|
Smallville is an American superhero television series developed by writer-producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, based on the DC Comics character Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The series follows Clark Kent (Tom Welling) in the fictional town of Smallville, Kansas, before he becomes known as Superman.
Why It Rocks[]
- Despite taking many liberties with the source material, it maintains the core elements of the Superman franchise (Clark Kent becoming Superman at age 24, Kal-El being adopted by two farmers, to name a few).
- The idea of a TV show retelling Superman’s origin story is a pretty solid idea.
- They do introduced their own version of the Justice League.
- They even featured well-known Superman villains like Lex Luthor, General Zod, Darkseid, Doomsday, Parasite, Metallo, and etc.
- The success and popularity of this show helped make live-action superhero shows popular, and spawned many like the Arrowverse in 2012. The Arrowverse likely wouldn’t even exist without Smallville.
- Many actors from previous DC media appear in the series.
- Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in the Donnerverse films, plays Dr. Virgil Swann, the man entrusted by Jor-El in protecting Clark.
- Annette O’Toole, who played Lana Lang in Superman III, plays Martha Kent.
- Terence Stamp, who played General Zod in Superman II, does the voice of Jor-El.
- Michael Rosenbaum does a pretty great job as Lex Luthor, even better than Gene Hackmen. In fact, Rosenbaum admitted he would like to reprise his role as Lex.
- Awesome theme song.
Bad Qualities[]
- Some of the CGI hasn’t aged too well, particularly in the first five seasons and the last 5 as well.
- Darkseid, only just appears as a shadow and his defeat by getting stabbed away by Clark Kent was anti-climatic.
Reception[]
As of November 2020, Smallville has a 7.5/10 on IMDb.
Smallville has been praised for it’s writing, acting, visual effects, and is still considered by many fans to be one of the best Superman stories ever written.