Episode 2.16
“Fever”
This is one of those episodes that just simply makes you scratch your head. The ideas and the followthrough certainly made for interesting storylines. However, it is poor writing riddled with plot devices that ruin the journey. It’s lazy and sloppy.
The idea that Martha Kent gets pregnant, is certainly interesting. It would be unique to see Superman with a normal kid brother. There could be a lot of stories to come from that. But the ship…heals her? Um…how…why?
Then there’s the idea of the kryptonite dust that is supposedly in the soil in the shed, so that when Martha hides the key in her flour can and then buries it, she kicks up the kryptodust which makes her sick. Of course later on, Clark breathes it in and it makes him normal. Again. It just doesn’t really pass the sniff test.
One bonus…no FotW for a bit now.
In an interesting bit of groundwork though, in Clark’s weakened state, Dr. Bryce is able to get a blood sample. Due to Clark’s illness, Jonathan can’t stop her, but makes her swear to keep her findings a secret. Interesting yes, but a little out of character for Jonathan. He knows that being alien, that the doctors would have little hope of helping Clark, so I would think he would find a way to sabotage the sample. But it’s a minor nitpick.
In a sidebar, Lex convinces Helen to move in with him, but in the background he remains skeptical of the work she is doing, as she remains secretive about Clark’s blood as well as her work on Martha Kent.
As the X-FIles crew as Pete calls them comes in to search out what happened to Martha Kent to give her this unknown disease, Clark is able to get the ship to Pete’s house, but as he has no idea that his mother hid the key in the shed, can’t save that. The disease control center confiscate the key.
As Clark gets weaker and Martha slips further into a coma and heads towards death, Jonathan takes a risk and decides to break into the government facility to get the key knowing that the ship has healing powers.
The fact that he is eventually caught and saved by the sick Clark aside, the fact that a farmer could get into the facility and find the key is well…a bit much. The use of Pete as a decoy in the Kent truck is alright, but overall it’s not a good point in the story.
Of course the ship is able to heal Martha and the tale ends on a happy note, but it was too much of a process to get there and too many distractions.
C
References:
The name of the DCA doctor is Dr. Neil Moore, a reference to two famous DC comics writers — Denny O’Neil and Alan Moore.