What do you do when you have a two hour finale of a superhero series that’s been building to a huge smackdown between the forces of good and evil, and you don’t have the budget to actually carry that off?
You have people talking.
A lot.
Because talk is cheap.
Long-time “Smallville” viewers may remember something identical happening when Doomsday showed up. A season-long build-up and then, as Xander Harris might say, “Big overture; little show.”
Pretty much the same deal here.
Let’s roll back though. We have lots of discussion of whether or not Clark and Lois should get married, and it was certainly well-acted enough, and Lois finally realizes the sheer stupidity of thinking that–because Clark has superpowers–he deserves no downtime and no personal life. And then Clark thinks maybe she’s right until he also realizes the stupidity of it, and then they decided to get married, and then–because it’s a superhero wedding–everything goes wrong. In the meantime Tess is driving a car, and in “Smallville” that never ends well, and it doesn’t here, and more stuff happens. And I’ll admit that, as Apokolips approaches, it looks reasonably cool but (as Bob Greenberger opined) if they wanted to blow the budget on something, it should have been for the final confrontation between Clark and Darkseid–which turns out to be a five minute battle, four minutes and thirty seconds of which is flashbacks to previous episodes.
And then other stuff happens that takes a season’s worth of set up and conflict and resolves it in a kind of blah fashion in two minutes, complete with a replay of Superman saving an airplane from “Superman Returns” except, after ten years, there’s no clear single shot of Clark in the suit. There’s some CGI shots of him that aren’t particularly good, but you get the impression that they never actually built the whole outfit.
I mean, was it a waste of two hours? No. It was great to see John Schneider back, even if he was just Ghost Pa. And Ma was there, and Chloe, but no Lana and–even more oddly–no Pete Ross (what the hëll ever happened to him?)
And most importantly, Lex was back, probably because Michael Rosenbaum didn’t want to be harassed by “Smallville” fans for the rest of his career. And even though he had maybe seven minutes of screen time, it was enough to underscore the Luthor-sized hole that no amount of guest appearances by the JLA or Justice Society has quite been able to overcome.
Was I bored? No. Was I let down by a confusing and dissatisfying ending? Yes. Did I love the balls-to-the-wall use of the classic Superman score at the end? Definitely. If they started up a new series called “Metropolis” with the same cast, would I watch it? Probably.
Because that’s the American way.
PAD
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A terrible series has a terrible ending? Who coulda guessed. It doesn’t matter, because the long nightmare called “Smallville” has finally ended.
Rest in peace.
Pete was absent outside the comic book cameo because his actor, Sam Jones III, is currently pending trial for drug possession/distribution, and isn’t allowed to leave the country.
Plus he’s busy making sex tapes with Playboy Playmates.
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Feh. I stopped watching Smallville sometime after the beginning of the (IIRC), fifth season. One too many uses of the Reset Button, plus all the ways they bášŧárdìzëd the characters from the comics, and kept having characters that should not have shown up until after he both began working at the Daily Planet and became Superman.
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I was curious to maybe see the finale, but now after reading this and other reviews, I’m not so sure.
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Just one question: How many episodes was the final story arc? Was it just the final two?
Hey, if you had the choice between making sex tapes with Bunnies and appearing on Smallville, which would you choose? 🙂
My thoughts on the finale are very similar to yours. I kind of felt that what they needed was another episode in the middle. The first part ends at the same place – the wedding is disrupted, Ollie is freed from Darkseid, and Apokolips is approaching Earth. Part two needs to be what most of part three was – Clark’s final metamorphosis into Superman, and should end with him in costume flying out of the fortress. Part three then shows everything that was missing – the League, the JSA, Supes giving hope to the whole world (instead of one quick fly-over of Metropolis), and a real Superman/Darkseid throw-down.
Two other complaints of note: After tracking down and stopping Darkseid’s henchmen, why did Ollie change out of his costume and go wandering the streets? If Clark had failed, would he have just given up, or would he have had to take time out for another costume change? And I understand not rescheduling the wedding immediately, but to wait 7 more years? Really?
As with so many of the “event” episodes, it didn’t quite live up to it’s potential, but as a final episode I do think it had a more emotionally satisfying ending than many shows we’ve seen lately. (I’m looking squarely at you Enterprise, and Lost and BSG better stop snickering, too.)
I actually liked the BSG ending, but I’m totally with you on the rest.
I agree with most of PAD’s comments (though personally, got sick of the back & forth stuff with Lois & Clark at the start). Too much build up, not enough pay off. Though the end bit in the future was fantastic. Was diaspointed that they really didn’t show Welling in the Superman suit. Very lame really.
Oh and I disagree with the last poster. Lost & BSG’s endings were so much more emotionally satisfying than Smallvilles. Especially Lost! And heck, I think even Enterprise’s ending was better than this one. I guess I just expected a bit too much from Smallville’s finale. I was really thinking that they would show him in the suit and have a cool epic finale. Instead, we got…lots of talking, not much action. At Lost really gave a great ending for all of its characters. It may not have answered every question about the island, but it did what was important, imo, and gave a emotionally satisfying ending for the characters. BSG too. Smallville…it needed to be about Clark becoming Superman. The wedding stuff shouldn’t have been in there. Maybe a cool Darkseid fight with Clark in the Superman suit though. I think fans deserved that after all of that lame ‘Blur’ stuff. lol. *sigh*
I agree with you, PAD. The first hour was pretty good, but most of the second was wasted. I enjoyed all the father/son moments, just as you did. I’d have felt more cheated but they made me pretty happy with the ending, if only because of the Williams score.
My biggest regret: No Tom Welling in a Superman pose. All that build up and it was mostly a CGI Superman. *sigh*
I had hopes for better. I should have known better. SMALLVILLE almost always disappointed when I had my hopes up. It was usually when I wasn’t expecting it that it delighted and surprised me (and that always happened JUST often enough to keep me watching).
