While I wasn't too impressed by the generic main plot of the episode - Bus explodes even though there was no bomb onboard (Well, at least it didn't get filled with some fast-setting magic goo), girl turns out to be able to make things explode - it was saved by the apparent new status quo of the show, the freshest part of which is definitely Clark being pro-active and actually seeming to be on his way to becoming Superman for a change: It's not just that he saved the people on the bus and stuck around afterwards to help without giving it any thought instead of running away at superspeed to feel upset about his powers, but much moreso his attempt at inspirational speaking at the end of the episode to Bette, The Bomb-Girl - For the first time ever on the show, you got the feeling that he just might grow up to become the Superman that we know and love.

If anything, the familiarity of the plot helped bring home how different the show and characters have become since its start, eight years ago. It wasn't only Clark's new assertiveness, but also the way that the show's Lois has started to settle into a go-getting reporter role closer to her comic book counterpart (but with added awkward comedy from her not being as good at her job as she'd like), Chloe getting a B-plot to herself (although, seriously, haven't we done the "female lead falls for bad guy" plot many times before on this show? For shame, people), and the complete lack of emo angst - or death of the villain, for that matter. It's like a whole new show that's ripping off old Smallville but doing it better.
Two particular things reinforced the "better" idea this week. Firstly, the introduction of new villain Doomsday was... well, not as terrible as it could've been, really. Sure, in theory I'm still entirely against Doomsday being a human transformed into an unstoppable monster thanks to Kryptonite meteors, but damned if Sam Witwer didn't make newcomer Davis Bloome into an unexpectedly charming figure that even managed to pull off the "shock" final scene of his naked, transforming, body. Much more squee-worthy was the by-now-traditional scene of newLex, Tess Mercer - not as bald, but just as evil - recruiting the villain for nefarious ends, although the reason for my excitement is more likely than not entirely in my head. Let me explain.

We've heard - thanks to Charlie - that evil New God Darkseid may be on top to appear this season. Well, watching Tess recruit Bette to her "team" made me wonder/hope: What if Tess isn't Tess? What if she's a disguised version of Darkseid's hencholdwoman, Granny Goodness, recruiting supervillains to a new televisual team of Female Furies? It'll probably never happen, but such an idea is 100% Smallville: Taking an idea from the comic books and making it work on television involving attractive young people wearing form-fitting clothes. If anyone from the show's writing staff is reading this: You know what to do to make me happy.

But even the fact that I'm fanboy excited about the possibility of something like that happening goes to demonstrate that Smallville is continuing to turn itself around and quietly become one of the more enjoyable (guilty) pleasures on TV right now. Will wonders never cease?

The bringers of pain and delight from Star Trek, "Spock's Brain". Has there ever been a band called "The Bringers Of Pain And Delight"? If not, why not? In any case, that's like the perfect summing up of the dominatrix aesthetic — and check out those kinky boots (in the pic up top.) They not only plunder Spock's precious noggin, they also take vicious pleasure in attaching the pain devices to Kirk and friends, and then firing up the zappy with their wrist controllers.

Servalan from Blake's 7. She starts out as the vaguely butch Supreme Commander of the Federation, but almost immediately Servalan uses a mixture of intense sexuality and evil bitchiness to get her way. She swerves between flirting and threatening with almost no pause — and she never hesitates to use her subordinates (and prisoners) for her sexual pleasure at the drop of a giant feathery hat.

Zeta from Zeta One. Zeta is the queen of an alien lesbian Amazon ant colony called Angvia (which is an anagram for a part of the female anatomy.) The Angvians are kidnapping Earth women to come join their society, but an evil Earth man wants to turn their latest "recruit" into a double agent. There's a lot of chasing and capturing and escaping — and the Angvians are armed with exploding Judo chops, as you can see from this Benny Hill-meets-Barbarella moment, posted online by Danforth Buzzkill. (Clip may not be work-safe.)

Nyah, from Devil Girl From Mars. She's dressed in a shiny black costume with a sort of Darth Vader helmet, and she's here to collect male specimens to repopulate Mars — because the Martians had a war between the sexes, and the women became the rulers, wiping out all the men in the process. (Remember, Joe Jackson says, "If there's war between the sexes, then there'll be no people left.") The only men she can find are a group of bedraggled alcoholics, including an astronomer and an escaped murderer, in a Scottish pub. Here's a video of highlights with some added music, and you can watch the entire goldang thing here.

