Smallville (Smallville)

Member Name: sharktrager

Product:	Smallville
Date:	31/12/01 (361 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's Superman!

Disadvantages: .

--------------------------------------------
SMALLVILLE - THE PILOT EPISODE/METAMORPHOSIS
First US Airdates: 16/23 October 2001
--------------------------------------------
This first section of the SMALLVILLE opinion is based on the first two episodes of the series - when Channel 4 aired the show they edited these two episodes together to make a feature-length special episode.

SMALLVILLE has got an awful lot to live up to. The 'Superman' character has got a lot of history behind it - he first appeared in the comic books in the 1930s, swiftly followed by the cinema, and his first incarnation on TV was in the 1950s in THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, starring George Reeves. Since that time there have been numerous new versions, including both animation and live-action. The most recent was in the 1990s in LOIS AND CLARK - THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, which starred Dean Cain as Superman. Cain was perfect for the part, and this was the first television version which portrayed 'Clark Kent' as the real person, and 'Superman' the 'suit' he had to put on when he needed to. Previously it had seemed the other way around, with the character being too 'Super' and 'Clark Kent' being the 'suit' - this was perfectly exemplified in the movies starring Christopher Reeve, where 'Clark' pretended to be incredibly clumsy. This was just an act to cover up his 'super'-ness.

And so we come to SMALLVILLE, and in this version of the story, 'Superman' doesn't even exist. Clark is a teenager with special powers living in his home town of Smallville - he hasn't made it as far as the city of Metropolis yet. In some other versions of the story, at this time Clark was also 'Superboy' but in SMALLVILLE this hasn't happened - he's just an odd teenager.

This is where SMALLVILLE the TV show has more to live up to than the 'Superman' mythos. There hav
e been a plethora of teenage dramas on TV in revent years - I used to love BEVERLY HILLS 90210 when it used to be shown o ITV, and that show can be viewed as the father of many of the popular shows of today. DAWSON'S CREEK owes a lot to 90210, and so do the more supernatural teen series of the present, such as BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ROSWELL, and now SMALLVILLE. The show is most reminiscent of ROSWELL. Whereas that show has a small group of teenagers with a supernatural secret (they're aliens), here it's only Clark (guess what - he's an alien too). How does SMALLVILLE rate against those other teen dramas, supernatural or otherwise? Surprisingly well - the angst is well-written and well-played.

Speaking of teen angst brings me onto the actors who play the various characters. Clark is played by Tom Welling. He looks good, and when I originally saw the pictures of him in magazines saying he was the new Clark Kent, I was worried that he looked too much like a beefcake, but he has more than beef - he can act quite well too.

The character of Lana Lang has previously always been known as Clark's home town girlfriend, who he left before leaving Smallville. At this point however, Clark and Lana have not got it together yet - he's very attracted to her, but she's got a jock boyfriend - Whitney Fordman, the star football player. I guess they'll get it together sometime, but hopefully she won't get passed around the teens of Smallville in the same way that the characters in DAWSON'S CREEK get passed around each other. Kristin Kreuk plays Lana, and she carries the character off nicely too. It helps that she's great looking, too.

As Lex Luthor, Clark's odd friend, Michael Rosenbaum is quite wooden. It doesn't help that in this version of the story Lex is quite a boring character, but Rosenbaum does really do much with the part either. And he looks silly - and no I don't have anything against bald
people (Patrick Stewart looks great as Captain Picard in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION) but he just doesn't look right.

As Clark's parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, John Schneider and Annette O'Toole are good too. It's great to see Schneider again - I used to watch him every week on THE DUKES OF HAZZARD, and the casting of O'Toole as Martha is a great nod to the past. She played Lana Lang in the third of Christopher Reeve's SUPERMAN movies, and it's a great touch.

So, all in all, a very good show. Let's hope that the rest of the series lives up to the promise of this pilot episode.

--------------------------------------------
SMALLVILLE - HOTHEAD
First US Airdate: 30 October 2001
--------------------------------------------

This episode of the show has Dan Lauria (the Dad from THE WONDER YEARS) as the (American) football coach for the school's team. He has developed special powers (I think there's going to be a lot of that in this series!) and is able to make things catch fire by 'thinking' them alight. This is reminiscent of episodes of THE X-FILES (in fact, the music also sounds very similar - does anyone know if this show uses the same composer?), and as THE X-FILES is one of my favourite shows, that's no bad thing.

Also in this episode Clark joins the football team (against his father's wishes) and Lana quits cheerleading to work in a café (doesn't that happen a lot in these teen dramas?).

Summary: