Sunday Shizz: Smallville Series Re-cap and Season 8 Woes!
When Smallville premiered in 2001 on the previously known WB channel, Superman at made its way back into the home of millions with a cool edgy, re-imagining of the Man of Steel mythos. Complete with a serialized episodic teen drama pitting Superman as a Superboy during his high school days trying to overcome being different while trying to be normal. Complete with teen angst, morality tales and all the after school issues you could want.
A hip and upbeat show that gave witty and smart teens a lot of camera time to please us with ultra-cool missions, adventures and showing us high school is never boring even in a small town. A mixture of X-files, Buffy and Dawson’s Creek - Smallville allowed for the term superhero to be synonymous with pop-culture the way hit shows like Roswell, One Tree Hill and MTV were - This means girls watched the show too. A perfect balance of teen drama meets comic-book action made Smallville a truly great show but only for awhile.
Like most shows Smallville got weird and overwrought with too many filler episodes and junk that usually plagues shows that over wear their welcome. Smallville seemed on a path every season to inch us closer and closer to the destiny of the man we would all know one day as Superman.
(Feel Free to Skip my Overview of the Seasons 1 -7)
Season 1 - We discover is lineage, his friendships with his childhood friend Pete Ross, Chloe Sullivan - the intrepid reporter friend with the big crush and Lana Lang - the first girl to steal the steal heart of Supes. We discover a friendship between the hero and his one day foe - Lex Luthor
Season 2 -Another school year with Clark developing a new ability: heat vision and a new vulnerability: red kryptonite. Clark’s best friend, Pete becomes even closer to the Kent family after learning Clark’s secret. Chloe tries to resolve her conflicting feelings and complicated relationships with Clark and Lana. Another cool journey into the past - incorporating a unique mythos into the hometown with the Kawatchi caves hinting to the Kryptonian destiny of Clark to become a savior of this world.
Season 3 - thrusting himself into exile in an attempt to ignore his destiny, Clark angst don’t last long as he returns home to face his love relationship with Lana, the girl of his dreams. Still friends with Lex, Clark and his crew decide to conspire against the evil Lionel Luthor, a task that proves difficult and dangerous especially for Chloe. Clark also decides to accept his destiny with Jor-El and gains another super skill - super hearing. Again we have another season where we are growing with the Man of Steel taking another step towards the man in the blue and red and a symbol of justice and truth.
Season 4 - this one started off with a bang! Clark flies, another a great ode to the classic Superman. However short lived, our hero becomes grounded for the rest of the series. This season we are graced with the lovely Lois Lane, inching even closer to the greatest comic-book love story ever! Lois and Clark! Lana returns from Paris only to grace her friends and Smallville with a secret that takes her, Lex and Clark to the edges of the world for a secret that only Clark is capable of knowing and understanding. Again we inch closer to the man! Encounters with future DC comic heroes - a trend that doesn’t end here - Clark also graduates from high school only to be hit with his destiny full on with second Smallville meteor shower.
Season 5 - Welcome to the Fortress of Solitude, the training ground and haven for Supes. We finally have edged our way to the destiny that the first 4 seasons have prepared us for - finally we can see the transformation of Superboy to Superman. Arguably the best season of Smallville to date - Season 5 was promising - but like our hero in Season 4 - the audience had to stay grounded. No flying here. Although the mythos extended with the death of Pa Kent, Lex’s true nature is revealed, Aquaman/Cyborg cameos, the Daily Planet, Braniac, our Clark moves increasingly closer to the man he will one day become - or does he?
Season 6 - this is where the show trailed off and started to where thin. Season 6 had strikes of brilliance with the “Justice League” moments with Green Arrow, Cyborg, Flash, Aquaman and more. We also got the Phantom Zone, more info into Clark’s lineage, Martian Manhunter, Jimmy Olsen, and Bizzaro. Lionel becomes a friend, Lex is a true enemy. Season 6 had its chance to usher us into the full on destiny of Supes but it digressed into latching onto obscure filler content that was irrelevant to the series, older actors were strategically ushered out of the series and show but our hero remained restricted by his love for the now annoying Lana Lang. Drama seemed to hold our hero and audience back - making the series convoluted and weak. Why isn’t he learning how to fly yet? Why isn’t he becoming who we know he is? Questions we hoped would be answered in the finale and series premiere of season 7.
Season 7 - this was another season where we were promised to see another step in the Superman direction. Kara Zor-El, Clark’s cousin - Supergirl comes to Smallville. Finally there is someone to show Clark his true destiny as Supes and someone who can teach him how to fly thus letting take his mantle as the Man of Steel. However we were tricked - Kara was the only one who flew, she then was pushed aside for more drama and relationship up and down with Clark and Lana. Hey but all is Ok right? I mean Lex is still around causing issues, Lois is upholding her destiny as the intrepid reporter at the Daily Planet, notorious for getting any story. However our Superman is blundering around between Smallville and Metropolis solving the occasional meteor freak crime we have become accustomed too since Season 1 but it seems he is in a holding pattern, just meandering through his life as someone with some quick feat and the ability to not get shot and killed. Oh yeah - he brushes again with Braniac - who returns to help fuel the final confrontation between Clark and his once friend, Lex Luthor (Goodbye Michael Rosenbaum).