Witch, from 1990: Bronx Warriors. It's the distant future, the year 1990, and everything has fallen into a dreadful post-apocalyptic mess. A gang of punky bikers rolls around terrorizing the countryside, including Witch, who stabs people with her long brass fingernails or strangles them with her bullwhip.

The T-X in Terminator 3: The Rise Of The Machines. Long before Summer Glau went around kicking other robots in the head, the Terminator films introduced the first female Terminator, who dresses in red leather (including boots). Says Metaphilm:

The dominatrix reference is furthered during one particular fight scene when the T-X is seen to swivel head and limbs until she is wrapped around Schwarzenegger's T-800 in a highly sexualized grip. She also has the ability to control other machines via use of a slender, needle-like probe.

Xenia Onatopp from GoldenEye. If you consider this James Bond movie about a killer satellite system to be science fiction, then Xenia definitely belongs on this list. She's a former Soviet agent who's now joined the Russian Mafia, and she gets a seuxal charge out of killing. Says Wikipedia:

Literally leaping atop the admiral, she straddles him and violently kisses, bites and scratches him before finally wrapping her muscular thighs around his chest and crushing it into powder, loudly achieving orgasm, while rubbing her naked body against him as he asphyxiates.

Elizia from Space 1999, "The Devil's Planet." Commander Koenig crash-lands on a prison planet, whose sadistic warden Elizia decides she wants him to be her love-puppy. When he refuses, she makes him the quarry in a hunt to the death. Check out the guards' uniforms, including whips:

Captain Mother from Space Thing: this softcore porn scifi movie features a male hero, Captain Granilla, who crashes into an all-woman ship run by the cruel lesbian Captain Mother in the year 2069. (Link is NSFW, but awesome.) She swings her whip and shouts, "Maybe that'll teach you that men are off-limits!" But the Captain quickly introduces all of the lesbians, including Capt. Mother, to the joys of heterosexuality. Of course. The silver-boot-wearing Captain Mother tells him, "I order you to make love to me!" But Just check out the DVD cover:

Princess Ardala from Buck Rogers. She doesn't wear kinky outfits, but she does take tremendous pleasure in her stable of sex slaves, including Tigerman and Pantherman, and probably Emuman as well, if she'd made it into the second season. My favorite Ardala moment is when she's planning to marry Buck, and she has a special remote-controlled shrinky collar, which shrinks to half its diameter, so she can behead him if he disobeys her or displeases her for even a moment. Plus those headpieces!

Six from Battlestar Galactica. Just watch the way she tortures Baltar and various other men with total abandon. (Not to mention that actor Tricia Helfer is starring as a dominatrix in a new movie, Walk All Over Me. And hey, here's the trailer.)

Granny Goodness, from Jack Kirby's Fourth World comics. I didn't really think of Granny Goodness as a dominatrix until I saw her described that way here, but it totally fits. She's not exactly sexy, but she is totally evil and psycho behind a sweet facade. And she controls the Female Furies, a squad of killer women who are sort of dominatrix-y.

The Dominatrix from Gene Simmons' Dominatrix. I'm so glad I don't actually need to read this comic, because our own Graeme McMillan has reviewed it. Here's his summary:

A spy is so excited by his session with his dominatrix that he accidentally blurts out a secret so bad that he immediately gets kidnapped. But that's okay, because he has a magic pill that gives him superpowers - but he doesn't take it, he gives it to his dominatrix, because... um... well, just because! And then she beats this guy up! Because that's what dominatrixes do (There's even a caption where she feels guilty about it, because she's not getting paid to hurt him)! And then, after she beats up the bad guy, instead of trying to do anything about the guy she saw kidnapped, or the secret she's apparently learned that is so dangerous that said guy gets kidnapped, she goes home to have some tea. Only to get ambushed by a super sexy spy who's also dressed in fetish wear!

The clone, from Dominatrix Waitrix. This is a queer scifi porn video released by Fatale Media, about "a sexually voracious, leather-clad human clone who takes over the bodies of overworked waiters and preys on their customers." Yes, really. I guess the clone takes over bedraggled service workers, and then channels their frustration with customers into some kind of non-consensual domination scene? I like the quote, "You cannot deny that waitresses and customers are natural enemies." It goes on to say the customer belongs "under the waitress' foot." Has anybody actually seen this movie?