Looking back on 2001, I have memories of driving down the highway and thinking, “Look… up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Superma…. Waitaminnit!! That’s just a billboard with a picture of a guy in a cornfield with a big ‘S’ painted on his chest.” That was pretty much my first introduction into the WB world of “Smallville.” At the time, I had read many articles and heard many rumors of this ‘hip new’ re-telling of the Superman saga. The series hit TV screens at a time when teenage Sci-fi was hitting its stride on the network. It had given birth to “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer” and “Roswell”, though both eventually ended up on UPN. Though I thought both of these shows were great, the thought of a “Dawson’s Creek-isized” Superman didn’t really appeal to me. And there was a general doubt all around that the show would ‘take off.’

When I finally saw the Pilot episode, I was surprised at how good it actually was. It wasn’t necessarily great, but there was something about it that was engaging. I started to have a feeling the WB might have a hit on their hands. As I continued to watch that first season, the characters started to grow on me and I was able to separate the series from its ‘Dawson-like’ persona. I thought that Tom Welling was an excellent choice to portray the young Clark Kent. He had the perfect look for the role, and it was easy to see that he had the capability to grow into the part. In the first few episodes, Welling was still a bit stiff and some of the teen ‘angst’ of wanting to be normal seemed a little forced. But over the course of the season, he improved immensely.

The one actor who sold me on the show immediately was Michael Rosenbaum. His portrayal of the young Lex Luthor was (and still is) note perfect. As the son of a rich industrialist, he was a picture of weariness. He gets what he wants, and though he was not yet the villain he is destined to become, you can see it simmering just underneath the surface. His attempts to be the ‘good guy’ are often met with distrust and criticism, and this just added fuel to the fire burning within. I was glad to see the series has carried on long enough to see Lex evolve almost to the point of taking the character fully into ‘Darth’ mode. He was almost there in the 5th season, and the 6th looks to be the one that finally takes him over the edge.

Rosenbaum’s performance was enhanced by the casting of John Glover as his father, Lionel Luthor. The ever-evolving plot between these two characters became nothing short of a Greek tragedy. Glover’s fine performance in the role was a highlight of every episode he was in and I hoped that the character would be expanded on as the series continued. Fortunately, he was… in spades.

The only slight weaknesses I found in that 1st season were the stories in general. I wanted to see a greater plot evolve over the course of the season, and in some ways it did. But the individual episodes themselves were more like ‘monster of the week’ affairs with different Smallville citizens falling prey to Kryptonite and becoming ‘villains.’ It pretty much happened week after week, and it became a little tiresome. However, the series began to mature during the last part of the season, and that little plot device started becoming a little less used. By the time the series reached its final few episodes, it had become the series I hoped it would be, a positively charged pre-story of the icon-to-be.

I ended up getting completely sucked into the 1st season, first and foremost by all the references of things to come, most of them thrown out as little asides meant to be caught by Superman fans. As I mentioned, the beginning of the season took a while to find its footing so at first some of them were a little trite, but again as the series went on, they became increasingly clever and downright prophetic. I was also drawn in by the Lana Lang / Clark Kent / Chloe Sullivan triangle. Clark loves Lana, Lana loves Whitney, Chloe loves Clark and so on. What at first seemed a bit hackneyed eventually turned out to be quite emotionally compelling, and as we moved into the 2nd season, downright tragic. Being a fan of the underdog (not the other superhero), I continuously rooted for Chloe (the lovely Allison Mack) to get Clark, but it was never quite to be.

A few other small items I have to mention before I totally get into the 5th season DVD release is the fact that people get hurt in the series. And I don’t mean just in the big fights. I loved the idea that the main characters bruise when punched, and go to the hospital if thrown through a car windshield. They don’t just get up and shake it off (well, except Clark, duh). Its a little attention to detail that really added to the show. Though I will admit that as the series progressed I wondered just how Lex could survive when he gets knocked out seemingly at least once in every episode. And I lost count on the number of bullet holes the boy has.

Throughout the 1st season, we saw Clark starting to develop some of his powers. He could obviously already run reaaaallllyyyy fast, but was taken by surprise when he could see through the wall into the girl’s locker room. With the 2nd season, more and more powers started becoming evident, the most notable being heat vision, which was presented as a metaphor for sexual-awakening, with some truly hysterical results. We also got ever closer to flying, with scenes of Clark saving Lana from a car sucked up in a twister and making the jump across the span between Metropolis’ Daily Planet and Lexcorp buildings. There is even an actual scene of flying, which is somewhat written off as it turns out to be a dream sequence. There are even two great episodes dealing with Clark’s experiences with Red Kryptonite, which made him turn bad. These episodes might have come off a little silly, but Welling does a great job of going all Jekyll/Hyde, and made them wholly believable.

