After not having much to do in the last few episodes, Stand Up and Get Knocked Down is a showcase for T.J. White, played by Jim Calvert.  The fifteenth episode in the first season of Superboy, starring John Haymes Newton as Clark Kent / Superboy and Stacy Haiduk as Lana Lang.

A young man is chased down a dark alleyway.  He reaches a phone and desperately calls his buddy T.J.White, telling him that he’ll be dead in ten minutes.

The man takes to his heels when a car turns menacingly into the alley.  Two men beat him, and then their boss turns up to administer a drug patch to his neck.

T.J. arrives, but it’s too late.  Michael is dead.

With Clark, T.J. heads to the club where Michael had been trying out as a stand up comedian.  T.J. is determined to find out what happened.

Inside the club, T.J. poses as a budding young comic while Clark phones Lt Harris, but he gets no answer.

T.J. starts asking questions to one of the waitresses, Angel, that he’d been told about by Michael.  The girl is just as upset about what happened as T.J. is but, before she can say anything, her boss warns her off chatting up “college boys”.

Clark calls Lana to tell her of T.J.’s plan.  At first she doesn’t believe him, but then she agrees to contact Lt Harris.

Outside, an expensive limo pulls up and two men slither out of the back.  Clark sees part of this.

He uses his x-ray vision and sees a large stash of drugs in the boot of the car.

On the pretence of admiring the car, he comes out of the shadows, but that proves to be a mistake.

Inside, it’s almost time for T.J.’s fifteen minutes of fame and he’s directed to an alcove where he can prepare himself. While practicing his routine, T.J. sees a meeting going on inside an office.  He approaches the door, and listens…

T.J. overhears how the boss of the club killed Michael but, before he can react, he’s caught.

He bluffs his way out, insisting that he was only rehearsing his routine.  They let him go but the boss instructs Angel to give T.J. an overdose in his drink. She doesn’t want to but, as an addict herself, she’s pushed into it.

Angel gives T.J. his drugged drink and then T.J. begins his routine.

T.J. begins with confidence but then the drugs begin their work, turning his jokes into nervous laughter.  With his vision blurring, T.J. continues to drink in the hope of clearing his mind, but his routine just goes downhill.

Clark isn’t sure if this is part of the routine, or if something is wrong.

While T.J. struggles, the club’s boss wonders why he isn’t dead yet.  Angel didn’t give all of the deadly drug to T.J., and she’s locked in the store room for her act.

With T.J. getting worse, Clark makes a move to rescue him from the deepening humiliation.

Clark uses his super-hearing and checks T.J.’s eyes.  He needs to get him to a hospital, but the club’s boss isn’t about to let that happen.

In the store room, Clark and Angel try to break for freedom but they’re quickly knocked down.  Clark falls over a box containing bags of white powder.

With T.J. and Angel out of it, a deadly patch is applied to Clark’s neck and he’s left tied up.  Another patch is stuck to Angel’s neck, and T.J.’s.

The others leave with the drugs, while their boss sets fire to the room.

Once they’ve gone, Clark breaks his bonds and T.J.’s drugged stupor sees his transformation into Superboy.

Superboy puts out the fire and then removes the drug patches.

Superboy asks Angel to take T.J. outside to safety while he goes after her boss.  Outside, T.J. continues to have hallucinations.

Lana arrives just in time to see the club’s boss make a desperate attempt to run T.J. down.

Delusional, T.J. thinks he has what it takes to deal with the threat but … no Superboy costume!  The car barrels towards him…

…and then stops dead with its wheels spinning.

Is T.J. Superboy?  No, the real Superboy got to the car just in time!

Lt Harris’ patrol cars arrive like the cavalry and T.J. collapses after all of his exertions.

Sometime later, the fully-recovered T.J. is back at the club for another grasp at comedy fame.  Lana is there to help him, but neither Clark nor Angel have turned up.  Angel is in rehab to recover, but where’s Clark?

Superboy is in the audience to give T.J. all the support he needs from his hero.

After not having much to do in the last few episodes, Stand Up and Get Knocked Down is a showcase for T.J. White – and Jim Calvert doesn’t disappoint on any level.  It gets to the point where the clichéd nature of the familiar story and overused plot device really doesn’t matter.  At 20 minutes, the plot isn’t here long enough to outstay its welcome and, for the most part, we’re treated to a superb and touching performance from Calvert.  T.J.’s slide into drug-induced hysteria is completely believable, even though it happens over just a few minutes.  The only bit that feels awkward is seeing Clark waiting so long to help (almost as if to give Calvert more time to emote his performance).

Even when Clark/Superboy has saved the day and is going through his super-feats, we have another marvellous performance from Calvert as he gives us a delusional T.J. which ends on a comedy moment of him ripping his shirt and expecting to find the Superboy logo there.

The final scene of the episode has T.J. listing all the ways in which he’s been threatened and saved from near-death experiences.  It’s an episode like this that makes you wish that Jim Calvert had been kept on after season one, instead of being replaced by the ever-more-clownish Andy.

While this isn’t ever going to be the first episode you pick to watch from Superboy, it’s a great treat for all Jim Calvert fans.