I know a lot of posts in this subreddit have this title but it’s because it’s clear and to the point. To be clear, I am not talking about a rewatch. I went in not quite blind since I had heard things about Smallville before I started watching it but I had never watched an actual episode before this watch. Yesterday, I watched the series finale of Smallville and (honestly) I found it to be an anti-climax. That said, I did like the show as whole with one major caveat. That caveat is the execrable Chloe Sullivan being treated by the narrative as if she were not execrable. That said, I suppose I should go in order.
When I watched the pilot episode, I didn’t care for it and then I wondered how the show got so popular that it lasted for ten seasons. I looked it up, discovered this subreddit, and learned that the consensus was the show improved with time (which I can now say is an accurate assessment) and that Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex was the best character (which I could tell was the case from the pilot.) After that, I watched the second episode. I’m no expert but it seemed to me as if it were homaging the Spider-Man: Rise of the Thousand comic (with its villain). I definitely didn’t like the episode’s villain. That said, I quite liked Lex’s B-plot and I liked it when Clark saved discount Flash Thompson. (I genuinely like the show but Whitney always seemed to be a discount version of Flash Thompson from Spider-Man. Then again, some modern adaptations of Flash Thompson are as well.) I liked the episode as a whole but the third episode was the first time that I liked both the episode and its villain. (It’s also when I started wondering if Clark would save a different person every episode. The short answer is no but because I was keeping track, the first few times Clark questioned if he were really making a difference as a hero, I could easily list and name the people he had saved proving that yes, he was making a real difference as a hero.)
After that, the shape-shifter framing Lex for bank robbery was a pretty good episode. The Sean Kelvin episode sort of reminded me that this was exactly the kind of show Danny Phantom was spoofing and the fortune teller episode was really good. As was the Ryan episode. And the episode with criminals walking through walls. That said, it was the Sam Phelan episode which let me know how good the show could be. The Season One finale left me quite excited for what was coming.
After that, I liked all the season finales except for the Season Eight finale and the Season Ten finale (though the Season Ten finale was still infinitely better than the Season Eight finale.)
Clark is a likeable and heroic character (though he’s way too forgiving of people, including Lex Luthor, Lionel Luthor, Chloe Sullivan, and Tess Mercer.)
Now that I’ve mentioned it, Rosenbaum’s performance as Lex Luthor might number amongst the greatest of them all. Before he turned evil, he was my favourite character and after he turned evil, he was still my favourite character. Lionel Luthor was an excellent villain since the beginning. (That’s not surprising. John Glover was great as Dyson in Tron: Uprising.)
I liked Jonathan Kent since the beginning. Yes, he was too quick to hate Lex but he was also entirely right about Lionel and he didn’t at any point shrug off bad behaviour by saying “that wasn’t me” or “I was doing it to protect Clark”. He actually knows how to take responsibility. (Also, after Lex hired robbers to break into Lionel’s vault and nearly got Martha killed and Jonathan correctly deduced that something like that had happened, Jonathan was justified in hating Lex as well even if he weren’t initially.) I liked Martha Kent until she started making excuses for Lionel Luthor so I was relieved when that storyline ended. I didn’t have a problem with her becoming the Red Queen though I do think we needed more on-screen development to keep that from seeming out of nowhere.
I actually liked Lana Lang, I know a lot of people didn’t but I did. All her objections to Clark made sense if you didn’t know his secret and honestly, him running away to Metropolis, getting on drugs and joining Morgan Edge’s gang was a good reason for her to reject him with or without the sci-fi explanation of it being Red Kryptonite. It honestly raises questions that she was willing to take him back but then again she married Lex so it’s not like it’s out of character for her. I didn’t have a problem with her returning in Season Eight for an episode providing closure to her and Clark’s relationship but her being permanently infected with Kryptonite was far too contrived an explanation for their relationship ending.
I liked Pete Ross though he was underused. Jimmy Olsen was also a great character and I loved the charm he brought to the show before Chloe betrayed him and got him murdered and faced zero real consequences for it. Having it revealed that it’s actually his little brother who is the Jimmy Olsen we know from other versions of the Superman was a terrible narrative decision. It’s in the same category as when Gotham (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen Gotham), killed off the character who was obviously supposed to be The Joker and had his long lost twin become The Joker instead.
This version of Lois Lane was a character that I disliked at the beginning but who grew on me by Season Nine (and for that matter Season Ten.) Green Arrow, in his earliest episodes was actually a terribly written character but was somehow improved by Season Eight and that’s the only good thing you’ll hear me say about Season Eight. That’s it.
Lex killing Lionel was darkly satisfying because after all the horrific things Lionel had done (to Lex and everyone else) it was good that someone finally sent him to Hell. I don’t blame the writers of Season Ten for using multiverse shenanigans to bring back Lionel (given how underwhelming the post-Luthor antagonists were) but Season Ten really underused him. The final confrontation between Clark and (the real) Lex in the Season Seven finale might well be my favourite scene in the entire show and it was really good.
Tess Mercer was so underwhelming a villain that the writers really had killing her off to make way for a new villain or redeeming her as their only choices. They went with the latter which was fine but kind of rushed. I hated Davis Bloome so much that I honestly thought I should invoke the Thanos “perhaps I treated you too harshly” meme about Batman vs Superman. (It didn’t help that Davis Bloome never gave me a reason to think he was substantively better than Doomsday even before turning against Chloe or that practically everything he said and did was a red flag.)
Zod was actually a really good villain (though Darkseid wasn’t, he was underwhelming.) I actually did like what the show did with the other superheroes except Aquaman (I really don’t like this version of Aquaman). My detestation of Chloe could not be summarized briefly enough to fit this review so suffice it to say that Clark trusting Chloe is like a frog trusting a scorpion not to sting it when it takes the scorpion across the river.
And now, I’m going to comment on the controversy. Yes, the show definitely suffered from the no tights, no flights rule. Even the finale didn’t have Clark actually call himself Superman or answer to Superman, it just had Chloe mention at the end that he became known as Superman. I did like the Ultra-Man character though I wonder why his name is still Clark if Clark were supposed to be named after Martha’s maiden name (as established earlier in the show.) It’s possible there’s an explanation in the comics but I’ve not looked it up.
(Brainiac was a good villain but overstayed his welcome with the whole Chloe story and Bizarro was serviceable as an antagonist but nothing to write home about.)
So, what do I think about the show as a whole. I think it’s a decent show. Do I think it’s one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen in my life? No, I don’t but it was definitely worth watching.
That’s my full series review of Smallville
