My Smallville journey finally comes to an end. I knew ten seasons would take a long time, but it really has been months of Smallville. That’s a lot of Smallville. But for as long as I’ve been looking at Smallville clips and images while writing these articles, I knew something about that finale would be special. I still had to go through all of Season Ten to get there, though. Not that Season Ten is bad, just more of the same.
1. Meandering
So much of Season 10 was hard to get through. All the same story lines, all the problems and resolutions. With a few changes in how dark the series was (and the ways in which characters dramatically evolve from season to season) you could throw an episode from Season Seven, Eight, Nine, or Ten amongst each other and not have it feel all that different. I had trouble getting through some of these episodes and trouble moving onto the next one.
I’m so tired, Smallville.
2. Return of Old Characters
If you were to ask me which seasons were the best in Smallville, the answer is simple: The ones with Martha and Jonathan. So whenever they return to the screen this season, their scenes have so much heart that the show, the stakes, and the characters feel real again. I’m not sure if its just that Annette O’Toole and John Schneider are better actors, or if the premise of the show is irrevocably trapped in a town where Clark needs his parents, but the show just works better with them, man.
And (spoiler) even Lex is a welcome face. I bemoaned him for a couple of seasons, but he is way more electrifying and interesting than Doomsday.
3. Lois’s Undying Devotion
Once Lois and Clark commit to each other, Lois becomes this oddly supportive woman who calls Clark “sweety.” Part of me likes seeing Clark get this support system that he’s yearned for for so long, but another part of thinks about the Lois who punches guys in the face first and thinks about how she’s going to get out of the situation later.
It’s a delicate line to balance, the supportive wife and the uncompromising Lois Lane. And I’m not sure if I’m being too nitpicky.
What are your thoughts, Erica Durance lovers?
4. The Vigilante Registration Act
In this season the public knows about super heroes and we learn that the government has been plotting against them. One of the methods they are using is legislation, forcing heroes to make their identities known to better control them.
This storyline makes an awful lot of sense due to Smallville‘s people-before-heroes approach, but something about it doesn’t sit right with me. I guess it’s that it’s not fun and more annoying than compelling. I mean, is a law really going to stop Clark from doing the right thing? And how are you going to cage the Man of Steel?
5. Darkseid
Season Ten does something very interesting with the “main” villain. Darkseid isn’t so much a visible presence, but instead a threat in all of us. So effectively, the villain this season is our doubts and fears. Which is a smart villain for a boy who is not yet a man. I spent the season wondering where Darkseid is, but reflecting on its structure I have to admit — it’s pretty clever.
6. The Final Episode
The last episode in a series is difficult to do well. I’ve seen so many shows deliver something unsatisfying. Smallville is not one of them.
There isn’t a single innovative thing about their approach. A wedding, an ultimate evil, a reminder of the show’s past, a couple of montages, and a final step off that rooftop and into the sky, and MY GOD, it works.
I guess in a show where they spend so much time withholding “Superman” things from us and slowly coerce us each season with a few more Super-morsels, that in the final episode when they throw off their concealing shroud and give us everything we want, it’s hard not to be a bit elated by it.
I accept the Smallville formula. I understand Smallville formula. The show is not about Superman, but instead the journey toward becoming Superman. But ten seasons is a long time to wait.
7. In Its Final Moments, it Grasps the Proud Tradition
Superman is more than an show, or comic, or character. He is an ideal. He is a perpetual light we can look to when we need it. He is in the pages Action comics. He is in the radio introduction of Jackson Beck. He is in George Reeves’s authoritative voice. He is the curl in Christopher Reeve’s hair. He is in the trumpets of John William’s immortal theme. He is in the hopeful eyes of Tom Welling.
And for the final moments of Smallville, it reaches the heights of that tradition and makes us proud.