The 2nd season continued to get better and better with the story of Clark’s past being brought more to the forefront. The stories became ever more complex, and issues from other episodes began to creep up again with often surprising results. Between the discovery of prophetic cave paintings and the regeneration of his ship, this history and his ultimate purpose became ever more apocryphal. He began to wonder if he was really here to do good, or if he was meant to rule the planet. There wasn’t a weak episode in the season. My favorite had to be “Rosetta” which dealt heavily with this particular issue. I also love it because the cinematic history of Superman collided with its future as Tom Welling met the late Christopher Reeve.

Reeve played a billionaire scientist who had been ‘watching the skies’ as it were, and had intercepted seemingly coded messages being broadcast to Earth. He didn’t know what they meant, but things become clear as he learned about the existence of Kent. In the scene they shared together, the possibilities of Clark’s existence became ever more complex, punctuated by some of the music from the earlier Superman movies. Throughout the series, we would occasionally catch little notes from the score, but they were front and center in this episode, to goose bump-inducing effect. (Be sure to watch right after the end of the episode for a great little bit of business between Reeve and Welling.)

With the 3rd season of the series, it just kept getting better and better. My wife and I had gotten so ‘into’ the series that we had to watch the 3rd season episodes as they originally aired and we were continually blown away by the events that took place. The mysteries surrounding Clark’s origins came to a head as clue after clue revealed that his birth father Jor-El (fittingly voiced by actor Terrance Stamp) might have had plans for him that he doesn’t agree with. The beginning of the season offered Welling a further opportunity to explore Clark’s darker side as the first episode still found him under the influence of Red Kryptonite, and his travels brought him to the teeming city of Metropolis.

We were also introduced to the character of Perry White, whom we all know later becomes Clark’s editor at the Daily Planet. Here he was still battling the demons of alcoholism, as well as the stigma of having crossed Lionel Luthor. White was played by character actor Michael McKean (who is married to Annette O’Toole by the way), and he turns in a terrific performance. To make the season even better, Reeve also returned for one final appearance.

As good as each episode was in the 3rd season I would be hard-pressed not to mention the season finale, “Covenant”, which was easily one of the most powerful episodes of the series. I don’t want to give anything away, as the plot definitely ‘thickened.’ Suffice to say, the closing moments of that episode are jaw-droppingly shocking, and the music that plays in the background adds to its chilling effect.

So far, only the 4th season turned out to be a little of a disappointment. The dynamics of some of the cast had changed drastically, and for some reason the writers opted to ‘turn up the heat’ as it were. The show became ‘sexier’, which really didn’t suit it that well. Plus, the mythology had grown so much as to become a little too complicated. We were concerned that we would hit a point where the unanswered questions would take so long to answer that we would completely lose interest.

Over the course of the 4th season, the writers took some really big chances with some of these really big changes and the series both benefited and suffered. There were a few episodes that flat out didn’t work, most were ‘okay’, but just enough of them were SO good as to make up for the rest of the season. I really don’t wish to get into too many details, otherwise this would become way too spoiler ridden.

Some of what I will point out in terms of misses was the casting of Erica Durrance as a young Lois Lane. She’s in several of the episodes (a few too many) and though it’s obvious that she is a talented actress, her take on Lane was increasingly annoying. From her first scenes, she rubbed us the wrong way and the delivery of her lines was just terrible. There was a sense she was over compensating her line delivery with some kind of weird exuberance. I’d like to say she improved over the season, but no such luck.

I’d also like to mention that I did appreciate the producers working hard to bring some of the comic book mythology into play in small ways. For example, there were episodes where we met pseudo-versions of ‘The Flash’ and Krypto. But while these were some nice little touches, unfortunately making the first one a thief and the second an experiment that came out of Lex’s labs kinda took the wind out of the sail. As the season came to a close, we were once again treated to an awesome episode (but still not quite as awesome as the third season finale) that made us hot for the 5th season to start.