Random thoughts:
I didn’t miss Lana at all. I think she showed up in some of those horrid flashback montages, and that’s where she belonged. Always felt like the character was played out in the first season or two, and thereafter, was just a mechanism to keep the show spinning in circles. Every time she’d leave town, or marry someone else, I’d applaud, and then — she’d — come — BACK! After a while, the mantra here at the house every time we saw Lana was, “Wood-chipper! It’s the only way to be SURE!”
The door scene: I’ve read a lot of complaints about this scene elsewhere, but I think it was a highlight of the show. It was the only thing that made the fake wedding later in the episode even marginally tolerable, in that it sold the idea that no matter the distance or circumstances between them, these characters are going to be together. No wedding? No problem, we’ll get to it eventually.
I though it was well directed and well acted, and the chemistry between Welling and Durance has never been better. (It also underscores how central Lois, and her relationship with Clark/Superman/Kal-el has become to the modern Superman mythos, an evolution that I think has strengthened this iconic character.)
Tess/Lex – It was sad to see Tess killed off in a senseless (and for Lex, out-of-character) way. This seemed calculated to bring the outcome more in line with the traditional canon of Superman (but if so, why leave Chloe around, apparently married to Ollie?). There certainly wasn’t much other reason for it. Also, the all-too-convenient brain-wipe seemed crudely tacked on. The ONLY reason Lex needed his memories intact after all his trauma and rebirth, was for the earlier scene with Clark. Or they could have faded later as a result of a delayed (technomumble) or even some retribution by Darkseid for Zombie Lionel’s failure to kill Clark.
Anyway, then they leave us hanging as to Lex’s fate, without even a suggestion of how he gets from “it’s as though your past doesn’t exist” brain-wipe to “President Lex” in seven years.
Speaking of Zombie Lionel: I actually liked this. Sure, I’d have loved to see Clark duke (no pun intended) it out with a CGI Darkseid in all his Kirby-glory, but there wasn’t much chance of that happening. Having him possess Lionel’s body was a very satisfying “Smallville” solution to the problem, and a fitting end for Lionel. Now, if only the fight they gave us had been more substantial than “fly through him and he turns into black smoke.”
And Speaking of Defeating Darkseid and Apokolips, yeah, I’m pretty disappointed over-all. Ollie defeats his underlings, but it seemed like the set-up callback to the Bow of Orion was missing.
And then we have the throw away line about the “gravity” created by the Omega mark. Ooookay, I’ll buy that. So then Clark “cures” Ollie through his courage, loyalty, and faith in his friend. Ooookay. I’ll buy this too, because obviously, Clark will put on the blue-jammies, inspire the world to cure them of their Omega marks, and THEN Apokolips will go away, or Superman will be able to push it away. But it seems like those script pages just ended up on the floor somewhere to make room for another montage.
In general, there were a lot of things this episode needed to do, and many it didn’t do well. Some, I’m sure, were a matter of budget (I expect this is especially true of the Final Battles), but in other areas (handling Lex) it could have been done better.
I have always forgiven some of Smallville’s excesses because at heart it is not a Superhero show, or an action-adventure show. It’s a soap-opera, full of soap-opera tropes. Absurd plot twists, inconsistent characterization, cheese-ball production values, excessive padding, and plots that — take — forever — to — resolve. These things are all to be expected. But I wish they’d pushed more of the aside for the finale, and really pulled out the stops. But that just didn’t happen.
Oh, well. I don’t totally hate it, and I don’t hate myself for having watched this silly show for 10 years. There were still plenty of chocolate chips in the often bland and off-putting cookie…
See I think the payoff was him pulling his shirt off with the Superman symbol. I thought it was stiff, but in the end, that’s what I thought the last shot of the series was going to be.
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But that’s just me.
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TAC
I’ve thought that ripping open the shirt to reveal the symbol would be the final shot of the series for years, too, Travis.
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In fact, the unclear long shots of Clark in the costume were far more than I expected to see in the series finale, so I kinda liked that we didn’t get a clear shot of him in the suit.
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–Daryl
I have only two words to ad to PAD’s review:
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“And montages.”
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Probably a bit of exaggeration here, but I suspect that if you stripped out all of the montages (read: “recycled clips we’ve already paid for”), you’d have maybe one and a half episodes. So there was a hunk of savings right there that we didn’t see.
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And count me in on the disappointment that we never saw Welling in the full suit — which looked an awful lot like the Routh suit in the closeups we saw. Which would hint they didn’t have to make a full suit, just alter Routh’s (he’s not likely to need it again) to fit Welling.
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Still, pretty good. And the ending had a lot of the “Lois & Clark” flavor to it, and I liked that.
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J.
I agree, Jay. It felt, sorry, Peter… Padded. There should have been a lot more to the fight with Darkseid than one punch that took him down. There was way too much talking heads. And while I appreciate good dialogue between characters, I didn’t get enough of that here. There was just a hint of the suit, and yeah, that was the Routh suit. But the ending, with the suit reveal, they pretty much spiked the ball.
Actually, the Welling variant of the Routh suit has a bigger S-shield
Its funny, but when I saw the Big Wedding scenes, all I could think of was the episode of Hulk you wrote about Bruce and Betty’s wedding 🙂 Gotta admit I wanted to see a knock down drag out between Clark and Darkseid as well. The few minutes of Rosenbaum as Lex was great though (was I the only one who felt that Lex, as he was presented in the show, wasn’t really all that Bad of a Guy? Espically during the first couple of seasons?).
I wouldn’t mind seeing some kind of spin-off, but it would need the budget to do super people right (and combat is a big part of Comics, lets admit it).
