Smallville - TV Series Review

After 10 seasons and more than 200 episodes, “Smallville” finally went off the air this year. When it started in October 2001, I was still in college and I had just turned 20. Over the course of the past 10 years the world has changed a lot and so have I. It’s rare these days for a network show to last 10 years and it is amazing that the fans got so much. Today I want to take a look back at “Smallville.”

The show premiered to over 8 million viewers. This can be attributed to the very well done marketing campaign. Even if you never watched the show you can probably still remember the image of Clark hung up like a scarecrow in a cornfield with the “S” on his chest. It worked. During the second season it averaged over 6 million viewers a week and in its final season it averaged almost 3 million a week. Not that bad for a genre show on the CW. I remember seeing the first commercial for this and thinking that I wanted nothing to do with it. On the WB it would be too dramatic, and the thought of never getting to see him fly or put on the costume turned me off. But, I did end up watching the first episode and ending up loving the world and style that they had created.

There were a lot of problems that the show held onto for a while. And with a show that could never reach the ending that we all knew was going to happen eventually without ending the actual show, it was clear that the writers didn’t really know what to do. During the first two seasons, it wasn’t a problem. The show was new and they still had Clark discovering powers. But the problems were starting to show up. Episodes were constantly just a “Freak of the Week” (FOTW) with each adventure not really contributing to the overall narrative. And then the last 10 minutes of every episode was dedicated to Clark and Lana having some sort of star crossed lovers’ type moment. We also had Product Placement Pete, who seemed to only be there to pimp out Remy Zero or sell Stride gum.

But then we would get some great moments as well, Christopher Reeve returning to explain his origin, the John Williams music, and the symbol. We also had a great villain in Lionel Luthor and a great journey for an even better villain in Lex Luthor. Unfortunately the FOTW adventures continued and during the 4-6th seasons the show just didn’t seem to know what to do. They had teased Superman so much that it started getting a little ridiculous that he wasn’t Superman yet.

When Michael Rosenbaum, Kristen Kruek and John Glover all left the show, I thought it was done for. But that’s when the writers really stepped up. They brought in other characters from the DC universe. We got to see almost every big character from the DCU (except for Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern) get Smallvillized. By expanding the number of heroes that were around it made the fact that we didn’t have Superman there okay. The other superheroes quenched our thirst to see Superman by giving us people in costumes doing heroic things. What are the odds of us getting to ever see characters like Cyborg, Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, and Stargirl on a TV show? Without something like “Smallville” it would have been impossible.

The show’s last season was full of ups and downs. Just like the series itself. But for the most part it was fun. It brought closure to the characters and setup the world that we wanted to see at the end. Loose ends were tied up and I was left with a smile on my face as Tom Welling finally unbuttoned his shirt and showed off that big red “S.” It was a fitting ending to the show and will keep me satisfied until the next Superman comes out in December 2012.