Dear readers, I apologize. It would seem I used up all my outrage last week and cannot muster up much to say about this latest entry in the Smallville season.

Which is a shame, as it should have been an episode chock full of gleeful fanboy delights, introducing Perry White to future charge Clark Kent and unlocking the special effect of the Earth's yellow sun on the young Kryptonian. And yet, it was dull as dishwater, despite Michael McKean's best efforts to drink up screen time as washed-up rummy White.

After a tangle with Lionel Luthor (conspicuously absent and always missed), the once-Pulitzer-caliber journalist has fallen on hard times, his investigative story buried by powerful lawyers and his career at the bottom of a bottle. It's by no means a stretch for McKean, a man who arguably knows better than to lock himself into a recurring role; Perry is a run of the mill, insecure blowhard who wants nothing but the truth. The character has nothing new to bring to the party except to pacify the fanboy contingent. Sort of like Pete, really.

He comes to town looking for a story on Lana, queen of the meteor shower, but ends up setting his sights on Clark after he's witnessed rogue displays of super-strength, superspeed and invulnerability. Ordinarily, one assumes Clark is not so careless about such things, but Perry is, after all, an unreliable drunk, and a timely solar flare has wreaked some havoc on the earth-bound Krypto-physiology.

Of course, no one believes Perry, not even Perry himself by the end, when Clark, powerless, calls on Pete and Lana to save them from certain death. Seriously, that's way too many times for Clark to dodge this bullet of being discovered. Way too many convenient deaths, drunks, and disbelieving people. Clark needs to learn how to deal with this issue without a deus ex machina device.

Oops. I guess I had a little bit of outrage there after all.

Lex agrees to intense therapy after throttling Perry in a bar, but it's a rather tame way to open the younger Luthor's eyes to his problems. Why something so mundane, instead of something we've seen Clark, Jonathan and hell, even Lana do several times without inferring that they're in need of therapy? (At least, this kind of therapy.)

Clark's mishaps with his powers lend a few moments of amusement, and although I wonder if I wouldn't have enjoyed more had this been the true focus of the hour (like in Heat), I recognize that it would have been a weaker hour. A more interesting secondary plot, like the one in Leech, would have been ideal for further exploration of Clark's powers as they relate to his identity and sense of self - a story infinitely more worthy of telling.

In the end, it was almost a relief that so little happened because at least nothing happened that I will have to remember to be infuriated about later.

Sarah Stanek