Where to watch Superboy (19
1 Star
A businessman wants to buy all the farms in the Smallville area during an agricultural depression. Mr. Kent wants to find out why. Kenderson, the businessman, has something to hide and tries to kill Mr. Kent but he is unsuccessful.
Original Air Date: 12/10/1988 – “Troubled Waters”
Clark returns to homestead in Smallville, for the first time in the series, to help his folks stave off ruthless land grabbers. The mid-west farm setting is a welcomed change of pace, leaving the College campus where most of the episodes have taken place and opening up the ‘world’ of Superboy. The writers have also included a love triangle between Clark, Lana, and a hometown girl named Ellen. The innocent tone of the series restricts the romantic interests to being ‘just friends’ because Clark, for some reason, has relegated these girls to the friend zone.
“Troubled Waters” is a good episode, particularly in comparison to the pilot, and marks a controlled upswing in quality to the back half of the first season of Superboy. Stuart Whitman, playing Pa Kent, is a veteran of the screen, and his pro tactics—always busying himself with some piece of business on-screen—make him compulsively watchable. Unfortunately, Ellen’s character is underwritten, and her place in Clark’s backstory is unclear. She is then dropped from the series entirely moving forward.
Directed by: Reza Badly
Written by: Dick Robbins
Starring: John Newton, Stuart Whitman, Juliana Donald