Gee, reminds me of the CW’s other genre staple, SUPERNATURAL, which had a couple of years of buildup to the Apocalypse, which wound up being two guys in flannel shirts in a field talking. *chuckle*
Not remotely the same. At all. The fifth season closer for “Supernatural” was not only completely in keeping with the rest of series, but the ENTIRETY of this season has been about the aftermath. So that’s not really a valid comparison.
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PAD
I was just pointing out that both shows have a proclivity for doing big-ášš events on a budget of about $4.32. You’re absolutely right that SUPERNATURAL has done a better job of it.
while I did expect something more from the Season 5 finale of Supernatural, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot more. Supernatural hasn’t ever really been about epic conclusions, but about the relationship between brothers Sam and Dean. the Season 5 finale, which was more focused on the fact that Dean had to come to terms with the fact that his brother was now possessed by Lucifer, the Devil, had more emotional impact than showing an almighty battle between the Demons and Angels (which, given that the Angels act like Vulcan politicians, probably wouldn’t have been anymore interesting).
And really, who wouldn’t want to read “The Gospel of Sam and Dean Winchester according to Chuck?”
Keith, SUPERNATURAL may have a lot of talking, but it’s light years ahead of what SMALLVILLE was, from ongoing storylines (the 66th seal, the angels who “act like Vulcan politicians”) to great humor (“I am the prophet Chuck!”). SMALLVILLE went from DAWSON’S CREEK with the Kryptonite Freak-of-theWeek, to lots of build-ups that went nowhere (Doomsday, all the Kryptonians), to a Green Arrow who rarely appears in costume or with a bow, to Jor-El being bad, no good, no bad, to Lionel Luthor being bad, no good, no bad. At least Erica Durance was hot. Anyway…
I did watch the finale (I’m a sucker for series endings), and I was… unimpressed for several reasons. First, Darkseid was taken down far too quickly for a god. Second, after all the “when will Clark put on THE costume?” we never got a good shot of him in it — and for some reason it looked like it was made of thick rubber. Second, did we really need *two* flashbacks? Third, how much time passed between the opening scene and the actual events in the episode? (Apparently enough for Perry White to take over the Daily Planet and Chloe and Oliver to have a young child, but not enough for Lois and Clark to find time to tie the knot.) Fourth, while I knew there’d be some sort of retcon, why not just kill Lex instead of “I’ll erase his whole memory?” Fifth, didn’t the appearance of Superman erase the Darkseid icons a little too fast? I mean, maybe 20 or 30 people saw him — it wasn’t broadcast all over the world. And finally…
Gravity.
I’m no scientist, but if a small planet get so close to Earth it looks like it’s practically touching, shouldn’t that cause massive damage on a global scale, from flooding to earthquakes?
I saw several episodes when I was at home and bored — but I can’t think of a single one that was great, and few I’d describe as good.
Third, how much time passed between the opening scene and the actual events in the episode? (Apparently enough for Perry White to take over the Daily Planet and Chloe and Oliver to have a young child, but not enough for Lois and Clark to find time to tie the knot.)
There was a few very subtle clues to answer your question:
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A “Seven Years Earlier…” tag right after the opening scene.
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A date of 2018 on the crawl indicating Lex had been elected President.
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Clark in the future saying he’d been ready to marry Lois “for seven years.”
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😉
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–Daryl
My thoughts are pretty much in accord with a lot of people here. True, budget has always been a problem with this series but some nice hero shots of Welling in the Superman costume would have cost them a hëll of a lot less than some crappily rendered CG long shots. I think the small number of loyal fans that have stuck around from the very beginning deserve something for their patience.
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And while it was nice to see Michael Rosenbaum back, the Clark/Lex scene really felt as thought it was shot completely out of context with the rest of the episode. If felt like, ‘Okay, we’ve got Rosenbaum for two hours on Sunday morning; let’s go shoot it!’
Not TOO far off the mark, Joe.
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Rosenbaum was available for a single day’s shooting, according to a recent TV Line interview with the producers. Depending on whether they’d have him at all or not, they had two concepts ready to go: actual (if brief) scenes with Lex, or a reveal that he’d been a puppetmaster behind the scenes.
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–Daryl
I tried to like Smallville. I really tried, multiple times, over the whole of the 10 years it was on the air. I liked individual episodes; I thought Tom Welling was passable as Clark Kent in that he seemed to project the diffidence than Clark traditionally put forth to mask his Superman-ness, but I was never really conviced Welling’s Clark had a Superman in him. He may have, but given that Welling was never allowed to BE Superman, I suppose I’ll never really know. I do think Michael Rosenbaum is probably the best screen Luthor we’ve had to date. I think the “no tights no flights” rule ended up hurting them in the end by making Clark look wishy washy and indecisive. The series probably should have ended when Clark graduated from High School and started spending most of his time in Metropolis.
Still, though, on the plus side it demonstrates that super-hero fantasy is viable for tv (you and I knew that, but TV executives…feh). Isn’t it the longest running super-hero TV show thus far? I suppose that would depend on how you define the term, but I’m pretty sure it’s the longest running Superman (or Superman related) tv show ever, which is no mean feat.
You mean the longest running super-hero series isn’t “60 Minutes?”
(Sorry, a little bit of silliness that popped into my head that I wanted to share. Plus, I want to see how many people get stuck with the image of Andy Rooney in tights and a cape in their heads.)
Andy Rooney – in tig- wearing a… a…
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Oh, great, now YOU can just rock me to sleep tonight! 😉
As to screen Luthors, to my mind it’s a very close contest between Michael Rosenbaum and John Shea from “Lois & Clark”. The trouble is that in both cases, it becomes difficult to separate the performances from the scripting — and both actors were extraordinarily skilled at using sheer stage presence to maintain credibility well past the point at which the storylines had jumped their respective sharks.
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On balance, I think that Rosenbaum and the “Smallville” writers, in the early seasons, gave us the most nuanced Lex we’ve seen in live action. OTOH, I think Shea and the first-generation writers on “Lois & Clark” gave us a Lex who was simultaneously wholly evil and oddly likeable. Both versions were and are intriguing, and I could wish that they were more consistent with one another than they are.
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Which was, actually, one of the oddest things about the finale for me. Smallville-Lex clearly is NOT L&C-Lex…and yet, that last scene in the Daily Planet newsroom is so strongly reminiscent of “Lois & Clark” that I half-expected to hear “Great Shades of Elvis!” coming from behind Perry’s door.
What always bothered me about SMALLVILLE was that they had these portentous season-long arcs that would always, ALWAYS, fizzle into a rushed season finale. And then everything was back to normal. So, no surprise that the last season was like that too.
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I enjoyed SMALLVILLE mostly for Lex Luthor and the cameos of DC characters. I generally liked their take on the Legion, Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, Aquaman, and others. I even enjoyed the idea of the Doomsday character as a sort of Bruce Banner.
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I stopped at the 8th season, but someday I’ll watch the rest, if only for the Justice Society and Booster Gold.
Agreed with all the disappointment about not seeing Tom Welling in full-body costume. They couldn’t give us that? [i]That[/i] would have been the payoff; we’ve seen him fly before (under Red K).
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Also very bummed about the way they handled the whole glasses things — why wasn’t he wearing them at the interrupted ceremony?
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I had a big problem with the resolution of the Mark of Darkseid as well. Really? On no other planet does anyone say to anyone “Hey, I know things are bad, but I have confidence in the real you. You’re not evil like you’ve started behaving since your eyes turned black.”
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And the way to defeat Darkseid himself is to destroy his host? Seems like kind of a pathetic weakness.
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All in all, very disappointed with everything but the last 30 seconds or so, excepting that “we’re not getting married for seven years” thing.
I read your recent New Frontier adventure “Blind Man’s Bluff” Mr. David, and loved the book from beginning to end. You are a incredible author and hope the New Frontier series doesn’t end here with “Blind Man’s Bluff.”
My name is Robert Thompson and I met you at a Vulcan Events convention in Tampa, Florida this past February on the weekend of February 25th. You autographed nine books I had of your novel work and attended your seminar thing.
It was such a honor to meet such a Trek writer as yourself. I have read all of your work.
Thanks. I appreciate the props.
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PAD
Pluses: I liked the framing device, liked the “seven years later” scence at the Planet (Aaron Ashmore as “real” Jimmy! Voice of Michael McKean uttering “Great Caesar’s Ghost!”) *The* Superman theme.
Minuses: Most of which can be attributed IMHO to budget restrictions and/or poor pacing of the whole season:
Lame showdown between Clark and Darkseid. Not even cameo appearances of the other heroes — how hard would it have been to have a montage on the Watchtower’s viewscreens of Aquaman (excuse me, A.C.) and Mera, Martian Manhunter, Stargirl, Cyborg, Impulse, Black Canary, Zatanna, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle, maybe even some of the hinted at but not yet seen JSAers, in various cities taking on the forces of Apokolips? No time, no budget!
2) Previous episode introduced a version of the Legion of Doom — with no payoff this episode? No time, no budget!
3) All the flip-flopping just semed like bad writing. Move on from the past (Jonathan, Jor-El), embrace the past. Embrace marriage, reject marriage, embrace marriage. Feh!
4) I’m glad John Schneider came back (ditto Annette O’Toole), but what exactly was Ghost Dad anyway? A real ghost? A figment of Clark’s imagination? That was solid enough to hand Clark the costume up in the Fortress? And kept looking around at things like he was a flesh-and-blood presence in most of his scenes? A simple explanation would have been that Fortress Jor-El realized a while back that Clark needed his human side as much as his Kryptonian side, and so created a Fortress Jonathan, who was no more or less “real” than Fortress Jor-El to provide Clark with advice. So Fortress Jonathan got out and about more than Fortress Jor-El? Not a biggie.
Still and all, I enjoyed the series enough, and the finale enough that it’s more a case of “it could have been even better” than “Hated, hated, hated it!”.
Oh, and, as a buddy of mine pointed out to me, how weird is it that DC did virtually no tie-ins to celebrate the finale of the longest running DC superhero series of them all? Not even a comic that would have been a version of the one Chloe was reading to her son? DC has never been very good at tying into their TV properties (see: most of the history of SMALLVILLE and all of the history of THE FLASH.)
It’s genuinely infuriating that Welling never had any intention of wearing the suit on-screen (he believed he’d wind up typecast as Superman and never be able to do anything else, or so I’ve heard), but you’d think the producers would have said “It’s one frakkin’ scene. Suck it up and do it, dámņìŧ.”
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I hatehateHATE that we never got a single full-body shot of him in the suit after ten years of waiting.
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Rosenbaum was easily the best part of the episode. He slipped back into the role of Lex like he was born for it. You couldn’t even tell that he didn’t shave his head this time. But if “every cloned body part was perfect”, WHY was his right hand such a dámņ mess?
please stop all the crying and injoy what you got all i here is baby’s crying these actors gave us 10 years of there live granted we pay there bills but lets face it it’s not like they are geting what two and a half man are geting.p.s this is for tw ed am jh cf js aot thankes for the ride i enjoyed every min of it you all are truely in my harts when you could have been with your loved ones instad you gave us or should i say me the best ten years all my life i thank you again.
Guys…I know what you’re all thinking. Go easy on him.
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PAD
…sometimes smacking the side of the TV clears up the reception?
I think so, Brain, but if they called them Sad Meals, nobody would buy them.
Ummm…. I don’t get it? (this referring to something I missed out on in the past?)
