Rob wrote:
>Smallville is beyond any doubt, my absolute favorite TV program.
>You can have your Star Treks and Buffys, Smallville kicks ass and IMHO is
>the best genre program on television today.
>
I'd put it near the top, close to Buffy, Angel, and what I've seen of 
Farscape.  Although I love Jeremiah, I'd put Smallville above it on my list.

>Basicly its the formula for Spiderman as applied to the most well known
>cultural American icon of the 20th century. And the formula works.
>The first season has been somewhat formulaic, but It appears that that was
>done with intent, in order to fill in the background more completely and
>flesh out the characters more fully.

The episodes (at least the first half or so of the season) had a "strange 
bad guy/weird event of the week" approach which was pretty formulaic, but 
what makes those shows work is all the character development that happens.  
The weird thing of the week is almost the b-story, and the a-story is the 
developing relationships between Clark and Lana, or Clark and Lex, or Lex 
and Lana or Clark and Chloe, or Chloe and Lana, etc.  The plots can be 
formulaic, even occasionally in terms of the relationships, but they are 
done so well that I love them anyway.

And Lex Luthor, as portrayed in this show, is currently my favorite 
character on television.  He's very complex and multilayered, very real.  
And at this point, he and Clark are still friends, and the writers seem to 
have fun playing Lex the way he is now against our expectations of Lex, or 
our future knowledge of what Lex will become.  The writers have done a 
fantastic job with Lex.  This is the definitive Lex Luthor.

<trivia mode>Michael Rosenbaum, the guy who plays Lex, also does the voice 
for Flash on Justice League on Cartoon Network, and did some voices for one 
of the animated Batman series (Batman Beyond, I think).</trivia mode>

Also, often overlooked are Annette O'Toole and John Schneider as Clark's 
adopted mother and father.  These characters (like all the others) are well 
written and well acted, and the healthy, honest interaction between them and 
Clark is a welcome change from the parental dynamics of most shows.

Smallville definitely rocks.  I would recommend it to anyone.

Reggie Bautista


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