Smallville The Best, The Worst of Smallville

[SV Fan]

There was times I thought it was ok. But then ya they went to heavy with them. Where it should have ended, and ollie be with dinah.

I didn't have issue with it when both characters were on the show, what annoyed me in Season 10 when Ollie's purpose became bringing up Chloe every episode she wasn't on.

Honestly couldn't they just come up with a simpler plot Chloe left for whatever reason(that doesn't involve her getting kidnapped) and comes back in Collateral and cut out al the Ollie whining where is Chloe.

 

[Webhead2006]

I agree there man. It was just as bad as when ollie first gave up being ga.

 

[SV Fan]

I agree there man. It was just as bad as when ollie first gave up being ga.

I think I was more annoyed in S9 when they did the Ollie is a drunk rehash(as if it wasn't bad enough the first time in S8).

 

[Milos]

I didn't have issue with it when both characters were on the show, what annoyed me in Season 10 when Ollie's purpose became bringing up Chloe every episode she wasn't on.

Honestly couldn't they just come up with a simpler plot Chloe left for whatever reason(that doesn't involve her getting kidnapped) and comes back in Collateral and cut out al the Ollie whining where is Chloe.

They wanted Chloe on your mind all the time! t:
Best thing they ever done!
Remember when Lois would miss like 4 episodes in a row and no one mentions her. t:
Best thing they ever done!

 

[Johnny]

Milos is the most persistent troll I've ever seen!

 

[Webhead2006]

He/she does get a bit crazy there with chloe. Its freaky a bit. Lol though not as bad as the lana and other fantics ksite boards had.

 

[SV Fan]

He/she does get a bit crazy there with chloe. Its freaky a bit. Lol though not as bad as the lana and other fantics ksite boards had.

I don't remember Ksite every being a big Lana fansite. It seemed to be mostly Pro-Chloe till about Season 8, then more Pro-Lois. It seemed like alot of hardcore Chloe fans ran over to TWOP as the Lois faction started getting more vocal and would start calling them out, where as the Chloe fans that stayed at Ksite were the more civil ones(basically didn't get into shipper arguments or "theories" that basically just was a reason to bash a certain character)

 

[chumchees]

They were never good at returns and departures. Lana's video message was bad, her return next season was horrible, and her final departure was an abomination. Chloe's first departure was stupid, her return was horrible, her last departure was OK. Lionels return made absolutely no sense, seeing how he was dead and buried. The only return that was good was Jonathan as ghost. But then he returned again is a pointless episode. Lex's departure was decent, but his season 8 stuff I like to forget and his final return in the finale was not great either. And Martha as Red Queen needs no explanation. With Lana, Chloe and Martha they had to do some stupid larger than life storyline with the good ole reason of protecting Clark.

 

[Webhead2006]

I still say it would have been best for lana to have left after season three. Never return from france. And then maybe pop in two or three times in later seasons as a friend/etc.... that I say ie lana/clark relationship was handle the worst in the show. That is why I was far happier with how lois and clark developed over the yrs.

To me jonathan was handle just fine. We saw him go out in good way. And the other times we saw him he was just a spirit/vision for clark. Which was handled well. I saw no issue with alt jonathan as it was a parallel world and all. Same with alt lionel that was a good way in my book to bring him back.

 

[SV Fan]

With Lana, Chloe and Martha they had to do some stupid larger than life storyline with the good ole reason of protecting Clark.

I never was a fan of characters "doing it to protect Clark" storylines. Let us watch him protect himself. As you said they just felt like trying to give the characters something to make the relevant more then anything

 

[Webhead2006]

I guess they did that so they would have more to do with those characters.

 

[herolee10]

I never was a fan of characters "doing it to protect Clark" storylines. Let us watch him protect himself. As you said they just felt like trying to give the characters something to make the relevant more then anything

Agreed.

Heck, prior to Season 8, I got really frustrated with how Clark was being treated and developed in many ways within seasons 5-7.

1. Clark became way too reliant on Chloe imho, or was written to become way to reliant on her where he would go to her for every little piece of information that he could get. I wanted to see him do more investigation on his own.

2. I didn't like how Clark was used as an excuse to justify the morally gray actions committed by several characters on the show.

3. Whenever Smallville tried to use the gimmick of bringing in a new major player, namely a hero, into the series, it would always come at the expense of Clark's character, where he'd be written to be dependent on those figures and have them tell him on how he should either embrace his roots or be a better hero (Oliver and Kara).

4. I know this probably isn't a issue for some, but it wasn't comfortable at times seeing on how many times Clark was subjected towards being essentially violated by some female characters by how he's put in situations where he's no longer "in control" of his personality, and thus the excuse for the showrunners to display Clark making out with the newest attractive actress.

 

[Webhead2006]

I know tom stated many times he was unhappy with clark during 5th-7th seasons. And hhe was a lot more happy 8th to end.

 

[chumchees]

^LOL

The Clark character's absolute lowest moment happened in season 8.

 

[Prison Mike]

Which moment would that be?

 

[jjgravitas]

One episode I cannot watch is Ageless (Season 4 Episode 20), about a baby Clark and Lana discover in a field, which is aging rapidly, giving the couple a quick crash course inh parenting and exposure to the angst of a character who dies of old age by story's end. Nowhere near as interesting as the other storylines of Season 4.

