Smallville Review

First off, thanks to my family for my wonderful gifts for my birthday! Now, onto my review for Smallville.

Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE Smallville, and so does my dad. But we have to nitpick it every now and again to justify us watching it.

Before the legend....before the icon… there was a teenager named Clark Kent. Over the years, many tales have been told about Superman, but never has a tale featured the superhero as a teenager. Having the power to rule the world, what made Clark Kent chose good over evil?

When a meteor shower strikes Smallville, a young boy is left behind (along with his spaceship) and is adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent. Raised as a good, wholesome mid-western boy, Clark soon realizes his otherworldly powers are only just starting to emerge. Caught between using his powers to defeat meteorite-infected bad guys and dealing with normal, teenage issues -- sometimes simultaneously, life on the Kent farm is never dull.

We are also introduced to a young, pre-evil Lex Luthor. Who would have ever thought that Lex and Clark were the best of friends before the days of the cape-donning superhero emerged?

It's interesting that the theme for Smallville starts out with "somebody save me". Because that's what I would be screaming if I lived in Smallville. "SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THIS TOWN!" It's as bad as New York sometimes, with all the strange super-villians wanderin' around.

Common problem with this show: One fantastic episode, one bad episode, one fantastic episode...ect. I think the show needs a makeover. Can we start by taking away their copy of "Kryptonite: A Thousand and One Ways to Torture Superman"? Just when you think the writers have exhausted all possible avenues of butchering poor Clark, they find a new, even more gruesome, method to try out. Sometimes, I think the belief in the show is that the only way to make Superman interesting is to cripple him.

Clark Kent in Smallville is a fascinating character. Physically, he's the most powerful person on the planet, but he's also one of the most vulnerable. He's outnumbered six billion to one, and lives every day on a planet that is not his.

And the most interesting thing the writers can think of is shiny green rocks and the same tired refrain. One must wonder, with the amount of Kryptonite readily available on the series, if the whole planet of Krypton landed on Smallville.

However, despite the limitations of a TV budget, "Smallville" has always done a creditable job of bringing convincing production value to its hero- and villain-filled world. The writing team is almost having to write the lore of Superman backwards--we know the outcome, let's see how we get there, now.

Unfortunately, the cast, led by Tom Welling, is looking a bit too grown-up to extend the teen-into-young-adult pretense much longer (not that I tire of looking at him, no matter what age). The producers themselves have joked that having the fictional principals be at least 18 mercifully unlocked some romantic possibilities starting in season five, under the heading "Everyone's Legal."

But I do enjoy Smallville's clever lines as well. Worth seeing.