The Russian Exchange Student is the fourth episode of the first season of Superboy from 1988 featuring John Haymes Newton as Clark Kent / Superboy, Stacy Haiduk as Lana Lang, and Jim Calvert as T.J.White.  A fairly simple morality tale about prejudice, incorporating some new and ambitious special effects.

At college, a professor’s computer blows up.  Fortunately he has a backup of his work, but the security guard points the finger at…

THE RUSSIAN EXCHANGE STUDENT

Cue new title credits –

The diamond logo makes an explosive appearance before the cast credits.

Clark/Superboy played by John Haymes Newton.
Lana Lang played by Stacy -sigh- Haiduk (that’s actually her middle name, you know…).

T.J. White played by Jim Calvert.

The accusation against the Russian Exchange Student makes her feel homesick which is sad news for T.J. because she’s his girlfriend.  The Russian government wants her to stay.

Discussing the sabotage, Clark’s reporter’s instinct clashes with T.J.’s loyalty to his girlfriend. T.J. accuses Clark of prejudice against non-Americans. The professor prepares a demonstration of his project, which he explains as a formula to significantly reduce the world’s reliance on oil.

Clark sees the professor’s fuel substitute boiling crazily.

The test jeep explodes … but Superboy saves the professor’s life.

At the lab, the professor discovers that someone spiked his formula with ether. The police find ether in Natasha’s locker.

Clark, Lana, and T.J. visit Natasha at the police station, only to hear that she’s being deported. Clark suggests that they can prevent Natasha from being deported if they can prove her innocence. T.J. realises that he was wrong to accuse his friend of prejudice.

At the lab, Jeff is having secret telephone calls. When he leaves the lab, T.J. follows him. Meanwhile Clark talks with the professor and realises that the sabotage would have killed him, which puts him above suspicion.

Jeff leads T.J to the headquarters of an Oil Company.  Lana relays the information to Clark when he calls in.

T.J. gatecrashes Jeff’s meeting and suddenly all is made clear. The Oil Company wants to stop the professor’s formula because they make profits from selling oil. They show T.J. the fastest way to the ground…

Superboy smashes through glass windows… and catches T.J. before he smashes into the pavement!

Back at the lab, Jeff forces the professor to tell him where the backup disc is…

…then he sets a fire to kill the professor and blame Natasha.

Superboy smashes through another window… Jeff shoots him.

Superboy blocks the bullets and T.J. arrives in time to knock Jeff’s lights out.

This story is even simpler than the last one.  It’s quite a hamfisted way of saying “don’t be prejudiced”.  I say it’s hamfisted because the mystery has no mystery.  There’s three people involved – one foreign, the professor, and a third one.  They’re not going to say it’s the foreign one at the begining and then have it turn out to be true.  Rather than wonder how they will prove who it is, you end up spending the episode wondering why you’re being asked to waste your time.

This is really just a pointless episode.  The short duration doesn’t allow us time to empathise with the girl and, although Jim Calvert once again demonstrates how underrated he is by out-acting just about everyone, there isn’t enough time to get on board with T.J. either.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

There’s very little for Superboy to actually do in this one.  Saving the professor from the exploding jeep consists of Superboy running fast thanks to poorly speeded-up film.

The freshest thing about the episode is the new opening title sequence.  These would become standard by mid-season but there are still some episodes that use the old ones.  These opening credits are much more in-keeping with the nature of the show – vibrant, fast, and action-packed.

The “shattering diamond” graphic effect is used, somewhat less convincingly, on the two “Superboy crashes through glass window” scenes.  This demonstrates how the programme-makers were exploring the limits of what the special effects of the late-80s can achieve, but it’s not entirely convincing in the way that having John Haymes Newton crashing through sugar glass would have been.

In conclusion, I honestly can’t recommend this episode.  We’ve already had three better episodes and there are much better ones to come.  This is the episode to watch when you’ve finished the season and you’re aching for more Superboy.