I want to like Smallville more than I do. I’m not the biggest comic book geek in the world, but I can hold my own. I tried the show when it first came out, but it didn’t catch my interest. A couple of years I blew through five or so seasons of DVDs one lazy summer. These days, I try to watch, but Smallville has got to be one of the most inconsistent shows on television today.
Every summer, there’s enough buzz to get me interested again. Then, sometime around the fifth or sixth episode, I’m gone. Then, as the end of the season draws close, I’m somehow brought back in. Its been that way for a while now, but I don’t get it. Why do I fall into the same trap every year? Looking at the trailer for the upcoming ninth season (courtesy of Mike Ausiello over at EW), I’ll be giving Smallville another shot come fall.
The wrap up to the eighth season sucked me in, but at the same time, pissed me off. I really thought we would see Smallville‘s version of the ‘Death and Life of Superman’ storyline from the comics. I had been calling it all season long, especially with the rumors of a death that permeated the spoilers about the finale. At the end of the day, we saw Doomsday buried (implying that he might come back the way he debuted in the comics, but I doubt Smallville will live long enough), and Jimmy Olson dead. Or, at least the Jimmy we knew, and we left with the idea that a younger family member might carry the name (Frankly, that ending of the plot arc, with the kid ending up with Jimmy’s camera, plain pissed me off. Completely throw out everything Smallville fans had come to accept about their version of Jimmy Olson, as he’s not the same as the OTHER Jimmy).
Despite all of that, as season nine rapidly approaches, I’ve now added Smallville back to the DVR ‘To Do’ list. The trailer looks good. The casting has been great, especially Brian Austin Green. Superman’s greatest film villian, Zod (Gene Hackman’s Luthor be damned), finally comes to town as well. Considering that Zod was first mentioned back in the fifth season, its actually like there is the sense of a layered, pre-planned storyline, that, let’s be honest, obviously isn’t the way it really happened. It also looks like Chloe will get to do more this season than pine after Jimmy. Or Davis. Or Clark (Put me, for the record, in the Chloe/Clark camp, but that ship has obviously sailed long ago).
Based on the preview, it seems that Clark has finally grown some cajones. I’ve been calling for the end of the show for some time now, and its basically because the main character has been incredibly stagnant from a growth perspective. Give Welling a chance to flex that acting muscle just a little, will ya? Hopefully, the ninth season will bring consistency, at least enough to get me to watch all twenty-two episodes.
Clacked by Ivey West 
on Aug 23, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT
“Give Welling a chance to flex that acting muscle just a little, will ya?”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You think he can act any better than he already is?!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
:-p
*POST AUTHOR*
What I know is that he’s certainly never been given the chance to show that he could.
(What I think is that he’d fall flat on his face :) )
Same here Ivey. I managed to watch the first three seasons with eager interest but after that it’s on and off again. Five, six episodes in a row I watch end then – meh. No need for me to tune in again. Same run-of-the-mill shows week after week. Nothing happens. No development at all and most of all really interchangeable plots that lead nowhere.
It kind of reminds me of “Hercules” and “Xena”. There’s a german sketch show that once made a parody about Xena, kinda like the scene in “UHF” about “Rambo – First Blood Part Two”. Some guy has a knife to Gabrielle’s throat and threatens to kill her. You see Xena looking angry. You see the guy. He threatens to kill Gabrielle. Xena starts running. You see the guy. Xena running. The guy. Xena. Guy “I’m gonna do it” and then the side shot where you see Xena about 500 yards away running towards the guy and Gabrielle.
You know nobody dies on Smallville and everything becomes “meh”.
I mean there must be a website with the exact number of Lana’s hospital visits. It must be in the couple of dozens.
Hey, I – I definitely agree with what you and S said. I felt that Welling was a good actor in the days of Judging Amy and early days of Smallville. But despite his brief film role in the ‘Dozen’ series, he seemed to shrug off a movie career when Smallville was hot. But, I stopped actively watching S post-S3, when they stopped allowing Clark to grow. And, in S8, it was a bit difficult to watch him remain one dimensional. However, Chloe, no matter where they place(d) her, continues(d) to grow as a character, possibly b/c she lacked a DC backstory and, of course, due to A. Mack.
It’s pretty clear Welling got bored way back in S6 and phones in his performances now. And, although I liked the first part of the last season, Clark’s lack of development bored me. Hopefully, based on the trailer, the final season will give both the viewers and the lead actors something to tear their teeth on.
The trouble with the show’s inconsistency is not that it starts strong each season and then descends into mediocrity, but that the powerful, mythos-laden episodes are randomly scattered in between all the meaningless filler. Last season was especially hit or miss. I’d suggest just saving them all on the DVR and only watching the ones highly-rated by its fans after the fact.
There are those fans that despised this weaselly version of Jimmy and are glad that’s he’s been excised from the story and replaced by his little brother. :-)
Whatever Chloe’s final fate ends up being, I will always wonder what the two original showrunners had planned for it to be before they left and the show ran far too long.