• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

CW's Smallville revisited
2 2

113 posts in this topic

So for some reason, I never got into this show when it started out. It was the last season that I took in a few episodes. But even then, it didn't pull me in.

 

Now that CW has become one of the superhero channels to watch, is it worth going back to revisit this series?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My wife and I watched the show from the beginning for the first 3 seasons and then we just couldn't take it anymore. The CW "teen drama", "teen angst" aspect of the show was just really boring/hairpulling for the both of us. There was a lot of that stuff (I love her/him, does she/he love me, I can't tell her/him this because of some silly reason, etc.) in the early seasons.

I then came back to it in its last season and I was happy that I did. I really enjoyed the last season. It focused a lot more, imo, on the superhero aspect/ comic universe that I felt was lacking from the first few seasons. When I revisited the seasons that I had skipped, I realized I didn't miss much of the overall story, just a few cool moments here and there.

 

Smallville wasn't a horrible show, and it can keep your attention for the most part, but it's not mindblowing by any means. It has a very different feel then the CW hero shows that are playing today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The CW "teen drama", "teen angst" aspect of the show was just really boring/hairpulling for the both of us. There was a lot of that stuff (I love her/him, does she/he love me, I can't tell her/him this because of some silly reason, etc.) in the early seasons.

 

Someone at work let me borrow their Season 1-5 Smallville set. I tried to get past the pilot to watch this, and by the third episode got real bored.

 

But now that I jump around to some of the better episodes in Season Four and Five (Cyborg is a pretty cool standalone episode), it is much more enjoyable.

 

The CW has come a long ways!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll generally watch shows I've started all the way through, even when they're bad. Smallville started out good enough. Slower first season, like a lot of series. I thought it was good through maybe season 5 or 6. 7, 8 and 9 were trying at times, but season 10 ended the series nicely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The first seasons were a bit rough with their "freak of the week" theme. The only cool episodes were the ones that involved Clark learning about a new power (or Lana strips to her underwear!).

 

The Christopher Reeve episode was amazing…a great "passing the torch" moment.

 

Some of the things they did in later seasons were a bit weird. The Davis Bloom/Doomsday was odd, Lana's love interest Adam was annoying, and that they did to James Henry/Henry James Olsen was completely stupid!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the recommendations everyone.

 

:foryou:

 

I did happen across one yesterday that definitely deviated from the 'huggie - smoochie' earlier episodes.

 

Season 5, Episode 13 (Vengeance):

While in Metropolis giving Jonathan's belongings to charity, Martha is mugged by a gang. To her rescue comes a mysterious, masked vigilante called the Angel of Vengeance, intent on punishing anyone who does wrong. By day, the woman is Andrea Rojas, a co-worker with Chloe at the Daily Planet. When Andrea meets Clark, she reveals her identity and past to him.

 

I'm not sure if she ever appears again. But this episode was dark yet interesting. And the intensity of the story where you find out why she became the Angel of Vengeance and wonder how far she will go was worth the watch.

 

By the way, the death of Jonathan Kent was a pretty good episode as well. It seems to rank in the Top 25 list for quite a few sites.

 

Season 5, Episode 12 (Reckoning):

Clark reveals his secret to Lana, Jonathan and Lex learn the results of the senatorial election, and there is a tragic car accident on the highway that takes the life of someone Clark loves, forcing Clark to appeal to Jor-El for help.

 

The short video at the end where Clark and Martha are watching Jonathan driving Clark around the farm on a tractor was a nice way to close out that episode.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are some really great episodes (Justice was already mentioned) and I'm a big fan of the season 9 finale. My biggest problem with the show, and I'm someone who's watched it two or three times through, is consistency of story and villain. As the show moved on it kept revisiting the exact same type of villain over and over, but pretending it was something new. The best episodes were always when someone important to the DC universe was introduced as a character to be continued with or when someone new learned about Clark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I watched the first 4 or 5 seasons. Really liked the first two, especially Season 2.

 

Show started going off the rails for me when Lana became that witch. I did like the Supergirl intro episode (whenever that was) and I really liked Lois.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I certainly enjoyed it. I thnk the Flash has a similar feel and the protagonists have the same type of appeal

 

I actually feel Flash trying to go out of its way to not be Smallville. It's embracing a full formed superhero world and providing us with way more depth of character. The only real disadvantage of that is that Flash has it's moments of predictability when you already know names, but Smallville didn't really have that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was a big Smallville fan. I even wrote an episode, which sat unread on the showrunner's desk for months. That -script came very close to getting me a writing staff position on a 2004 Flash TV series, but the studio didn't move forward with the show when they weren't happy with the showrunner's pilot -script. :frustrated:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was a big Smallville fan. I even wrote an episode, which sat unread on the showrunner's desk for months. That -script came very close to getting me a writing staff position on a 2004 Flash TV series, but the studio didn't move forward with the show when they weren't happy with the showrunner's pilot -script. :frustrated:

 

:o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was a big Smallville fan. I even wrote an episode, which sat unread on the showrunner's desk for months. That -script came very close to getting me a writing staff position on a 2004 Flash TV series, but the studio didn't move forward with the show when they weren't happy with the showrunner's pilot -script. :frustrated:

 

Now that's interesting! Have you written other stuff too?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is well-timed - I quit watching Smallville after season 5 back in the day, but, just picked it up again from season 6 about a week ago. So far, I'm enjoying it again. Two things became very obvious (again) after getting back into the series: (1) it's very "CW" (re: even more teen/young adult drama/romance than the network's current programming) and (2) thankfully special effects have improved over the past 8-10 years!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was just talking with a friend about Smallville. If WB is truly going to keep the TV and movie franchises away from each other, it would be totally amazing and smart if they brought in Welling as Superman as an occasional guest star on all the WB superhero shows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
2 2