Encore presentation of Smallville tonight, episode 4.07 JINX. Last Thursday's ep got 850 000 in the ratings. Next week's ep is 4.08 SPELL. Like Charmed, kinda, but in SV. And you learn more about Lana's tattoo ... kinda.
And Erica Durance, in Sun-Herald tv guide.
Job with a super future
It's always tough for an actor to play a well-known person, real or otherwise. Get one trademark element of the character askew or a tell-tale nuance out of step and every expert in the world willt ake great pleasure going in for the kill.
With that in mind, now imagine Erica Durance's position.
Not only is she playing one of the world's best-loved fictional characters, but one who has a legion of fans with a reputation for being more rabid in their nit-picking than almost anyone else - comic book readers.
"Yeah, it was scary," said Durance of taking on the role of Lois Lane, girlfriend to one of the comic kingdom's gods, Superman.
From this season, she has arrived in Smallville (the town and the series of the same name) as a serious rival for the affections of the teenage Clark Kent.
So far, Lois has floated in and out of the action as more a happily normal teen than the dirt-digging journalist the world knows she will become, but just carrying the name is still weighing heavily on Durance's shoulders.
"I spent a lot of time just trying to ignore [the fact] it was Lois Lane, but I had my moments. Like the first day when I was doing OK, but right when we were about to start they put the slate in front of me and it says 'Smallville - Lois Lane' and I thought 'Who is Lois Lane? That's not me. Somebody come in here and do it'."
But while it may be daunting to play a legend, the upside for Durance is that unlike most other actors taking on a new role, she has the ultimate "through-line", a term actors use to describe the future of their character.
The cast of
Lost, for example, work from script to script not knowing if they will discover they are in fact a murderer or were once married to their worst enemy.
Durance has only to rent a couple of DVDs or drop in to a comic shop to see where Lois ends up when she leaves her teen years behind.
"That can be kind of a blessing and a curse because you knowing that everybody else knows too," she said.
"But what's great about [
Smallville] is that there's been a lot of turns and curves that Lois can make before she becomes that.
"So I kind of meander around and have my little adventures and end up was a journalist and getting Superman."
What it does affect is the way Durance interacts with series star Tom Welling, who plays the teenage Clark Kent.
At this stage in the story, the pair aren't exactly falling in love, but in the midst of every fight, the actors know that somewhere down the track their characters will be happily married.
"They kind of irritate each other and I really enjoy the banter that they have," Durance said.
"I think that's a little bit more realistic. People don't always jump into a romance that's going to last forever, they're going to try to be like 'I don't like you very much, go in the other room and we'll make up later' kind of thing.
"But there is that kind of groundedness that you know at some point he's going to be mine."
And that, said Durance, is not such a bad thing.
She's already been quoted as saying Tom Welling wasn't cast as a super man for nothing and admits that as a young girl, she read the comics and thought the man of steel would be quite a catch.
"Every little girl loved him," she said.
"He was fast, he was flying and he was super strong and yet he was kind of shy ... what girl doesn't like that?"
