I’ve had strong opinions about Smallville ever since its 2001 debut. My hope was
to share the long and the short of it all back in May on the occasion of the series’ finale — but I only managed the short.
Here’s the long.
What follows is chock-full of spoilers on the show’s ten seasons, as of last month available in their entirety on DVD. If you haven’t (a) seen this divisive, enduringly popular yet much reviled take on the the Superman mythos begun in 1938 by creators Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, or (2) at least cared enough to keep tabs it through articles or conversations, then you’re awfully polite to keep reading.
The series finale of Smallville repeats on CW stations tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT. I watched it last Friday with hope, skepticism, and ultimately the same disappointment familiar to me from throughout the show’s 10-year run.
My in-depth reflections on this controversial adaptation of the Superman saga have proven difficult to wrangle, and if they’re not published soon they’ll have to hang out on the burgeoning scrapheap of abandoned posts. I certainly hope to get a piece online by November, when Smallville: The Complete Series is released by Warner in a 62-disc collectible package with all 218 episodes and special features not available on the season-by-season boxed sets. I just wish the subject was worth the effort. [Update: Here you go.]
Related: El on Earth • Box Set Full of Kryptonite • Failure to Launch
