OFFICIAL~SMALLVILLE Discussion thread. (Spoilers Galore)

First of all, I have yet to see any of the 10th season of "Smallville" yet, including the Finale. I exclusively watch TV shows on DVD so I can see everything at once, without commercials, etc. Yes, it can be frustrating to wait for the DVD release(s), but thankfully it's becoming less of an issue for me now since many of the shows I'm a big fan of are ending or have already ended ("Smallville" this year, "Lost" & "24" last year, "Sopranos" back in 2007, etc.)

That being said, I don't mind Spoilers, and I really wanted to find out what happened in the last episode of Smallville, i.e. whether Clark would finally wear the suit, the final fate of all of the characters, etc.

And, I have to say that the above lengthy & detailed review is unquestionably the fairest and most thorough one I've read of the episode so far - even though I haven't even seen this yet, I have read a detailed description online of what took place. And, I noticed that many of the other reviews I read online were uniformly negative; so, it was nice to see that both positive & negative points were covered in this review.

Overall, this finale sounds great. However, I will say that I was dissapointed by the fact that Darkseid didn't appear in the form that we have seen in the comics (since he's one of my favorite DC villains), but I guess this makes sense since "Smallville" is known for putting it's own spin on DC characters. I was also dissapointed that it didn't appear that Clark was fully shown in the Superman suit; it sounds like glimpses of him were shown, either extreme close-ups or at a distance. Though this is dissapointing as well, I can live with this & least he did get to wear the suit, which we were all waiting for. And, I guess that we have to all remember that while this show has great effects, it is a network TV show, and therefore does not have the huge budget that you would see in a Hollywood blockbuster film (for example).

In any case, based on the first 9 seasons and what I know about the 10th season, I have to say that "Smallville" is the best superhero/sci-fi TV drama that I've ever seen, period. And, outside of the first two Christopher Reeve films, IMHO it was also the best depiction of Superman I've ever seen on-screen.

 

I loved the finale, it was exciting and awesome. I thought Part 1 dragged a bit though.

 

First of all, thanks for the great feedback regarding my review. I think part of the problem people had with the Finale is that they had built up their expectations way too much. They expected it to be the greatest thing ever and lets be honest here Smallville is fun but its not exactly known for its high quality.

I tried to come in with realistic expectations because when BSG ended I was incredibly disappointed. I think that was mostly because I had built up in my mind what I expected the end to be like and the two didn't match. I didn't want that to happen to Smallville, I wanted to enjoy the last episode.

The day before the finale I wrote an article advising people to keep their expectations realistic for the finale. There was a list of about 9 things I thought the Finale had left to cover and surprisingly it covered nearly all of them. [Here ends my shameless self promotion ]

Honestly, I do think that my biggest gripe was never seeing Tom Welling in the Superman suit. That was teased as the end result from the very beginning and I felt a little cheated to not get that. But hey, at least the John Williams score sorta made up for it!

 

As a tribute to the pulp 'Freak of the Week'-storylines of the early seasons, they should have had Darkseid become mutated by Kryptonite.

 

So Im trying to find this show on the net from ep 1 and Im having no luck. TNT has been showing it and its got my interest. Its currently on S9. Any help?

 

As always, I'm coming extremely late to this party. I just recently got the Smallville S10 DVD set and am making my way through this, never having seen any of this season before (I watch TV shows exclusively on DVD). Since I haven't remained spoiler-free I already know some of the plot-points; however, this didn't take away from my enjoyment of these episodes.

I've watched about half of the DVD set so far, and am EXTREMELY impressed - this is a very good season, with plenty of great effects/battles/plot twists, etc. So far, here are my initial impressions:

- The season opener was AWESOME - it was great to see Clark "fly" at the end to save everyone from the falling Daily Planet globe. Nice foreshadowing of what we're going to see later.

- It was good when Clark finally told Lois that he was "The Blur", though this was obviously a long time in coming.

- The VRA episodes/theme was interesting, and what was most disturbing about this was that, if people with super-powers did actually exist, this is definitely something that would happen as a result

- Being a fan of the '70's DC Fourth World comics (by the late, great Jack Kirby) with Darkseid and his minions (as well as later incarnations of Darkseid in the Legion of Superheroes comic series, etc.), it was nice to see this character & his crew make their way onto the show, i.e. the Darkseid spirit, 'Club Dessad', 'Granny Goodness', etc.

