Where to watch Superboy (1988)
2 Stars
Clark falls for Sara, the daughter of a crime boss. Both Clark and Sara get stuck in the middle between rival crime syndicates, and it is up to Superboy to save everyone.
Original Air Date: 10/15/1988 – “A Kind of Princess”
The second episode of “The Adventures of Superboy,” similar to the first, is centered around a fractured relationship between a daughter and her father. This outing is better than the pilot episode but not by much. The show is still overly melodramatic for a 22-minute kids show. Speaking of being a kid’s show, why is there a subplot involving the mafioso’s daughter desperately trying to lose her virginity to Clark on her 18th birthday? I appreciate the efforts by writers Howard Dimsdale and Michael Morris to give “Superboy” an adult edge, but this story thread is tonally inappropriate.
Julie McCullough, my childhood crush, plays the role of the horny teen, and she brings an innocence and charm to a, as written, perfunctory character in the script. Edward Winter, a great TV character actor, is fantastic as McCullough’s mafia chieftan father. A compelling aspect of the episode is that the daughter refuses to believe her dad is the monster described in the media. That’s until she is kidnapped by his rival and, of course, rescued by Superboy. Everything concludes as expected, but there is a good final scene between Clark and the girl, and you can see she is shaken from the whole ordeal and her newly gained knowledge of her father’s dealings. This is followed by an awkward scene in which Lana asks Clark if he slept with the Mafia princess. “A Kind of Princess” is a wildly uneven episode, but it’s a step in the right direction for the show.
Directed by: Reza Badiyi
Written by: Howard Dimsdale, Michael Morris
Starring: Stacy Haiduk, Gerard Christopher, Peter Jay Fernandez