Smallville Series Review

Look up in the sky... wait, no we're not there quite yet.

Now that I've finished reviewing all ten seasons of the hit series Smallville, it's time to look at the long-running cult series as a whole.

Smallville is the story of Clark Kent in the years before he was Superman, as he grows up in Smallville, Kansas, deals with his alien heritage, and learns to harness his amazing powers for good. The show spanned ten seasons, the first five of which were on the WB, and the last five were on the CW after the WB went bankrupt.

The show begins with baby Clark arriving on Earth in a massive meteor shower that destroys most of the town. We then pick up twelve years later; Clark is in high school, he's an outcast, he's nuts about a girl who's  out of his league, and he just met Lex Luthor. Lex accidently hit Clark with his car and drove them both off a bridge. After Clark saves Lex's life, the two have a bromance for the next few seasons, but then, as the series progresses, they devolve into frenemies, and later full on mortal enemies. This is one of the best aspects the show, because, a., the idea of two people who you know will battle for all eternity starting out as best buds is brilliant yet somewhat terrifying, and b., Michael Rosenbaum's performance as Lex Luthor is not only amazing, but it's also the first time in any live action thing where Luthor is meant to be taken seriously (i.e., no "I am Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mastermind of the 20th century! Bwahh!!").

The show actually gets off to a rough start, with the first few seasons mainly being a mix of sappy teen drama/angst and Clark fighting generic, repetitious meteor freaks of the week, which are people who get super powers from exposure to Kryptonite, just referred to as meteor rocks until season two. Long story short, season 1 wasn't too good. Seasons two and three picked things up a bit by incorporating more Superman mythology into the show and casting Terrence Stamp as the disembodied voice of Jor-El and Christopher Reeve himself as a man who I can't tell you about. Those episodes were good, but the freaks of the week were still present and holding the show back. In season four, which had a couple of pretty ludicrous story lines, they began to bring in more DC universe heroes for episodes, starting with the Flash (technically it was Impulse, but he had the Flash's origins. Go figure). And while they never did get to do a crossover with Batman, Clark did also meet, in addition to Impulse, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Martian Manhunter, leading up to an early Justice League story line that kicked all kinds of ass.

 Season five saw the show start to pick up more by having Clark not be in High School anymore and by bringing in James Marsters to play Braniac (it was so weird hearing him not have a British accent). Season five did still have it's flaws, mostly because at that point, Clark's girlfriend Lana started to get really annoying. By season six, pretty much everyone hated her, and she occasionally made the show feel like complete soap opera despite it's very present awesomeness by way of the Phantom Zone and the Justice League. Season seven, for me personally, is when the show really started to find it's groove, with characters like Supergirl, Bizarro, Braniac, and Jimmy Olsen, as well as Lex completing his descent into complete evil. Season 8 saw Lex and Lana both go AWOL and Doomsday was brought in as a villain. But they had Doomsday have a Jekyll-Hyde thing that made you feel really sorry for the guy who the beast resides in. Season 9 was my favorite season, with a younger incarnation Zod and the darker tone it decided take, plus my favorite episode of the entire series, Absolute Justice. Season ten proves to show the true foundations of Clark's becoming Superman with his battles against Darkseid and his relationship with Lois Lane.

As annoying as the meteor freaks were in early seasons (believe me, they were), they ultimately paid off for some pretty cool story arcs in the later seasons. The later seasons are significantly better then the earlier ones, just because it actually starts to feel like Superman. The epicness contained in some episodes were amazing.

As far as characters went, Clark himself originally came off as a bit winy, but he does mature as the show progresses. When he finally stops brooding, you start to root for him. Like I said above, Lex Luthor was truly amazing on this show, but Lana Lang eventually became painful to watch. And then there's Lois Lane; just as Clark and Lex start out as best buds, Lois and Clark start out kind of hating each other, with constant personality clashes and arguments. But, as was obvious, they eventually become pretty nuts about each other. Ma and Pa Kent were done pretty well here too, partly because, for the first time they weren't 65 years old, and the actors did great jobs. They also created a character for the show in Clark's friend Chloe, who pretty much everyone loves, and not just because she is very hot. The most prominent Superhero other then Clark is Green Arrow, portrayed as a charismatic badass who you can't help but like.

In the end, what was good about the show was the cool action, character development, and classic Superman and DC universe mythos (they covered everything, from the JSA to Checkmate to even Superboy). What was bad about it was annoying soapy elements, freak of the weeks episodes, and lackluster special effects (the show operated on a severely limited budget, leading to a lot of action sequences being disappointingly short). When Smallville was good, it was amazing, but it was bad, it burned us. But overall, the good outweighed the bad and led to one of my favorite shows to ever grace the TV screen, and probably the best comic book-based TV show of all time.

So have you seen Smallville? What'd you think? What was your favorite episode? Your favorite season? Comment below, let me know?

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