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  1. #16
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    I watched bits and pieces of the early seasons but only became a big time watcher with the last three seasons. The show did undergo a major shift in its tone and formula then. The seasonal arcs became much more important, and the show could go four or five episodes at a time with a strong pace. Sam Witwer as Bloomsday was the focus of an excellent season with a poorly capped finale moment, Callum Blue was a Rosenbaum-worthy Zod, and the last season was smart enough as to do a greatest hits of the bad guys, with Lionel Luthor returning to make it just that much more awesome.

    There were issues that I'm glad to see Arrow learned from, but overall, it was a pretty good show.

  2. #17
    My Face Is Up Here Powerboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by misslane View Post
    The first three seasons of the show and the last three seasons of the show were both pretty good. There were some great arcs and episodes in the middle seasons as well. I hope you're not suggesting that shows aimed at appealing to young women, even a pre-Superman show, are somehow incapable of achieving greatness. More importantly, the ratings data plainly showed that the majority of viewers were men between the ages of 18-49. The perception that Smallville appealed primarily to tween girls is not supported by the facts.
    Not so much which was "better" but more a matter of personal appeal.

    I'll accept the data. It's interesting because, in the show's DVD features, I would swear they talked about how the show's highest demographic was female (I think girls followed by women) and then male (I think boys followed by men though that might be reversed from what I think I remember). So if the final demographic showed that men were the largest group, that's different than what the show's producers themselves were saying at one point.

    The show was an origin story. Clark's teenage years would therefore naturally be less focused on the hows and the whys of becoming Superman and more on the hows and the whys of developing his identity. Just because the final three seasons of the show began to explore how Clark started to build his iconic persona and iconic life does not mean that the years in which Clark struggled to define his morality and personality were less significant or substantive.
    True but I guess when I think of the early years, it's the soap opera contrivances I think of. Clark can't tell Lana. Clark decides to tell Lana. Insert plot contrivance to prevent it or contrived event to make it a tragedy that must be undone. Clark does something stupid beyond all comprehension. Okay, teenagers do that. Then he does it again. At the same time, I accept that the only alternative to that might be the villain of the week.

    First, I'm not sure when falling in love with a man became equated with winning. Lois did not win Clark. They both fell in love with each other. It wasn't a contest. Second, Lana was not presented as Clark's ultimate love. What the show did was tragically separate Clark and Lana in a way that proved that Lana was not the love of Clark's life. Had the show wanted to send the message that Lana was Clark's ultimate love, then it would have had him spend the remaining two and a half seasons searching for a way to cure Lana of her kryptonite infection. Or, to be even more extreme, show Clark swearing off any future relationships because his heart could only ever belong to one woman.
    It seemed to me that the interest in Lois was already there before Lana's kryptonite infection and that, once that episode was over, he focused on Lois. But I watched the episodes on DVD at a rapid rate so it may have made the sequence of events seem to happen faster.

    In a way, it's one of those "disconnects." Up to a certain point, Clark and Lana was presented as Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, etc., while that presentation served its purpose. In other words, the ultimate (perhaps tragic due to contrived circumstances) love. Then, it wasn't. It was presented as something else. Don't get me wrong. I can see Clark and Lana presented as a first love that they thought was an ultimate love. But in the early going, it was presented as an ultimate love. Then it shifted.

    I guess what I'm saying is that, by the end, it was presented that Clark and Lois were always meant to be together. They kept saying that. But I didn't find the reasons compelling. Clark and Lois were meant to be together because he told Lana and every time he did, Lana was guaranteed to be in a car accident or permeated with kryptonite or what have you.

    But you are right. If he loved Lana as much as the previous storylines indicated, he would have been on a quest to cure her. Instead, he does nothing, goes to no one who might be able to help with that as if the writers just said, "Well, we knew that he was predestined to be with Lois and we had to make something up to get rid of Lana eventually. We made it up. Done."

    [quote]
    Smallville never came close to showing Clark shrugging his shoulders after Lana left and easily falling in love with Lois. Clark didn't start dating Lois until a year had passed after Lana's final visit. He was even in an emotional place in which he had sworn off emotional attachments of any kind when he found himself drawn to Lois. To suggest that Clark went from Lana to Lois as if a lightswitch had been turned on is not supported by the show canon. What show canon did ultimately prove, however, was that Clark's relationship with Lois was one based on authentic love rather than infatuation. Clark's relationship with Lois was depicted as healthier and stronger than anything he ever shared with Lana. It's why Clark was never able to tell Lana she was "the one" or the love his life; it is why Clark was able to be more intimate and more collaborative with Lois than he was ever with Lana.
    [quote]

    Ah but he did tell her and she completely accepted him. Then she got smashed in an accident which, as we all knew was going to happen, led to time travel and the reset button. I think the best that I can say is that Clark and Lana were both struggling with who they were and came to their ideal selves too late to be the person the other would love for life. And that took incredible soap opera contrivances which perhaps the contrivances are what I find annoying or amusing.

    The kryptonite road block closed off one opportunity and allowed Clark to explore new ones. When this happens, it is hardly logical to assume that the next opportunity will be inescapably second rate. If an ambitious student spends his whole life dreaming of attending Harvard University yet ends up at Yale because Harvard rejects him, then it is not impossible for that young man to find Yale to be what he wanted from Harvard and more. It is highly pessimistic, in my view, to support a philosophy which argues that when a desired choice is eliminated, it is inevitable that the next choice will be lesser unfulfilling. In short, second choice does not mean second best.
    True but it hardly makes Lois the only woman Clark was ever meant to be with, something that was stated outright in the later seasons but not backed by how it was presented in my opinion. It's not pessimism or saying you can only love one person and the second love will be second best. In the early going, one thing I thought was (and you may feel differently): " I like the show, I really do. But I can already see one inescapable problem and that is the problem of the setting being trapped by its own mythology. Let's say the actor who plays Clark and the actress who plays Lana have great chemistry. Let's say that this could work if they took it in the right direction. And they have to play it up to the hilt for several seasons. But, inevitably, they will have to start dropping in the extreme contrivances and doing a shift because it is predestined that he ends up with someone else."

    So I didn't perceive it as you did. Remembering that it's a story, I perceived the early stuff as Clark being totally devoted to one person and then some remarks inserted from his Mom about how maybe she wasn't really the one and some massive contrivances. I agree that if Clark was really that in love with Lana, which was what was presented even in the episode where she got the kryptonite problem, he would have been constantly striving to find a cure. But he never even tried as if there was a reality shift in his personality because, from the writing point of view, the whole goal was to get rid of her and get on with him and Lois getting together by the end of the show.

  3. #18
    Spectacular Member gsnake007's Avatar
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    Smallville will always be one of my favorite shows ever. I was 11 when it started and 20 when it ended so i basically grew up with the show and it became incorportated into my life. Sure it had its ups and downs but every show does.

  4. #19
    Superfan Through The Ages BBally's Avatar
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    Smallville at its core is a very hit and miss show, when it hits its really good but when it misses its really bad. Overall, a decent show in my opinion with (in my opinion) the best live action Lex Luthor and a great Lois Lane.
    No matter how many reboots, new origins, reinterpretations or suit redesigns. In the end, he will always be SUPERMAN

    Credit for avatar goes to zclark

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