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Welcome back to another Sunday of TV awesomeness! Since I last left you guys, the new TV season has gotten into full swing. While we have new programing going on, I will be giving you a quick review of the past week’s shows that I thought were note worthy and that you might want to check out.

Smallville started its 10th season with “Lazarus,” written by Don Whitehead and Holly Henderson and directed by Kevin G. Fair. The episode starts off right where season nine ended. Clark has a near death experience and realizes that he needs to step up and be the hero that the world needs. This new outlook, however, does not work out too well for him when he has to save Lois from an old, age accelerated Lex Luthor Clone. Tess awakes to find herself fully healed in a Cadmus Lab filled with Lex clones. The age accelerated clone ends up killing the rest of the Lex clones, except for a young clone that Tess manages to save. Chloe dons the helmet of Dr. Fate in hopes of finding Oliver, who is basically tortured for the entire episode. Lois, now knowing Clark’s secret, decides to leave and take up a job that was offered to her by Perry White. There is a brief appearance of some kind of dark smoke thing that takes the form of Darkseid, and Jonathan Kent returns to help offer advice to Clark as a kind of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The episode was not one of the best ones, but I am sure the episodes will get better as we go along.

In honor of Smallville beginning its final run, I thought it would be fun to go back this week and see how it all began.

Title: Smallville
Company: Warner Bros. Television
Distributed by: Warner Home Video
US Release Date:  September 23, 2003
Length: 922 min.
Rating: Not Rated
Season: One

Smallville tells the story of a young Clark Kent growing up in a little Kansas town known as Smallville. The show takes place during Clark’s high school years and features classic Superman characters as well as a few new ones. Tom Welling stars as our young Superman in training, with Annette O’Toole and John Schneider playing his adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. The series also features Kristen Kreuk as Lana Lang , Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor, Eric Johnson as Whitney Fordman, Sam Jones III as Pete Ross, Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan, and John Glover as Lionel Luthor.

The series is really given its birth by a meteor shower that hits Smallville and sets everything into motion. Besides bringing Clark to Earth, the meteor shower has an effect on almost everyone in the town. This is especially true of Lana, who loses both of her parents, and Lex, who loses all of his hair. Throughout this season we also learn that many people were granted superpowers from exposure to the meteor rocks. These “meteor freaks” as they come to be known, often are mentally unstable and usually want to cause harm to others.

What makes Smallville different from other Superman shows, is that for the first time it puts an almost Marvel Comics spin on the Superman. As Clark learns about his origins and slowly develops his abilities, he has awkward mishaps and makes mistakes. Clark Kent feels more like an X-Man or Spider-Man, trying to understand these strange new powers and still deal with day to day life as an average teen. The writers are great at grounding (no pun intended) Clark as a character and making him more relatable than he is in the comics, where he is an almost god-like being. Clark gets picked on at school, makes a fool out of himself in front of Lana (mainly due to her Kryptonite necklace), and really struggles trying to learn how to use his abilities responsibly.

The main drawback to the first season is how each episode follows a kind of meteor freak of the week story line. The season doesn’t really have any major story arc that runs though the twenty-one episodes. There is no major showdown, nothing gets resolved, it’s basically just Clark saving his friends and family from some new super powered freak, over and over again. Talk about a never ending battle. The only other main plot lines focus on Lex’s fascination with Clark and their really complex friendship, or the Clark and Lana budding relationship.

Probably one of the best things about this show is the cinematography. The settings and backgrounds are amazing and the use of color and lighting make the show really stand out. Even most of the special effects are done well for being on a TV show budget. I especially like the way that Clark’s X-ray vision is done as though it were an actual X-ray, it’s really unique. The other thing that makes this show worth watching is the cast. I think everyone in this cast does a great job, especially John Schneider and Annette O’Toole. I don’t think you could find anyone better suited to play Clark Kent and Lex Luthor than Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum. They are so good at bringing these iconic characters to life. Smallville definitely brings its own twist to the Superman story, but in doing so it makes a classic story that has been retold numerous times seem fresh and fun.

Before I leave you all to go about your Sunday fun day, there is some new info on the upcoming  Avengers animated series due to premier on October 20th. If you go over to the show’s official website [ http://disney.go.com/xd/avengers/cds/index.html ] you can check out some awesome micro-episodes. The dozen or so minis introduce the characters and set up the series. It gives you a glimpse into how the series will likely be. So until next time, keep watching.

Nick Zamora
nickz@comicattack.net