Originally Posted by
Jim Kelly
At the end of season 8, what I like the most in these later seasons is the Lois & Clark scenes. I love to watch them spar. I'm relieved that season 7 saw the end of the Lionel-Lex-Lana angst (with a caveat) and season 8 is the better for it. If they were going to leave Smallville behind, and they already junked Martha and Jonathan, then I'm glad they could finally turn the page and focus on Metropolis.
However, they can't completely let go (that's the caveat). They find ways to make Lex still a big piece of the drama--even using other actors to sub for Michael Rosenbaum. And just when it seems like Clark is ready to move on from Lana, and the relationship heats up with Lois, back comes Lana to steal all the focus, once again. And then there's Tess Mercer, who inherits all the baggage from these characters, for no reason.
I hate how the Lana story ends, because it isn't about Clark growing as a character and realizing that Lana is not the one. Instead, after totally falling right back into the Lana obsession, he's forced to give her up because he can't physically be with her (although that's debatable). And this short-changes Lois--if Clark chooses her, she'll always be the booby-prize, the woman he settled for because he couldn't have Lana.
The lack of Erica Durance is so bothersome. I don't know if she had some episode limit on her contract, but every season (thusfar), she's missing for a lot of the time--and we don't get to see her interacting with Clark. Chloe eats up most of the story time. Erica Durance even uses up one of the episodes she has playing Chloe (but that was pretty funny). Many of the episodes, I'm just wondering where the heck Lois Lane is at.
And poor Jimmy, he deserved better.
So now I've seen Sam Witwer as Agent Liberty (on SUPERGIRL) and as Doomsday--and both could be the same character, the way they're played on these two shows. I put up with the David Bloom stuff, because I thought that it was all heading toward something. I expected a season finale where Bloomsday and Red-Blue-Blur face off to the death and a super-cliffhanger (Lois crying over the dead body of Clark). But instead of a bang, it ends with a whimper.
I got a Ralph Dibny twitch thinking about this outcome. Was there some behind the scenes drama that short-circuited the story?
Retroactively, that failure to launch puts the Bloomsday-Chloesen arc in an even worse light. The parallels between Allison Mack in real life and Chloe Sullivan on the show are hard to miss in this story arc (did the writers know something?). One thing I did appreciate was the flashback to young Chloe and young Clark. The young Chloe actress had an uncanny resemblance to older Chloe.
Tess Mercer started out as an intriguing character, but I soon loathed her. It's this thing the writers do, where they keep the viewers guessing as to the ethics of any character. Are they good or bad? Tess is a substitute Lex or Lana, but with none of their back story. I got so annoyed with her and I see on IMDb that she remains for the duration of the series.