Smallville -
The Complete Seasons 1-7
All Superman DVDs
Smallville DVDs
Buy Now
My rating is for the series and not for this particular set of
DVDs, which I consider to be appallingly priced. I am a longtime
watcher of SMALLVILLE and I wouldn't discourage anyone from taking
time to get acquainted with the show. That said, I'm not sure that
catching up on the show is best accomplished by buying this set. As
I write this review the discounted price is $325. Unless the price
drops dramatically, my advice is to buy this set a volume at a time.
What I usually do when I want to collect a TV series (and I own
around 40 series on DVD) is put all of the individual volumes into
my Amazon shopping cart and then save them for later. Then I
periodically visit my Cart to see if any of the items I'm watching
experience a price drop. For instance, I had all of THE GILMORE
GIRLS in my cart, waiting for the price to drop during a sale. One
day I logged in to see that the prices for most seasons of GG had
dropped to under $20 and I instantly bought all those seasons. Do
the same with SMALLVILLE and I think you will get the entire series
for a whole lot less than $325. (By the way, an interesting tie-in
between Superman and THE GILMORE GIRLS is that the back lot that was
used for the filming of GG was adjacent to the one used for THE
ADVENTURES OF LOIS AND CLARK [it was also used for the tragically
cancelled PUSHING DAISIES]. When Clark visited Smallville in that
series, the Smallville town square was the same one used for the
Stars Hollow town square.]
The other big question is whether someone will want to catch up on
this show. It definitely isn't for everyone. If you enjoy fantasy or
Sci-fi it can be a heck of a lot of fun. Comic book purists
sometimes get too angry watching it to enjoy it. My daughter, for
instance, knows more about Superman comics than anyone I know. She
could probably teach a college level course on the history of
Superman and his various incarnations. She does not share my
enthusiasm for SMALLVILLE. The series is not a canonical version of
Superman: The Early Years as much as it is a reimagining of the
Superman legend focused Clark Kent of Smallville rather than of
Metropolis. There are analogs of nearly everything that you can find
in the regular Superman comics, but in a slightly different form. As
of Season 8 many of Superman's traditional enemies have put in an
appearance on the show, from Lex Luthor (who was through the first
seven seasons a series regular) to Brainiac to Doomsday. There have
been multiple references to the Justice League and many of
Superman's future colleagues have been introduced in the series (but
to date no Batman, Wonder Woman, or Green Lantern - though it is
interesting that the acclaimed Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns has
begun to work as a guest writer on the show - next to Grant
Morrison, Johns might be the most respected writer currently working
on DC superheroes), with JLA stalwarts such as the Green Arrow (a
series regular in Season 8), the Flash, Aquaman, the Flash, and the
Martian Manhunter (a recurring character who in Season 8 has made
several appearances, though he is temporarily stripped of his
powers). In Season 7 Clark's cousin Kara (Supergirl) was a regular.
Seriously, the Superman references are too many to attempt to count.
SMALLVILLE, while freely altering elements of the Superman story, is
deeply respectful of its source material (though many fans of the
comics would undoubtedly disagree). Clark almost always dresses in
variations of blue, red, and yellow, the constituent colors of
Superman's cape and tights. The producers have brought onto the show
as guest stars a large number of actors from previous Superman TV
shows and movies. For instance, Christopher Reeve had a recurring
role that ended only with his death, Margot Kidder appeared briefly
as a guest star, and Christian Kane, the Superman from THE
ADVENTURES OF LOIS AND CLARK. The two things that the creators of
SMALLVILLE said that we would never see on the show are Clark flying
on a regular basis or Clark wearing the Superman uniform. Frankly, I
think that was fine for the first several seasons, but I don't think
they imagined the show would last for 8 seasons. I'm not keen on
seeing Tom Welling put on tights, but I think the show would be well
served by allowing him to fly. At this point Clark's failure to gain
his last ability has become rather silly.
The early years on the show were largely structured around a
meteor-freak-of-the-week format. The idea is that when Clark arrived
in Smallville from Krypton he did so in a meteor shower bringing
many "meteor rocks" (i.e., kryptonite) with him. While toxic to
Clark, the rocks imbue normal humans with a variety of powers. So,
each week in the first few seasons Clark would have to struggle
against some person with unusual powers created by the rocks. It was
pretty consistently the least interesting part of the show.
Thankfully, alongside the meteor-freak-of-the-week were the main
relationships in Clark's life: his parents, his friend and then
later nemesis Lex Luthor (played marvelously by Michael Rosenbaum),
his best friend Chloe Sullivan (again, played wonderfully, this time
by Allison Mack), and most of all, the first love of Clark's life,
Lana Lang (played by the almost impossibly cute Kristin Kreuk).
During all of this many interesting story lines were introduced and
developed, though to tell the truth after a certain point keeping
Lana the focus of Clark's love life kept the show from developing.
Lana left the show at the end of Season Seven, and the result has
been in Season Eight a complete resurgence of the show, easily the
best season in several years, as the departure of Lana and Lex has
allowed the development of an entirely new dynamic for the show. In
particular, while Clark and Chloe's cousin Lois Lane have enjoyed a
love-hate relationship (with Lois treating Clark with persistent
disdain), in Season Eight is definitely more love than hate. The
relationships on the show have sometimes led to some atrocious
storylines, none worse than in Season Six (the worst season on the
show), where things heated up between Lex and Lana.
Over the years I've definitely enjoyed the show more than it has
upset me. My main complaint is that I'm not sure that there is an
overarching story. The narrative definitely feels like it is being
made up as they go along. It isn't like LOST or BATTLESTAR GALACTICA,
where you feel that the story as a whole is informed by where the
series is going to end up. There is an interesting dynamic in the
writing, however, that is fairly unique to SMALLVILLE. Most shows
tend to end pretty much at the climax of the episode, or at most a
minute or two afterwards. Almost every episode of SMALLVILLE
climaxes a good 8 or 9 minutes before the end of the episode. You
then get a few scenes that shows the main characters reacting to the
events of the previous half hour. So you'll always get a scene, say,
between Lex and Chloe and then between Lana and Clark. Most episodes
have a fairly leisurely feel to them. All in all, a good thing.
In short, this is a good series, though certainly not a great one.
If you enjoy fantasy and Sci-fi, you'll probably enjoy it. You'll
sometimes be irritated (especially at how thick-headed Clark is,
though in most other ways Tom Welling makes a thoroughly enjoyable
Clark, and he certainly looks the part), sometimes entertained, and
sometimes blown away. The show usually has memorable season finales,
more than its fair share of truly awful episodes, and a good number
of excellent ones. If it never becomes consistently excellent,
neither does it become consistently bad (with the possible exception
of the terrible Lex/Lana story of Season Six). It does get better
after the first couple of seasons, stays pretty much on the same
level after that (with the exception of Season Six), and then gets
very good in Season Eight again. All in all, I give this series a
thumb's up. I've always looked forward to seeing it each week and
I'll continue to do so until they decide to bring the series to an
end. Just do yourself a favor and collect the individual seasons
individually and not through this very expensive set.
