Series review - Smallville

Smallville the show about the growing pains of superman recently (may last year if you really want to be accurate) amid a lot of people saying “wait is that still on?” and maybe the more pertinent question “why is this still on?” But despite the hate and (maybe more depressingly) the indifference of the general public there must have been at least some fans still hanging on as it got to an impressive ten seasons. So one day while doing absolutely nothing I decided that I might as well give our super powered friend the benefit of the doubt. My verdict… quite good.

 I know this doesn’t exactly sound like high praise but there is one thing you have to understand about me, I have the soul of a twelve year old boy in that all relationship malarkey is just filler for me until someone blows something up or someone falls over. And that’s the problem this show is all about relationships, mainly how superman can’t have them.

why won't you just blow stuff up with your LAZER EYES!

The other reason it got only a quite good is that sad to say but the first two seasons, that’s 44 episodes just suck. Maybe not all of them, the season finale of season 2 is actually excellent but the rest? Hit and miss. In these first two seasons they have a monster of the week type format, and then they have to think of a contrived way of keeping Clark for just running over there and punching the dude until they stop trying to kill the town/ poison the water/ eat all the cupcakes. Actually this is a problem not so much for the show as the superman tale, I mean let’s all be honest here superman is more than a little bit over powered. So the only way for any story to have suspense is if the villain hides somewhere. And after you have seen twenty or thirty episode where it takes them thirty minutes to figure out who the bad guy is and where he lives you kind of have your fill. (is it just me or did anyone else watch these and just shout at the tv that superman and friends should just ask around and see if anyone is missing or has turned into a bit of a bastard lately).

The one thing I would advise though is to ignore all the not so subtle references to Jesus and Clark being similar, they get better at it through the seasons but even at their best the writers and subtle are only just in the same room together. The most obvious one is when Clark is left to die on a cross at the end of season one, until he rises again. This is just one of those annoying things that you have to either ignore or laugh at.

But if I have any advice to give it would be this, skip to season 3 where it starts to get better. It’s odd basically season three actually feels like a season one, in that it sets up all the main characters, has a understandable (and more importantly good) over aching plot and the whole romance between Clark and Lana disappears for a while. From season 3 onwards the consequences of people actions actually start to affect the world plus the world starts to expand a little and the viewer gets to see outside of smallville. Honestly it feels like a new director or producer came in and told the writers that they should aim for interesting, and not at boring.

 If you don’t have time to watch seven seasons what about five? The show is ok, watchable would be the word I would use, up until green arrow turns up. Before then the show had been fun but kind of aimless, there was this crystal plot which was fun, and Lana kind of turns into a witch (by the way this is the most annoying thing about this show, every week the main characters are always skeptical of things “a man who can breathe under water? Don’t be absurd! Now I’m must dash I have to run at the speed of sound to buy some food”) but Clark was still just a farm boy who only really helped people who slapped him in the face with their problems, normally by being dead. When the archer turns up the show starts to climb out of its teen drama but with an alien theme and more into how super man came about. From then on the show really hits its stride and even by the last season is still being fun superman action that it was always meant to be. There is one season where green arrow just disappears but then he comes back and is awesome again. One other thing makes it interesting, when Lana Lang leaves. Now I feel bad about writing this but whenever she was on screen you knew all the fun was going away and emotions were going to appear (by emotions I mean staring wistfully at one another). Then Lois Lane turns up and she is just so much more fun, and even with my twelve year old soul which shouts yuck at any romantic part wanted them to be together.

The show then is like an overweight elephant, it takes a while to get going, trips up a bit here and there, but one you start watching it at full stride it’s hard to look away until the end where it crashes in glory.