[S3E1] Kryptonite Extra Quality
It's been three months since Clark put on a red kryptonite ring and left Smallville. He is in Metropolis going by the name "Kal". He sees a luxury car he likes in a show window and tears open a row of ATMs for the cash to buy it with.He leaves the dealership with the car and the sales girl. When they arrive at the night club Atlantis, they are making out at the bar. When she asks about the scar on his chest, he grabs her hand, and she leaves. As he leaves, his scar starts to burn. Doubled over in pain, Clark ducks into a phone booth and unbuttons his shirt. The scar burns and glows until Clark takes off the ring. Without the ring, he decides to call his mother. At the Kent Farm, Martha answers the phone. Clark doesn't say anything, but she knows it is Clark, and she pleads with him to come home. Looking like he's about to cry, Clark hangs up the phone and slips the ring back on.
[S3E1] Kryptonite
At the Kent Farm, Pete shows Jonathan and Martha a Daily Planet front-page article detailing Clark's crimes. Pete says Clark's crimes are escalating and Jonathan declares that he is going to retrieve him. Martha protests, saying that Clark, knowing what red kryptonite does to him, doesn't want to be found. She stresses that he will come home when he is ready and Jonathan concedes.
The idea to use Superman's cape, which came from Miles Millar, to represent Clark's "cosmic lifespan" came after much discussion on what to actually use. Ideas were thrown around, including a shot of Lex dumping kryptonite on Clark, as he is lying down, killing him. Ultimately they went with Millar's idea, which they saw as this "great iconic moment", because the audience finally sees their first glimpse of Superman's costume.[19] Superman's cape was not the only iconic imagery used during the third season. The episode "Whisper" not only introduced a new superpower for Clark, his super hearing, but allowed the writing staff the opportunity to provide a sort of "in-joke" to the audience. The team wrote in a gag where Clark wears a pair of eyeglasses, a staple of his disguise later in life while working at the Daily Planet. In the episode, an accident with Clark's heat vision causes him to go blind; as his eyes heal, he is forced to wear a pair of prescription eyeglasses until he fully regains his sight.[23] "Perry" would introduce Clark's future boss, and editor of the Daily Planet, Perry White. This episode would also serve as the point where Clark finally learns that his powers are caused by the radiation from Earth's yellow Sun.[24]
"Velocity" also began its life as an idea being tossed around during season one. The team thought about having an episode devoted to small town drag racing, as it was a problem in the Vancouver area while they were filming season one. The story was eventually used in season three, when the writing staff was looking for a reason to exploit the changing friendship between Clark and Pete. According to Verheiden, they wanted a moment where Pete could release his feelings to Clark, and the jealousy he has over Clark spending more time with Lex and Lana. The episode featured the moment when the friendship between Clark and Pete "fractured a bit".[27] "Obsession" featured a scene first thought up in season two's "Visage", which called for the use of lead paint to block the effects of kryptonite on Clark when Tina Greer trapped him in the storm cellar with Lana's kryptonite necklace. The scene was rewritten to have Clark's spaceship save him, and used later in "Obsession", where Clark and Chloe use lead paint to trap the teleporting Alicia Baker.[28]
As production commences, occasionally the filmmakers find that they have to make last minutes changes to the episode in order to explain certain situations better, or because a better idea came along after they were finished. Sometimes, these last minutes changes will happen shortly before an episode is broadcast. The opening teaser for "Exile" was added approximately one week before the episode aired. The crew wanted to show Clark having fun with his powers while he was on red kryptonite, and the opening they filmed did not illustrate that well enough. The original opening featured Clark buying a car; the new opening showed how he acquired the money to buy the car, which involved him robbing several ATMs.[16] The crew reshot the final scene in "Truth" between Clark and Chloe, where Chloe apologizes for trying to use her recently acquired ability to get the truth out of anyone to dig into Clark's past. Originally, Clark did not accept her apology, but the crew felt that was too strong, especially since she was under the influence of kryptonite, so they refilmed it with Clark accepting her apology.[33]
With the show being filmed in the Vancouver area, many local industries will substitute for Smallville and Metropolis businesses. For the scene where Clark buys a car with stolen money in "Exile", the production crew converted a local bank lobby into a dealership showroom.[16] The Vancouver YMCA served as a stand-in for the Smallville Medical Center.[21] The interior scenes of Summerholt Institute were shot in a local train-car washing building, so that they had enough room to create and film the tank of kryptonite solution. The set was found early in the production of season three, but the crew could not find a use for it until then.[15] The exterior shots were filmed at an abandoned building owned by the Sierra Wireless Company.[32] The building was a spare built by Sierra Wireless to accommodate their growing company.[15] The flashback sequences filmed in "Memoria", of a young Lex with his infant brother Julian, were shot underneath the St. George's Preparatory School, on a specially designed set by Rob Maier. St. George's also doubled as Lex's childhood prep school.[32] The LuthorCorp facility was constructed at an active sewage treatment facility in the Vancouver area. David Willson built the LuthorCorp labs inside the facility's hallways.[33]
Although there are stunt people on the sets for each episode, the cast is more than willing to take on some of the stunt-work themselves. Welling and Schneider performed a lot of their own stunts for the scene where Clark and Jonathan, who now has the powers to take on his son, battle over Clark's use of the red kryptonite in "Exile". This lent to the filmmakers being able to show more of the two actor's faces during the scene, which also lends more realism to the audience.[20] As part of the opening scene for "Extinction", which involved Lana being attacked in the school pool, Kreuk spent thirteen hours in the water as they filmed the scene.[25]
In another instance involving bullets, Entity FX had the job of digitally creating kryptonite bullets, which were fired at Clark in the episode "Extinction". John Wash and his team discussed ways to make the kryptonite bullets unique in their own right, so they decided that since the bullets were made of kryptonite that they might have some kind of reaction to the atmosphere as they flew through it. The computer effects team then created a "green aura, with a little plasma envelope around the bullet" as it flew through the frame, in slow-motion, toward Clark.[25]
After a fight where Superman is corrupted by red kryptonite, he encounters Danny Phanton in Amity Park. Shenanigans ensue, and Danny winds up overshadowing Superman. This of course, leads to further Shenanigans, a little angst from Tucker, a little hurt from Sam, and a little unexpected comfort from Danny who takes After Jack Fenton's habbit to be very insightful when it's least expected.
Though this leniency of sorts oddly did not prevent her from attempting to go after Alex (whom Sam is also reasonably acquainted with) when the latter, J'onn and several of the D.E.O. operatives staged a futile ambush against the world killer - and had to be physically stopped by the Martian himself. Reign would later come close to killing Alex, knocking the latter down then stepping over to place a foot upon Alex's chest (though to be fair, at both confrontations, Alex clearly presented herself as Reign's enemy when she forced green kryptonite around the world killer's neck to bring the masked Sam down during first and then repeatedly fired several ineffective shots, in the second, with her gun at the latter) after telling the agent that she'll take her life then and there - only stopping at the beseech of Julia, who offers to be taken and become Purity completely on the condition that Alex was allowed to live. 041b061a72