Where the 4th season offered more missteps on the part of the writers, the 5th season returned the series to form and began to finally bring some pseudo closure to many of the issues plaguing the previous seasons. I don’t want to get into to many details, but some of the episodes here were amongst the best of the series. With some exceptions… I'd like to get to that first. One of the episodes, "Thirst", was the absolute worst of the entire run of the series. It involved a sorority of vampires, the head of which was named Buffy Saunders. While a bit whimsical in its attempt to poke a little fun at "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer", and its obvious nod to James Marsters (who joined the cast this season), it was terrible. I wondered what in the world the writers were thinking when they did this one, only to have it answered by a very amusing commentary. It seems the writers realized just how terrible it was, only a little too late. A bit of last minute editing improved it (they say), but in the end it was probably still a mistake. There was another close one with "Lexmas", the requisite Christmas episode. At first it seemed a little trite; with Lex being shot and in the hospital dreaming of a life he could have if he would only make the right decision. It was kind of an "It's Wonderful Life" take off that could have gone horribly wrong, but redeemed itself fully by continuing in the forging of a super villain.

The 5th season also brought with it a huge tragedy and one I almost didn’t see coming. But knowing the mythology of Superman, when it happened the sense of sadness was huge (thanks to the terrific scripts and performances that brought it about) but I was also thrilled to see that the show's creators were willing to make such a huge sacrifice in the name of said mythology, at the risk of losing fans. If you watch no other episodes in the 5th season, the episodes "Reckoning" and "Vengeance" are required viewing.

The 5th season also brought with it introductions to the characters of Arthur Curry, better known as Aquaman and Victor Stone, a.k.a. Cyborg. Two future heroes… one of which will join Superman later in life in the JLA (the Justice League of America, not the Junior Lifeguard Association). I thought they handled Cyborg pretty well with his episode, but Aquaman was a bit annoying (which is probably why he got along so well with Lois Lane). I didn’t hate him, but he came across a little too much surfer dude to me, 'bro.'

And now… the 6th season hits DVD this week, just prior to the start of the show's 7th (can you believe it??) season. We pick up right where we left off, with Clark trapped in the Phantom Zone and Lex's body having been taken over by the evil General Zod. The first episode of the 6th season is a budgetary nightmare; I can only imagine how much money was pumped into it. The effects sequences and shots of Metropolis destroyed by riots are simply amazing in this episode. My only complaint is that the huge build up that was the 5th season finale was for the most part taken care of in this episode. Well, except for the fact that there are now several Phantom Zone escapees running around and it's up to Clark to round them up.

I will say that the 6th season so far is probably the strongest season throughout since the 3rd season. There were even less 'bad' episodes this time around than in the previous couple of seasons. But like most seasons, the bad are really, really bad. The 6th seasons bad episode was "Noir", which was kind of cute as it presented the cast in a black and white 1930's Metropolis…. But that's all it was… cute. All the rest of the episodes were pretty darn good, and kudos to the creators for introducing Oliver Queen / Green Arrow (Justin Hartley), one of my favorite DC characters ever. His story arc included bringing in all the other 'heroes' that Clark has met and forming a kind of early Justice League. It was a little corny, being all 'cool and hip', but overall it was quite satisfying.

The 6th season DVD release from Warner Home Video is a must own for fans of the series (and if you watch any of the seasons, you’ll become a fan, believe me). All 22 episodes are included here as well as a few nicely chosen extra features. Much to my enjoyment most of them seemed to focus on Green Arrow. "Green Arrow: The History of the Emerald Archer" offers great retrospective of the character as seen through the eyes of many of the writers who have given him life over the years. You'll also find a series of animated origin 'mobisides' collectively called "The Oliver Queen Chronicles", which were created to be viewed on cell phones (ahhh… technology…) as well as a 'making of' featurette on the series.

Additionally, there are a bunch of deleted scenes strewn throughout the discs and a featurette on Smallville fans that is entertaining, eye-opening… and a little creepy. Finally, the studios thought fans might like to check out the series of animated comic books that were meant to bridge some of the 6th season's episodes.

Considering how much I deplored 'Superman Returns", I am glad to see “Smallville” continue to be a hit for the WB, though I am surprised they kept it going this long. It may not represent the life of the young Clark Kent as perfectly as many comic book purists might want it to, but I still consider it to be a case of re-invention done right.

Episodes:
Zod
Sneeze
Wither
Arrow
Reunion
Fallout
Rage
Static
Subterranean
Hydro
Justice
Labyrinth
Crimson
Trespass
Freak
Promise
Combat
Progeny
Nemesis
Noir
Prototype
Phantom

Starring: Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk, Michael Rosenbaum, Allison Mack, Annette O’Toole, Erica Durrance and John Glover
Extras: Green Arrow - The History of the Emerald Archer, Smallville - The Ultimate Fans, The Oliver Queen Chronicles, The Making of the Oliver Queen Chronicles, Smallville Content Wraps, Deleted Scenes
Specifications: Widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Studio: Warner Brothers
Release Date: 9/18/2007
Region 1
MPAA Rating: NR
Website

We'll give Smallville: Season 6 an A.