For you Peter, just this wunce. Actually, I was thinking about something that Chuck mentioned earlier about the lack of JLA heroes in the finale. It probably wouldn’t have bothered me at all- there’s an argument made for a story concentrating on Clark, Lois, Lex, etc- butit realyl bugged me that there’s an entire scene of Lois pleading with the president (because it’s just that easy to climb aboard Air Force One with the seemingly non-existent press corps) about giving the heroes some time to fix things. Followed by scenes of no heroes. I’m not sure Aquaman could have done all that much about a fiery planet on a crash course with Earth, but as Chuck said, a couple of quick shots on a view screen wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Yeah, that whole thing just didn’t work in the least. The notion that Lois could sneak aboard Airforce One…it’s preposterous.
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Although really: We have a black president, so naturally there’s something gigantic heading our way from deep space threatening to wipe us out.
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PAD
I would say the Lois on AF1 would have been preposterous if we didn’t have the experience of Pre-Crisis Lois.
And… I didn’t watch Smallville religiously, but weren’t there appearances of Supergirl, J’onn J’onzz, and Stargirl? I mean, it IS Smallville, but it’s kinda tough to rationalize “Well, there’s a world ending threat, and two Superman-level heroes aren’t even showing up to help with crowd control…”
Actually, they took Supergirl out of the mix in a previous episode. It was done in a staggeringly unconvincing fashion: Jor-El telling her that her destiny lay elsewhere and she had to leave Clark to his, and so–even though she knows something really bad is coming–she basically says “Okay” and takes off into the future to be the with the Legion. J’onn was referred to in passing in the finale, and Stargirl showed up in an episode a week or two ago but wasn’t a factor here.
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PAD
As long as Tea Leoni gets wiped out by a tidal wave, I’m happy.
But I loved her on Flying Blind!
With all my problems with SMALLVILLE, here’s one that I really think they could have addressed in the shows’ 10-year run:
No Batman.
If SMALLVILLE was really about the redemption of Josh Lymon, er, the development of Clark Kent into Superman, then one of the most important influences could have been Bruce Wayne/Batman, someone who believes in justice and liberty as much as the next person, yet has a much more cynical, stealthy approach to fighting crime. Bruce/Batman also represents what “mere” humans can do, without “meteor rock” abilities. He’d be quite the contrast to Lex Luthor (both amazingly rich and smart, but very different paths), and he could have been attracted to Smallville through research (like Chloe’s Wall of Weird). And budget-wise, he’d be one of the most affordable superheroes to do, as all you’d need are martial arts (and maybe a Batarang or two). Heck, he could even be in disguise most of the time.
For a great first meeting of Batman and Superman, check out the animated movie THE BATMAN SUPERMAN MOVIE: WORLD’S FINEST (shameless review plug: http://thearmchaircritic.blogspot.com/2011/04/batman-superman-movie-worlds-finest.html To see Superman meet Booster Gold, check out SMALLVILLE.
Yeah, but they couldn’t get permission to do Batman. That’s DC’s fault, not Smallville’s.
I love Superman, and I love Batman, and I love the superhero genre in general, but I’ve always felt playing up the “human capability vs. superhuman power” angle, as a point of conflict, just sucks all the fun out of the room. When writers obsess on it it frequently ends up turning Batman into a Mary Sue. “You pathetic super-powered jokers have trouble? Fine, I’ll ride in and show you how it’s done…” Reference the recent Justice League: When World’s Collide, Justice League: Only a Dream, and pretty much any issue of All-Star Batman and Robin featuring ANYone with superpowers in the same room and Batman.
They wanted to do Batman, but the suits upstairs didn’t want to taint the Batman movie franchise (or maybe they were already planning that thankfully-aborted “Robin Prequel” series).
In either case, the decision (and a good one I think) was to introduce Green Arrow as a stand-in for Bruce Wayne/Batman. Really, if you pay attention, that’s EXACTLY the role Ollie/Arrow played in the show, and in many ways I think it was better than using Bruce/Batman, in that it has all the positives with none of the baggage.
I though the whole Arrow arc (despite the weak ending) was one of the highlights of the series. And in fact, that was one of the things Smallville did very well. It brought in B-List characters like Aquaman and Green Arrow and remade them cool, with a Smallville twist.
What I was disappointed in was the lack of a strong female heroic counterpart to the male heroes. Black Canary really doesn’t count (at least, the way they handled her). Lana Lang with super-ninja powers CERTAINLY does not count. And no, I never liked Smallville Supergirl. Did not like the actress. Did not like the way she effortlessly upstaged Clark (pretty much like every other Kryptonian on the show) in the use of her powers.
Maybe the point was to not upstage Lois, who was great IMHO, but I would have loved to see a Smallville version of Wonder Woman or Wondergirl, or even Mary Marvel. Somebody who could go toe-to-toe with Clark without being tangled in his mythology.
Ah, well.
They didn’t have permission to use Wonder Woman characters either.
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I gotta say I liked Supergirl well enough, though. At least until they started getting rid of her in very unlikely ways.
I gotta disagree, on both counts. The whole “powers vs. abilities” conflict can be a real issue, especially when you have people who have trained and worked amazingly hard working side-by-side with people who may have been born with superhuman abilities. (I’m oddly reminded of THE PRINCESS BRIDE, where Fezzik the giant explains, “It’s not my fault for being the biggest and strongest. I don’t even exercise.”)
As for Oliver being a stand-in for Batman… no. One of the problems with SMALLVILLE was they never figured out what to do with Oliver (except keep him out of costume and away from arrows, apparently). He’s a hero! He’s a hedonist! He’s a spoiled rich kid! He’s a burned-out former hero! He’s a business rival of Lex Luthor! He’s a member of the Justice League! He’s dating Lois… or Lex’s sister… or Chloe. And his secret identity is gone! And he has a protege! I found the character far too scattered. And again, if you’re going to have Green Arrow, GIVE HIM SOME ARROWS! They didn’t have Hawkman wingless or Impulse moving at a normal gait.