(end Season 1-7 though synopsis)
So today I got to catch -up on the last five episodes of Smallville I had missed this season. Season 8 - I actually had faith this season, being its last would pull out all the stops. It started quick with Clark joining the staff of the Daily Planet, next to Lois Lane - finally beginning the adventures of Lois and Clark, which meant that Supes was only around the corner. Though without Lex Luthor around to help fuel the villainy role of the show - Tess Mercer was more than capable to take the part - combining that with the rumblings of Doomsday, Toyman and possibly more Superman Rogues Gallery to follow - Season 8 seemed ready to restore my faith in the series. However after watching episodes Bride, Legion, Bulletproof, Power and Requiem - my faith was completely shot and destroyed by some of the worst Smallville I have witnessed in my 8 years of watching the show. With the exception of Legion, which is one of my favorite eps in awhile, the last 5 episodes seem to have the series reverting back to its former meandering phase. I have to say that is purely evidence of the return of Lana Lang. Once she was out of the picture it was clear Clark was moving on to bigger and better things including a hinted romance with Lois only to be stopped in mid kiss by the return of the annoying Ms. Lang. The episode Bride was OK - being it introduced us fully to Doomsday and its connection with Brainiac - not bad. However, Bulletproof proved that show is still not above its ability to give us crap filler eps that don’t bring anything new to the continuity of the show. this episode was painful to watch being it had your traditional Clark whining/pining over Lana, no appearances by Lois, and the veteran actors of the show seem to be going through the motions with exception of Welling, who seems to be doing his best in hopes for a new gig post Smallville. Justin Hartley actually brings something better to the cast and makes the case that he should have his own spin-off as the Green Arrow.
That brings me to the latest 2 eps of Smallville - Power and Requiem - wrapping up the Lana return, we are given more evidence on Lex’s return, a change of heart to the ice-queen - Tess Mercer and still no sign of Lois at all. Power was kind of boring centering on a cat-fight episode on basically which girl was like by Lex more - Tess of Lana. Hey we did get a little back-story into what happened to Lana post season 7 so that was cool. I would have been better off not knowing seeing as I didn’t care.
Requiem - what to say? complete with a Lana and Clark bed breaking, this episode really pissed me off in so many ways. An explosion at LuthorCorp kills all the board members and injures Oliver, who was there to announce the merger of his company with LuthorCorp. This was cool, except the special effects which were borderline terrible. In the story, Oliver believes that Lex is responsible for the blast, but Clark and Lana learn that the bomber is Winslow Schott, a toymaker and former Queen Industries employee with a grudge against Oliver. Another DC cameo, the Toymaker, but more importantly a tag team super couple of Lana and Clark who after humorously breaking the bed decide to go patrolling together. The episode panders on only for us to discover that The Toymaker, Winslow Schott, is working for Lex and responsible for all the terrorism happening. Oh yeah Lex is alive and looks like Darth Vader with a Shredder mask on.
Anyway the ep ends with Lana thwarting a kryptonite bomb to save Metropolis in which her “super suit” absorbs all the kryptonite. So she can’t be around Clark anymore. Oh so sad! We end with a touching Clark/Lana moment which ends with Clark forcing his body towards Lana in way that seems a lot like Wolverine trying to get to Jean Grey in the X-Men: The Last Stand.
So what do I take away from this mini-marathon of Smallville? That it is crap? Thank the Lord it is ending with Season 8?
Just disappointment, for now, in a series that started so brilliantly to end up as a meandering piece of junk that has outlived itself like most shows do. I wish the show would have ended after Season 5 with Clark leaving Smallville to take up the mantle of Supes. Then the show could have spun-off into a better version of Lois and Clark show, engrossing itself into the mythos laid out by Smallville, and furthering it into a new series called Metropolis, centering on Lois and Clark and their destiny - still allowing for characters like Toymaker to show up, Oliver Queen, Lex Luthor, and even Doomsday. Oh yeah! you could have flying and Superman tights! this would ultimately make the show that much better!
If the show gets a miraculous 9th season pick-up I propose a season revolving around just Clark, no more Oliver Queen, Lois, and Chloe, nobody from the series. Have Clark as a wondering hero running into other superheroes like Cyborg, Aqua man and more along the way. More like the Highlander version of Clark, and then the last episode he flies and that’s it no more!
So there is the Sunday Chizz! My Smallville Rant! Live with it!