 

[Webhead2006]

I wouldn't say that myself. There was plently of bad clark development stuff in 5-7, 8 is where he started to turn around.. besides the last two crap lana episodes.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I must admit, I haven't watched that much of smallville. Maybe Season 1-2, some of 3-5 and then... a few odd episodes of the latter seasons.

But for an incarnation of Superman, Clark never seemed particularly intelligent. About average really. But that may be due to bad writing. Unless I am really misremembering. He was never shown to have superhuman intelligence was he?

 

[Webhead2006]

In the early yrrs they showed him to be pretty much. Then towards the middle they "dumbed" him down with using chloe as dues exus for them. Which they fixed more in 9th and tenth with clark working on his own and all that.

 

[SV Fan]

Which moment would that be?

I would assume they ment the end of Requiem. Sadly I can think of at least 3-4 worse moments in Clark's life that could be "his lowest moment".

But for an incarnation of Superman, Clark never seemed particularly intelligent. About average really. But that may be due to bad writing. Unless I am really misremembering. He was never shown to have superhuman intelligence was he?

A few times in earlier seasons they showed him calculate things really fast(and like big numbers). I think the main problem with how Clark came off is basically they stalled things way to much so the type of plots they had really didn't put him in the most positive light many times(basically whining and moping how his life sucks). Many times to get those plotpoints you would just question what normal human being would do those stupid things. As Webhead pointed out having Chloe get a bigger role(and making Clark more reliant on her) in S5 didn't help.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I would assume that they wanted to make Clark somewhat normal, so the audience (presumably made up mostly of people of average intelligence) could relate to him more. However, taking his powers into account, he really should have been the smartest guy on screen, possibly only rivaled by Lex Luthor (until other non-human entities start showing up).

But that would require a lot of clever writing. And it would kill the high school angle. It would have been interesting though, to have actually seen a super intelligent Clark, like in the comics, perhaps building robots, traveling the world and absorbing cultures, and learning languages. But obviously they also had budgetary concerns. And unlike the comics, Clark couldn't fly as a child.

Really, Smallville's Clark Kent was pretty half-assed. Lacked the superpowers and the super intelligence.

 

[Prison Mike]

I never got the impression that Clark was a brainiac in the comics. Batman always seemed smarter than him and he's human.

 

[Webhead2006]

Well i dont know how it is in the comics old/new. But i did think as i said the other day clark was protrated as a pretty smart guy around season 1, and 2, and going into 3rd. When chloe was just used as scooby doo helper. But then they did overboard it with boosting chloe so much and as stated we saw clark look dumb the old BDA comment was throw alot around season 5-7 and so what. Which as i said i liked they reticifed it a bit in last two yrs with clark back on his own and all that.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I never got the impression that Clark was a brainiac in the comics. Batman always seemed smarter than him and he's human.

Really depends on the writer. But Superman has generally been depicted as having superhuman intelligence. He's built robots, rebuilt starships, etc. It's usually simply implied that he has superhuman intelligence, like most Kryptonians. Being the son of Jor-El helps. This is more emphasized in older comics, where he was shown to be an outright genius as a kid. I recall in some stories he was also a polyglot (spoke many languages).

Batman's intelligence is generally high, but some writers have turned him into an unparalleled polymath. This is a comic book character, so obviously, the writing isn't going to be entirely realistic, but Batman's intelligence often exceeds that of characters who should be smarter than him (like aliens with literal superhuman intelligence). It depends on favoritism from the writer.

Though Batman could certainly be more cunning than Superman. That wouldn't be implausible.

 

[Daybreak_st]

Single biggest problem with the show its artificial ******ation of Clark Kent. He had natural progression in the beginning, with his powers growing, gaining a new one each season, getting more powerful etc. But around season 5 all that comes to a stop and his character lacks any real development and growth (other than the death of his father), he becomes stagnant.

The whole rule of no flights and no tights makes sense only if it's applied across the board to all the characters. It became increasingly transparent and contrived as we saw characters in full costume and flying, with clark aware that he has the power to fly but for some silly reason he can't. We have multiple episode in which he "kind of flies" but can't. How much more artificial can you get. If you didn't want him to fly fine, but don't make everyone fly around him.

You don't ever want to show him in full costume even in the finale, fine, but then I sure as heck didn't need to see Green arrow for 4 seasons, or Booster Gold or the Justice Society. Why have a rule that only serves to hold back your main character but doesn't apply to anyone else. It was arbitrary rules like this and their application that ruined much of the show for me.

It felt like if you removed all the filler episodes and focused in on essential plots you could probably reduce smallville from 10 seasons to like 6 and have a much tighter/cohesive series. What was the point of dragging it on with virtually no growth for clark. Seasons 5-7 particularly. It was hard to stomach. Season 9 was good in my opinion but season 10 while it had great character stuff with Lois and Clark, the whole Darkseid plot was one of the worse offenders of "build up all season with little to no pay off at the end". And pretty the key to beating pure evil was to fly thru it?!! Couldn't Kara have done that sooner and saved us a whole lot of melodrama?