Yeah, but they couldn’t get permission to do Batman. That’s DC’s fault, not Smallville’s.
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Indeed. As the story goes, when prepping each season, the producers went to DC with their wish list of characters to use. Batman and Wonder Woman were always at the top of the list. DC always said no. Funny to think that the show that became Smallville began its conceptual life not as a “young Clark Kent” series, but as a “young Bruce Wayne” series, featuring Bruce traveling the world, learning the skills he’d use to become Batman.
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I did like how they played with viewers’ expectations of getting to see Bruce when they introduced Adam Knight several seasons back. I know I fell for it hook, line and sinker.
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They did kinda name (or concept) check Bruce and Diana, by Chloe mentioning meeting a “billionaire with wonderful toys” and “a wondrous woman” who stood to influence Clark’s world.
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–Daryl
Aaron touched on one of the many problems within this episode, that of the deformed hand on the so-called perfect-except-the-heart clone of Lex.
Other small but noteworthy errors: 1. After their fight, Ollie crushes the gold Kryptonite ring in his right hand, then extends that hand to Clark so Clark can help him up.
2. When Ollie confronts the 3 Apokolips villains, he shoots three arrows at them, simultaneously. They are positioned vertically on his bow, but after firing, they spread out horizontally, each one taking out one target. Unless he turned his bow sideways, which he didn’t, they all should have hit the center target.
3. Lex was elected President in 2018, which is not an election year, aside from the question, raised by J. Steven York, of how he got from mind-wiped to President in 7 years.
4. Did DC’s “Smallville” comic really have all those details about Superman’s secret identity?
5. Is DC really going to “hold the line at $2.99” for 7 more years?
4A. Given that the comic is issue #1, why is it even called “Smallville” (since the story it tells is, essentially and necessarily, the Smallville-DCU’s public version of Superman’s origin, and takes place mostly in and around Metropolis)?
4B. Never mind Clark’s/Kal-El/Supes’ secret identity, the story as Chloe/the comic apparently tells it clearly shows Lex and Lionel Luthor as first-order Evil Masterminds — and outs Lex as a clone. Why has Lex not therefore sued DC into oblivion (and/or bought them out)?
6. Interruption of the ceremony aside, I’d have thought the legal component — license, signatures, etc. — of Lois’ and Clark’s wedding should have been completed that day. (Certainly if Chloe’s and Ollie’s overnight marriage was legally valid, there’s no reason the Kent/Lane wedding shouldn’t have been.)
I didn’t see the show. I only saw a few episodes here and there over the entire 10 year run, mainly because whenever I saw an episode I liked it was inevitably followed by an episode I didn’t.
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But, I would assume that President Luthor wouldn’t have sued DC because as a public figure, he is fair game for parody.
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Theno
3. Lex was elected President in 2018, which is not an election year, aside from the question, raised by J. Steven York, of how he got from mind-wiped to President in 7 years.
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given how many people feel about the relative intelligence of some former US presidents, is a mind-wiped president really all that unbelievable :).
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Seruiously, though, I had this very thought. Even wiped, though, he may still have the Luthor money to buy an election.
I figured it was the West Wing Universe. Maybe Lex came after the guy who came after Santos.
I’ve got about 6 or 7 episodes from this season on the DVR that I guess I’ll get around to watching eventually but I had to watch the finale when it aired. I liked the last scene, the music and Clark opening the door to the roof and pulling open his shirt. The only thing I would have liked better is if he had ducked into a storeroom as he loosened his tie and then they cut to him jumping out of the window to the Adventures of Superman theme.
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And speaing of that, did anyone else, when seeing the crowds on the street looking up at Apokolips filling the sky, thinkt of how much that scene evoked the “Panic in the Sky” episode from The Adventures of Superman? Anyone? Anyone?
I loved “Panic in the Sky.” From the cluelessness of Jimmy reaching new heights (Clark Kent crashes through the glass shower door and Jimmy comments on how “lucky” Kent was not to have a scratch on him) to an amnesiac Superman looking oddly vulnerable, wearing his costume and glasses, staring into a full length mirror, it was definitely unique.
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Personally, in “Smallville,” when Clark leaped skyward, I would loved to have heard the sound effect of a springboard accompanying it. It wouldn’t have made any sense, but so much of the episode made no sense that it wouldn’t have mattered.
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PAD
Ah, the Carlin Continuity years. I still think the creative teams of those four books put together some of the best Superman stories of the last 30 years.
I think the finale summed up what this series was about. Tragically, it wasn’t about Clark Kent’s journey to becoming Superman. This show was about Earth CW’s Clark Kent being badgered to “embrace his destiny” for ten years before finally overcoming his passive-aggressiveness at the last possible minute to become Superman.
There were moments throughout the tenth season that alluded to the possibility that Clark was maturing, but there were also so many moments that had him regress back to angsty-Clark that one wasn’t sure if he’d EVER man up and put on the suit.
I’m just glad they just dropped Clark’s fear of heights issue without comment, otherwise his first flight could have been like something out of “The Greatest American Hero.”
I so agree with you PAD. This finale was just….a big letdown. WTH was that monstrosity of a suit made out of in Pa Kent’s hands at the end? It looked like he was handing him a cake or a big rubber mat. The best part of this was the Lex/Clark scene. Next was the father/son moments. But it is pretty lame when the biggest and only fight was between Clark and……wait for it……Ollie!!! Really??!!! Ollie should have left with chloe, the whole fight…excuse me, one-shot-kill moment green arrow had with the bad three was pointless. And why show the LOD in prophecy and NOT have any involvement in the final fight? I knew welling would never wear the costume, so I was not upset about that, but to not have him at least fly around like he did in season 4 was retarded. The leap he did in the fortress was a waste. What really pìššëd me off was the pathetic cartoon superman flying around. Once again, the smallville producers treats us like idiots……again. if I wanted an animated superman I would have watched justice league unlimited.