- Going along with the above, seeing Darkseid as the evil spirit at the end of Episode 3 was chilling. However, I would have preferred if the character hadn't been an actual spirit "infecting/possesing" people, but had instead looked more like the way he did from the comics. That being said, I completely understand the reason for this - this was the way the show's producers wanted to go, and I respect this decision - maybe having the Darkseid spirit taking over people was the only real way they could depict the character, given the TV show's limited budget.

- The horror-themed episode when Lois & Clark ended up in the town where everyone was infected by Blue Kryptonite was great, and reminded me of one of my favorite early X-files episodes (Season 1), as well as "Children of the Corn".

- The "alternate world" episode was superb, and I liked seeing the evil Clark/Ultraman. The ending when the alternate world Lionel made his way into the "real world" Metropolis was unexpected.

- I really enjoyed the episode with the Matrix homage; I'm a huge fan (primarily of the first film), and seeing elements of this make their way into a Smallville episode was fantastic. The scene when Chloe walked up the wall and flipped over was great

- It was nice to see the homages to earlier incarnations of Superman, i.e. Helen Slater (Supergirl) as Clark's real mother, and Terri Hatcher (from the '90's Lois & Clark TV show) as Lois's mother.

 

I finally finished this season - Excellent - here's the rest of my review:

- The iconic JW Superman film music that made it's way onto many of the S10 episodes (before the finale, much of this music seemed to be found playing over the end credits) was very nostalgic & appropriate, given that this was the last season.

- Great episode when Clark & Oliver (Green Arrow) ended up trapped in the Phantom Zone, where Zod was ruler. The vibe/tone/look of this episode reminded me somewhat of "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome".

- The young Lex Luthor clone "Alexander" was interesting, and it was good to see Clark & his mother support this character, despite the obvious connection to Lex. Alexander reminded me a lot of the cloned "Superboy" character from the "Life and Death of Superman" comic-book storyline from the early '90's.

- The episode with Booster Gold (the superhero from the future) & the Blue Bettle was great - the Blue Beetle was especially very well-done. Cool DC comics homage here.

- I enjoyed the Desaad episode with the homage to the great '90's film "Seven".

- The scene when the Darkseid spirit took over the "alternate universe" Lionel Luther was amazing - it was cool that we actually got to see what Darkseid looked like (though this sequence was brief). As I said in my previous post, though it would have been nice to see Superman actually fight Darkseid instead of a "possesed" alt-universe Lionel Luther, I understand why this happened - I suspect it was a budgetary issue.

- The second to last episode was excellent (with Toyman), though I was dissapointed that you didn't see a battle with the "Legion of Doom". Well, at least you did see them briefly at the end of the episode - this scene reminded me of the old cartoon "Super-Friends", since Black Manta (one of my favorite all-time DC villains) was one of these bad guys.

THE FINALE

- I felt this was fantastic - very well-done episode that did a good job of wrapping up the series. It was cool that you finally got to see Clark in the Superman suit (though these scenes were very brief), and I liked how he saved the Earth from Apocalypse at the end - amazing effects. It was also interesting that Lex Luthor was back, though it was sad when he killed Tess Mercer - I felt the redemption of the Tess character in this Season was very well thought-out, and so I really didn't want to see her go this way.

- Seeing Lex as president at the very end was appropriate, given the foreshadowing that we saw regarding this from the beginning of the series.

Re: the issues with the Finale that were mentioned in a previous post:

- Yes, it would have been nice to see a long shot of Clark in the suit instead of the brief glimpses we got at the end. However, I was fine with the way this played out - and, the ending scene when Clark/Superman was flying in space looking at Earth (right before the scene switched to the comic Chloe was reading to her son) was great.

CLOSING THOUGHTS ON THE SERIES:

- Outside of the first two CR Superman films, this series is unquestionably my favorite on-screen depiction of the Superman character. Great update/re-boot/deconstruction of the SM franchise, with a modern, 2000's vibe/tone - and, the show still kept the overall spirit of the original comic book character intact.

- I liked how the show progressed over the years - in the beginning it had a definite sci-fi feel (meteor rocks turning people into mutants, etc.), and as time went on and Clark got older, the show became more rooted in the DC comic-book universe, i.e. the introduction of other DC super-heroes like The Flash, Aquaman, Green Arrow, etc.

- The above being said, I would have liked to have seen more of the DC superheroes make their way onto the show, but I completely understand that some of the reasons for this lack were possibly/probably financial.

- Going along with the above, IMHO the lack of long battles & lack of extended scenes with aliens (i.e., the aforementioned lack of Darkseid, the too brief ending battle with Doomsda