Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Like many I joined the campaign to never watch a television show on the WB network ever again since their cancellation of one of the best TV shows on television, Angel (Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3) but we all know how lame making such a promise like that really is. Especially, since the show Smallville is still in production. Now when they cancel that show…hmm so far Summerland isn’t doing much for me.

Smallville tells the chronicles of Superman/Tom Welling as a teenager growing up in Smallville, Kansas. The pilot shows Superman’s trip to Earth in the form of a comet shower that also deposits both red and green kryptonite across the Smallville landscape. This is important, for this is what will make up the majority of the first season. As we explore Clark Kent (his adoptive name after he was found by Jonathan Kent/John Schneider (yes the guy from the Dukes of Hazards!) and Martha Kent/Annette O’Toole) time after time we are also introduced to the strange things, the Wall of Weird as one local high school budding journalist Chloe Sullivan/Allison Mack likes to call it. This is also what makes the first year a little hard to enjoy as a season as a whole.

Using the handy-dandy episode guide at (http://www.epguides.com), in the first few episodes we have a teenager with electrical powers, a nerdish bug collector who turns into a bug himself, a football coach who can start fires, a girl who can alter her physical form, a heat absorbing jock, an old man falls into a lake becomes young and goes on a killing spree, and a weight-obsessed teen who after eating kryptonite-infected veggies goes on a rampage needing to ingest the fat of others. Yummy!

In each of these episodes, it is up to Clark to save the day. But at the same time he has to try to pretend that he is just any other ordinary teenager which translates into some pretty sticky situations that he somehow gets out of with as little damage done as possible.

In each of these episodes we also get additional introductions into what will eventually make up the character Superman that many of us have seen on the big screen. In the first season, we are introduced to Superman’s X-Ray vision. An introduction Clark doesn’t quite enjoy for it basically scares the crap out of him, being able to see through people’s skin. We are also introduced to his ability to run at super-sonic speeds and that he has incredible strength, including body armor that allows him to be hit by a car at high speeds and walk away without a scratch on him. This accident, shown in the Pilot, also serves to introduce the character of Lex Luthor/Michael Rosenbaum, who would eventually become Superman’s arch nemesis.

In the first season, and subsequently until towards the middle of the second, and some would even argue that it didn’t end until the end of the third season – Clark and Lex were the best of friends. Those of us who have followed Superman mythos know that his friendship doesn’t last forever and throughout the first season we get little hints here and there that the bond is slowly tearing apart. At first, Clark always turns to Lex for help when he knows Lex can help because he has enormous wealth and resources. Lex, however, knows that something is special about Clark and begins to investigate him, trying to learn as much as he can without Clark’s suspicions. I think it would be fair to say, that Lex doesn’t serve that much of a purpose during the first season, but his character would grow quite a bit in the second and third seasons.

Also not serving much of a purpose would be most of Clark’s high school friends. There’s the aforementioned Chloe who is basically a budding journalist who runs the high school newspaper The Torch. As is the case with any teenage drama she also has a crush on Clark Kent (and who wouldn’t, Tom Welling is quite, hot!) – a romantic connection he does not share for he is in love with Lana Lane/Kristin Kreuk who also happens to have a boyfriend in the first season, Whitney Fordman/Eric Johnson, the local football star. Tagging along as Clark’s best friend is Pete Ross/Sam Jones III. Kind of like Joss Whedon’s Scooby Squad in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a previous WB alumni) – many of the secondary characters; Chloe, Lana, Whitney, and Pete kind of don’t have much to do except get in harms way and fill up screen time, at least in the first season. This is perhaps why Whitney exits the show at the end of the first season, Chloe and Lana get a little more to do, and Pete learns a secret that will change his character indefinitely. But, that’s the second season!

In the middle of Season One, Smallville made a few small steps to get away from the “freak of the week” serial that plagued its earlier episodes. There was more of an emphasis on extending the story beyond a single episode. This begins with the apparent death of Lex Luthor by a single gun shot wound to the head. Why was he just killed? This feeling continues with an episode entitled, Nicodemus, about a strange flower that came from Lex Luthor’s plant from a secret Level 3. The flower makes people including Clark’s father, Pete, and Lana begin to act in strange manners. And then, there is an introduction to Ryan James a young boy who can read minds and see the future. With his powers he uncovers Clark’s secret but promises to keep it a secret. It would not be the last time we would see his character.

In the end, the first season kind of ends slightly anti-climatic (although I would also say that so does the second – the third one however surprised me a bit). It is the night of the prom and Chloe has been successful at getting Clark to go to the prom with her (even though she knows he would much rather be going with Lana if Whitney wasn’t in the picture). But this wouldn’t turn out to be the perfect night for Chloe as a tornado is about to hit Smallville; but first the twisters set their sights on Lana’s truck – thus it is Clark to the rescue.

As for the DVD’s, all 21 episodes are shown on six discs. There are only two commentaries; the Pilot being one of them. In a rather nice movie, the DVD’s are packaged in a book style DVD case which is a lot easier to manage than those other DVD cases that fold out to almost three feet in length. Also, another highlight, the DVD’s have the capability to play the episodes one after another without having the need to go back to the main menu (a problem many noted that the DVD’s from Angel suffered from). This makes it a lot easier to have a Smallville marathon.

Overall, you’ll need the first season of Smallville in order to understand the characters that would continue in the second and third (and fourth as it has been renewed for the 2004-2005 season). But, the first season does have quite a few faults. Although the “freak of the week” episodes are interesting, they are still “freak of the week” episodes and can be tiring and rather uninteresting upon a second viewing. This would change a lot in the second season with a whole lot of mythos being introduced – questioned and pondered.

For now, if you find the first season used, I’d pick it up. That’s how I bought mine.


Next Season on Smallville!


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD

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