Dawson's Creek meets Superman

Smallville has been one of my guilty pleasures for a long time, but I've gotten away from watching the current episodes for some time. I was very happy to see that the first season had come out on DVD, and even happier when I unwrapped it on Christmas morning. I think that it took me all of four days or so to watch all 21 episodes, and I fell in love with the show all over again.

For those not familiar with the Superman mythology, first of all, where have you been for the last 50 years? Second of all, Smallville is a good jumping off point for an introduction into the Superman mythos. Clark Kent (Tom Welling) is just a normal teenager starting his freshman year in high school (looking all of 23 years old), except he can run faster than a speeding bullet and happens to be more powerful than a locomotive. He can't yet fly, and other powers such as X-ray vision come upon him in a sort of Kryptonian puberty, but he's basically a younger version of the character we all know and love. What was a vignette in the Superman movie becomes a multi-season series, and a very interesting one at that.

Clark's adopted parents are Martha and Jonathan Kent (Annette O'Toole and John Schneider), and they bear the secret of Clark's birth with a lot of seriousness. The Luthors are the rich family whose ancestral home (along with one of their factories) is located in Smallville. A young Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) is sent off to run the Smallville plant from a wild nightlife in Metropolis in order to "prove himself." The Kents have an instinctive distrust of the Luthors, and this provides a lot of the drama in the season, especially since Clark and Lex become fast friends after Clark saves Lex's life in the first episode. The supporting cast is filled out with Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk), Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack), and Pete Ross (Sam Jones III).

The season starts off slowly, with many formulaic episodes. Someone in town has some powers that have been acquired by the meteor rocks that are sprinkled all over town (can't we just call it Kryptonite? Please?), and Clark has to stop them while not exposing his own powers. The first episode to really break this mold is episode 9, entitled "Rogue," where Clark is witnessed using his powers in Metropolis. A dirty cop decides that he can blackmail Clark, but eventually everything works out for the best. "Leech" is also an interesting episode, where Clark and a social outcast at school are struck by lightning, and Clark's powers are transferred for a few days. But the best episode by far, in my opinion, is "Zero," in which we learn about a torrid little bit of Lex Luthor's past in Metropolis, when he used to frequent a nightclub called Club Zero. There is a lot of backstory shown here, and we get to see a side of Lex that doesn't normally come across.

The acting is very good, but the standouts are Tom Welling as Clark, Michael Rosenbaum as Lex, and John Schneider and Annette O'Toole as Jonathan and Martha Kent. Tom Welling is unbelievably handsome with a winning smile, and he's utterly convincing in his role as Clark Kent. He looks a little too old for the age he's supposed to be playing, but I can still buy it. Michael Rosenbaum lends a depth to Lex Luthor that I wouldn't have expected possible. Lex is caught between a desire to be a good friend to Clark and a desire to find out more about his mysterious origins. He's also desperate for a real relationship with his father, and consequently fiercely jealous of the Kents for their wholesomeness. John Schneider and Annette O'Toole are very convincing as the type of parents that would do anything to protect Clark, even though he's not really their child. They're wholesome and have good values that they always try to instill upon Clark.

I had always wondered why Superman, a man with the abilities possessed of a Kryptonian on Earth, would choose to be good. Why wouldn't he just choose to be super powerful and take over the world? That would make just as much sense, it seems to me. One of the great things about Smallville is that it answers this question for me. Clark was raised by a wholesome family, and the show makes it clear that his upbringing is just as important to his character as his enormous abilities. Another interesting thing to note is that though the Kent family is, by all outward appearances, very wholesome, their entire existence is structured around one big lie that they must uphold to the world. This creates a curious dichotomy, and delves into a side of the Superman mythology that's not often touched, which is that Superman/Clark Kent has to knowingly deceive nearly everyone he knows about who he really is.

In the final assessment, Smallville is one of the best concepts to come along in a long time. It's a story whose end we know, but there's so much involved in how we could get there. Why do Clark and Lex stop being friends? What happens to Chloe (who never actually appeared in the Superman comics)? When, oh, when will he learn to fly? If you let Smallville get its hooks in you, you won't be disappointed.

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