Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Smallville Season 10 Review

It's time to suit up!

In A Nutshell:
The final season brings us to Clark being brought back from the beyond by Lois, who knows his secret, Oliver is in a very bad spot, and Tess is in a factory of genetically engineered Lex-clones. From there, the season focuses on the arrival of villain Darkseid, hostility towards heroes, the Lex-clones, an alternate universe, and how events in Clark's life, specifically his relationship with Lois, have been shaping him to become the Man of Steel.

The Good:
We got a glimpse of the suit in the last episode of season 9, so Clark has his eyes on the prize most of this season. It's kind of like he's working towards it. A lot of the episodes were very interesting, particularly "Homecoming", which offers an oddly sentimental look at the earlier seasons in a way that'll make even the most jaded of us feel something. We also get paid one last visit from Zod that shows his origins and frankly was awesome. The anti-hero mini-arc of mid-season was really interesting too, showing us, a., how stupid people can be sometimes, and b., what Clark still has to overcome if he wants to become the symbol of hope that is Superman, and it was done in a very entertaining way that even managed to make Aquaman a badass (okay, no, not really, but there were less fish jokes). The mini-arc also led to one episode that I don't want to spoil, but I will say was kind of a homage to the Matrix (the first one, obviously).  All of the throwbacks to the previous seasons were really cool and, above all else, they showed us what the point of the last nine season were. And it all leads into the series finale. The series finale was truly great. It wasn't as action-intensive as I'd hoped, but it was really good for what it was, and frankly, it was kind of epic. And the final scene was genuinely perfect. It was classic Superman in every way, and when the music starts playing, there is no way you can't smile.

The Bad:
The season gets off to a bit of a rough start, with the a handful of the first ten episodes being pretty weak. Chloe was largely absent from the season, which was a tad disappointing. And then you've got Darkseid; don't get me wrong, Darkseid was a great villain, but you only see him a couple of times, his minions could've been done better, and he and Clark never had an actual fight. Clark fought Zod. Clark fought Doomsday even if it only was like three punches. But he never really did fight Darkseid, which was very disappointing. The only other beef I had was in the series finale; after Clark becomes Superman, you never get a good head-to-toe shot of him in the suit. It's always either an extreme close up or too far away to even tell it's him. Don't get me wrong, it was great to see him finally suit up, I just wish we saw the suit as a whole.

Final Rating: 94%

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