A_Different_Drummer Review of Smallville

Smallville (2001–2017)

Uneven -- runs the gamut from brilliant to Whaaa?

[7/10 · 9 December 2013]

OK, what do we know for sure? First, it made "players" out of Gough and Millar. Between this, and their "death" franchise, these two became some of the youngest heavy hitters in Hollywood, ever. Second, the re-imagining of a young Kent turned out -- who knew? -- to have way more potential and way more staying power than the re-imagining of the love affair between "Lois and Clark" -- a series that started strong and then imploded. Third, it suffered from the "Buffy" curse (a show it was contemporaneous to) in that it started off all sunshiny and high schooly and jovial, and ended up with dark plots on dark days and invasions from those dreaded Kryptonians (those same beaten-up and used-to-death earth-conquering misfits that turned MAN OF STEEL into an abomination -- see my IMDb review). Fifth, the writers were never sure, season to season, where they wanted to take this, and that's not always a good thing. In Season 1, in the very last few seconds of an episode, a snoring Clark is seen levitating from his bed. You would think this would foreshadow the ability to fly in future segments? Well, you would be right. Sort of. I think we saw a flying Superman in maybe three episodes, tops in the whole run. But my math could be off. But not by much. So clearly the only thing being "foreshadowed" was the indecision of the producers. Also, main characters came and went. What John Schneider did to tick off the producers we'll never know, but he was missed. And we also know that Tom Welling was feeling frisky near the end of the run because he was insisting on "producer" credits. There's bad karma just waiting to happen... Bottom line, a good show with great episodes. Could've been a great show with spectacular episodes.