I also thought as he carried the suit with no sense of urgency, “Come on, hurry up. There’s a huge freakin’ planet about to crash into the earth!”
I guess I may be the only one – but when Chloe saw the arrows and quiver near her son’s bed, my first thought was, “God, I hope Oliver has the talk with him about drugs when he grows older. Wouldn’t want the kid to be swinging around a dead cat or anything if he’s strung out…”
Personally, I thought the finale was good – but it had the potential to be great.
I’m assuming that’s exactly the reason for it. Getting a custom-made superhero outfit that’ll fit its intended wearer and looks credible (especially a tight one like Supes’) costs money, and SMALLVILLE was never known for its expansive budgets, especially for a prop that would be shown onscreen for maybe 10 minutes and wouldn’t be used ever again.
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You’ll notice that earlier in the season, when Martha leaves the box with the Superman uniform (which we see reflected in Clark’s eye via CGI), it’s the brighter Reeves/Cain version rather than the muted Routh one (which I assume the production crew borrowed from WB’s property department for the Fortress scenes — I wish they’d requisitioned the Reeves/Cain one instead). The “S”-shirt in the final shot was probably the closest the show ever came to actually making a Superman suit.
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Still, the shirt-tear-reveal accompanied by John Williams’ score … worth the price of admission right there. I turned seven-years-old all over again. 🙂
Other than PADs near match to my feelings about this episode, I also noticed that not once was he called “Superman”. That kind of irked me as well.
No spit curl either.
And cheesy as it might have been – because, y’know, using John Williams’ score wasn’t at ALL pushing it 🙂 – how I dearly wanted to hear, “Look! Up in the sky!”
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My goodness, it’s almost a religious mantra with Superman… but they didn’t get it in.
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Corollary question: Anyone notice if John Williams got credit at the end?
Chloe had the honor of using the S-word, Albert: “And that was the day that the boy became Superman.”
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–Daryl
I’m afraid Pete’s been busy.
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/item_0iv42RGwCKGB200JCKwHSL
The thing that always bothered me about Smallville was all the time spent lamenting his daddy issues, but the ongoing theme seemed to be how manipulated he was by the women in his life. He got played over and over. The milquetoast wasn’t the disguise, it was the reality.
I was impressed that the Secret Service seems to be hiring the easily distracted. I’m surprised that Lois didn’t just jiggle her keys to get past the agent.
As far as Lex’s wiped memory, aren’t we lucky that no Luthor ever kept notes or computer drives or hidden rooms full of reams of information. And since when would Lex deliver a coup that quickly and easily. He’s much more of a wings off the housefly kind of guy. You would think that he would want to know what had happened during his absence.
I am impressed that I’ve been underwhelmed for two years in a row by grand finales featuring impotent smoke monsters.
I had to say I did enjoy the geekfest of the last 10 minutes: Superman flying to save the day, the Williams score, 2018 being life as we know it. It made the finale worth it.
Some thoughts about the Smallville finale:
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1. Lex is a clone? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t work for me. It should have been the original Lex Luthor, who never died in the first place. As I’ve said on my own blog, there was no question of Lex still being alive. He is one of Superman’s most implacable enemies, after all. But even ignoring that Lex is alive in the comics, within the Smallville universe, cloning is a reality, and Lex would never put himself in danger. So it had to have been a clone in that truck that blew up in season eight. If an ordinary person like Lana could think of using a clone of herself to fake her death, a genius like Lex would, too.
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It would have been much less convoluted to reveal that Lex had never died rather than have the Tess and Lionel sequences. If both needed to be cleared from the board (and there was no real reason why Tess had to go), that could have been handled in another way.
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2. So, the Sommerholt neurotoxin erased all of Lex’s memories up to the point when he was infected with it? Guess comics fans are supposed to infer that Lex’s enmity toward Superman will be akin to that of the Byrne-era businessman Lex– as established by Marv Wolfman– a man essentially jealous of Supes’ power. But what are viewers who only know that Lex and Superman are enemies, but have never read the comics, supposed to take away from that? They must be wondering something like, “if Lex has forgotten everything, why will he and Superman be enemies?”
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Years ago, I said something to the effect that maybe Smallville Lex would, through some concept of honor, not reveal to the world that Superman was Clark Kent. Or maybe he’d not reveal Superman’s identity because that would be too easy, and Lex would want to defeat Supes in some big way. But it seems Lex now has no idea that Clark Kent is Kal-El of Krypton.
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Meanwhile, based on the previous week’s episode, it seems Clark’s fine with the Toyman knowing his identity. Yes, Clark said that if Toyman revealed his identity, they couldn’t “play” anymore, but you’d think he would have had as much concern about Toyman knowing the truth as Lex. If not more.
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And speaking of the previous week, Toyman’s group of villains includes Metallo? Last time we saw him, he seemed set on starting a new life, with no hint of going the villain route. Guess we’re supposed to infer that he put in that red Kryptonite heart and it affected him, even though he’s not Kryptonian.
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3. Clark’s faith in Oliver frees Ollie from the taint of Darkseid? Doesn’t work for me. It would have been better if Clark’s words of encouragement were the catalyst Ollie needed to free himself. But that would have necessitated putting more focus on Ollie (Hey– maybe with a scene where “good” Oliver fights Darkseid-tainted Green Arrow in a junkyard), when the episode’s really supposed to be about Clark. Even so, the scene could have been handled in a better way.
