Originally, this was going to be a post about the ways that Smallville failed to live up to my hazy childhood memories of the show. I was gonna go on a tirade about how the show’s talk of destiny and making Clark become a superhero that wasn’t Superman ultimately made the final seasons drag on. However as I tried to write that post, I kept thinking back to the early days of the show. Back when I couldn’t wait to watch another episode and see where the story went.
So instead I’m going to discuss the season that I loved the most: season 1.
I think the reason for season 1’s success was the character writing. This season had the most consistently motivated characters out of all the other seasons, hands down. The characters aren’t one-dimensional tropes meant to fill some archetype. They are multifaceted people.
This approach to characterization makes for a phenomenal coming-of-age Superman story. In my opinion, Superman is best when he is allowed to make mistakes and be—well, human. Smallville probably was instrumental in me forming this opinion. In this show, Clark Kent isn’t some saint in the making. He’s just some kid who happened to have superpowers.
Clark has an interesting duality when it came to his Kryptonian abilities. He gets frustrated with his parents about having to hide his secret, but he understood why they wanted to protect him. He wanted to share this secret with his friends, but he was petrified by how they might react. This is also the first time I experienced a Clark Kent who hated his powers. Clark’s frustrations weren’t subtle with Clark referring to himself as a freak at times. Self-loathing is not the time of thing that Comes to mind when you think Superman, but the writers made it work well.
Chloe was a confident social outcast, but at times she can be self-conscious and even shy. She had a crush on Clark, but this fact didn’t rule her character all season. When re-watching the show, I honestly thought I remembered wrong that Chloe had a crush on Clark. That is until it came up in the second half of the season. The later seasons will struggle with having a Chloe-centered plot without bringing up the crush, so I appreciated that we got to know her and Clark’s friendship separate from it.
The Kents were good parents but at times their desires to protect Clark’s secret made them a little overbearing. It was really interesting to see this version of them because all other versions of the Kents I’ve seen were perfect parents. It was refreshing to see them in over their heads with the struggles of parenting a teenager plus the added stress of hiding the fact that he’s an alien from the public.
The best example of this was my favorite character, Whitney Foreman. With Whitney, the story never tried to demonize him as Clark’s rival and never to made him out to be a saint that Clark couldn’t measure up to. He’s a jerk-jock who happened to care about the people in his life. Whitney even recognizes his faults when he apologized and forms a friendship with Clark. The good and bad sides of Whitney aren’t divorced from each other either. Like when his father was sick, Whitney sacrifices his dreams of becoming a pro-athlete and takes over the family business, but his added stresses and responsibilities strain his relationship with Lana.
On that note, Lana was probably the poorest written character of the main cast this season. They do give her some depth as the popular girl who didn’t obsess over her social standing, but they don’t (intentionally) allow her to have a dark side. They attempt to do this by giving her a sad backstory about watching her parents get crushed by a meteor. This fact does not effect Lana’s personality other than the fact that she won’t shut up about it. The writers try to make Lana the perfect girl that Clark wants; unfortunately, they only succeed in accidentally making her a cheater. All of season one, Lana is emotionally cheating on Whitney with Clark and lying to Whitney’s face about it. My problem with Lana isn’t that she’s doing this, it’s that it’s not being acknowledged. If anyone recognized that this was wrong and she wasn’t perfect then Lana would have been an interesting way to write Clark’s fated ex-girlfriend.
Smallville’s version of Lex is more reformed wild-child than corrupt businessman, and if not for the comics, it wouldn’t be clear which way he’d go. With the addition of Lionel (Lex’s corrupt businessman father) as his foil, Lex’s desire to be a better man was apparent. With his inevitable villainy approaching, Lex fought between being a good man or living up to his father’s legacy. His new and intense friendship with Clark only added to the Lex’s dilemma.
The Lex and Clark bromance made the show for me. Their friendship was full of sincerity and passion. Lex had spent his life surrounded by people who judged him because of his name or appearance, so it was refreshing to meet Clark, who just wanted to be Lex’s friend. For Clark, whose strange abilities and newly discovered alien heritage made him feel even more isolated than the average teen, Lex’s support and guidance helped him feel normal for once. Of course, the constant foreshadowing of their future animosity and their current trust issues hung over their friendship like storm clouds.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I became a hardcore Clark and Lex shipper after this re-watch. Clark’s constant lying about his emerging powers and Lex’s obsessive digging into Clark’s life would ultimately lead to the end of their star-crossed friendship, but that palpable tension sure did add some spice the early days.
(Side note, when I started shipping them, the age difference wasn’t very clear. With scenes of them driving, talks of prom, and Clark being played by a 24-year-old, it’s clear that the writers originally envisioned Clark older than the 14-year-old that later seasons imply he was. Despite Lex being shown drinking in his mansion, there was a ton of under-aged drinking in the show, so all we knew is that he was too old for high-school. I promise I’m not so weirdo who ships adults and children.)
Anyways. Smallville is probably the only show I’ve watched where I have this intense desire to go back and give the early seasons another watch. Even though this post was centered around season 1, I would say that I enjoyed the show during the first 4 seasons. The meteor freak of the week trying to kidnap Lana, Lex constantly passing out every time Clark needs to use his powers, and all the stories about Clark getting a new ability (the heat vision episode often comes to mind) were my favorite parts of the show and addition season 1’s characterization just made it even better.
I Think Thinks 