Clark catches a cold, probably from his vulnerability in the Phantom Zone (where Zod sent him in the Season 5 Finalé) and exposure to Kryptonian viruses (Yes, Superman is vulnerable to Kryptonian sickness and Kryptonian weapons). While trying to help out with reconstruction efforts in Metropolis, he kind of runs out of super-speed and super-powers. And, of course there’s the super sneeze, from which he learns (with the help of Chloe) that he can use his super breath to blow the hell out of things.

Some Screencaps

Lex is abducted by people wanting to learn his secret of super-strength. “An alien from another dimension possessed me!”

Clark uses his super breath to blow a hole in the wall. “Gezundheit.”

Where To Get It

You can download the episode’s torrent here, and load it up on your Torrent client, which will download bits and pieces of the 370+ Megabyte DivX AVI file from various seeders around the world. If you don’t have a BitTorrent client, download Azureus here. Windoze, OS X and Linux versions are available.

Are the local stations already airing Smallville Season 6? I’m not really into local TV these days. I have cable here at home, but we mostly watch kids’ channels like Disney and Nickelodeon (mostly Disney). Smallville’s Season 6 Premiere was supposed to air Thursday, September 28th in the US. But during that time, power in our place had been cut off due to typhoon Milenyo (international name: Xangsane), so I had no way of knowing whether Studio 23 is already carrying the new season (it usually plays Smallville Tuesdays).

Fortunately, there’s YouTube. While arguably copyrighted content isn’t supposed to be uploaded there, I think some producers of popular TV shows have become quite lenient, especially with the shows that have such a huge cult following that it doesn’t make sense to deprive the potential audience of their viewing enjoyment.

“Can you read my mind?”
I always thought Clark and Lex had this thing for each other. But flying through the air in a tight embrace? Now that’s something. Beat that, Lois Lane!

“Lex … Will you marry me?”

Watch it online

So if you missed Smallville, or if you’re dying to see the new season, you can watch Episode 1: Zod on YouTube.

Update: You can download the torrent here. Just go install a BitTorrent client if you don’t have one yet.

Watch out for the “Kneel before Zod” moment!

* “Part 1″:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se1snfb_SIU
* “Part 2″:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV8hDJCz3Mw
* “Part 3″:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgpyBIBNex0
* “Part 4″:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMJ5Bf54A4E
* “Part 5″:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8syHgYofY
* “Part 6″:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQKGMZV0hAQ

And here’s the preview trailer for Episode 2: Sneeze:

I’ll probably post a review of the season opener later on ForeverGeek.