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4. Mondas– er, I mean Apokolips– coming into the Earth’s orbit. Why? The planet’s presence wasn’t needed to infect people with Darkseid’s taint up to this point. Nor was a planet en route to Earth ever hinted at during the course of the season. Why not stick to Darkseid et al. as the threat and forget about Apokolips for now.
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Not really sure how Supes forced the invading planet to retreat, since I didn’t see him give it a literal push (which would imply that the Smallville Superman has Silver Age power levels. Maybe, although we didn’t hear him, he said, “basically, run” (or he sang a song) and Apokolips ran away.
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5. Would have been nice to have seen Welling in the suit for even just one shot, but at least we got him opening the shirt to reveal the S. And I suppose the CGI shots (and those of Welling with an implied cape) were better than nothing at all.
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6. I liked the Perry White and Jimmy Olsen cameos, and I liked that Jonathan Kent was present in spirit in Smallville and at the chapel. Not sure he belonged in the Fortress scene, though. I get that the suit was influenced as much by Clark’s life in Smallville as it was by his Kryptonian heritage, but maybe it would have been better if Clark had seen (or imagined, however you want to look at it) Jor-El himself (in the person of Julian Sands) hand it to him.
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7. I agree with PAD that Supergirl’s departure could have been better handled. Why bring her back the week before the finale and not use her in the finale? She’d had her send-off earlier in the season, so either don’t bring her back, or make her a big part of the finale.
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Overall, the Smallville finale was, to quote the Fonz (I believe), “Not bad. Not good either, but it’s not bad.”
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As to Supernatural (since it’s come up in discussion), I think it’s one of the best shows on TV right now.
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Rick
I haven’t been keeping real close tabs on Superman continuity, but last I knew, post-Crisis Lex IS a clone. He got cancer from his Kryptonite ring (the deformed hand and glove thing in the finale was a reference to that, I believe), and finally “died” in a (possibly staged) plane crash. He was replaced by a handsome young turk with flowing red hair, show inherited Lex’s empire. But it was actually Lex’s brain in a cloned body. Or something. Eventually he lost the hair and went back pretty much to the status-quo, but it DID happen. (Please, anybody, feel free to correct me on the details, because I’m sketchy.)
I just had issues with Smallville. Don’t get me wrong. I watched the show, because I felt like I had to watch it.
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I didn’t want to miss anything that might be good. Might have a nice nudge to the comics.
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Plus, lately it was before Supernatural, which for the first five years was the best show on TV… House was the only thing else I was interested in.
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This year Supernatural is good, but it’s been like an ex-girlfriend of mine. One week good, one week WTF?
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Luckily, Ben Edlund is still around to put around episodes like last week’s “The Man Who Would Be King.” (Which really tied the whole season together… which is what was needed. By the way, I really like elipses.)
And of course “The French Mistake.”
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In last year’s season finale, there’s nothing better than Dean showing up to the Apocalypse playing Rock Of Ages.
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Nothing. Better.
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TAC
I watched the last 4 episodes of Smallville in the lead up to the finale, having never really watched a full episode all the way through (seen clips, picked up a lot of history through wiki sites and general geek osmosis). I know more than enough about DCU / Superman lore to jump right in (the general vibe of the Darkside New Gods is basically a riff on how they were shown in Final Crisis) Is the lack of no full on shot of Welling in the Super-suit kinda annoying? Yeah, but whatever. He became Superman and did some super-stuff. And he had a big, spectacular thing that exposed himself to the world (although I wish he had flat-out caught the falling airplane and that had been his big reveal).
Rossembaum was great in his two scenes, although you had to figure with all that Lex was exposed to over the course of the series they had no choice BUT to mindwipe him. And they handled it well by having him walk to the LuthorCorp (ba-boom! Hey, it’s LexCorp) window. Because it was nicely ambiguous if he really did forget everything and it avoided any awkward scene of him being “My life is erased. What am I? Who is this dead girl? What is that red stuff?” etc. etc. Although I wanted a final staredown between Luthor and Superman to end the series, it wasn’t a bad end. Their sole scene between each other in the burned down Luthor house was nicely done, if there was really no point why Clark ran down there and ran back not doing anything. But, hey, Lex had that black-glove thingie he used to have in the late 80s comics, remember that?
And, yes, this was a talky, yappy, episode. And I have no clue if the Darkside minions were presented as being so powerful, how come one trick-shot from Green Arrow was able to destroy them? Clark taking out Having not seen much of anything of the show, why was Pa Kent hanging out when he’s dead and all? But, whatever, despite the problems I still dug it and basically those last 10 minutes made it worthwhile.
whoops, brainfart. Meant to say: “Clark taking out Darkside with one punch was similarly underwhelming but, hey, at least he’s Superman and you can get away with stuff like that.”
whoops, brainfart. Meant to say: “Clark taking out Darkside with one punch was similarly underwhelming but, hey, at least he’s Superman and you can get away with stuff like that.”
(sorry if this is a double post. Not my lucky day today.)
Jonathan (the other one): Hey, if you had the choice between making sex tapes with Bunnies and appearing on Smallville, which would you choose?
Luigi Novi: Your question reminds me of the time on Friends when Chandler held out both of his hands to each side and asked Joey which he’d rather have (gesturing with each of his hands to represent each of the two things he was naming): A hot woman, and a giant bowl of Monica’s homemade jelly. A smiling Joey answered, “Put your hands together my friend.”
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In light of lovely ladies that have graced the cast of Smallville, Jonathan, I’d say…….”Put your hands together, my friend.”
Hi,
Did anybody keep tabs on how many times any character was kidnapped, forcibly taken or possessed/hypnotized/became an avatar of some old evil or good/was turned evil/sleepwalked and acted evil/convinced to be bad/pretended to go rogue/framed of being evil/blackmailed to be evil/acted evil as part of a good plan/was evil in general?