The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
This series, the latest addition to the growing series about Superman, focuses on the man of steel’s early years, namely his teenage school years. Clark, played by Tom Welling is growing up on his parent’s farm and has yet to reach the big city of Metropolis. This means that there is no Lois Lane, but instead we are introduced to the original apple of the young Clark Kent’s eye, Lana Lang (played by the lovely Kristin Kreuk). Along for the ride are Clark’s close friends, Pete Ross (Sam Jones III) and Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) who help run the high school newsletter. Only Clark’s parents are aware of his origins and his growing powers, but his father (Dukes of Hazzard’s John Schneider) wants to keep Clark’s life as normal as possible.
The main problem is that Clark is only just learning that he is different from everyone else and not being able to tell anyone means that he has to keep suddenly disappearing at the first sign of trouble, something he will get very good at in the years to come. Lana takes this as a bad sign but mostly it goes unnoticed until Clark happens to save another young teenager by the name of Lex Luthor. Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) quickly makes friends with Clark, but in the back of his mind something nags him about that accident and how he was seemingly flown out of a sinking car.
Continuity differences usually annoy me, and there are plenty of them here between the origins of Superman in the comics to this new Warner Bros production. The stories are set in the present day, Luthor knows Kent as a teenager and Kent’s powers are only just appearing as he reaches adulthood. There are also far too many fragments of Kryptonite that seem to bestow powers on everyone they touch. For some reason, though, this production is different, the continuity can be waved aside in favour of good old fashioned story telling and some pretty good character development. Fine, so coming up with a story about yet another piece of Kryptonite can get a bit on the annoying side, but when it’s handled in the way this is, you don’t really mind too much.
The good guys are likeable and identifiable, the bad guys aren’t always bad, but misguided or unlucky. This isn’t good vs evil as in the early comics but a thought provoking series that deals with many issues including feeling alone and alienated as a teenager.
Warner Bros have managed to get all that is good about the Superman universe and make something brand new that works for the new millennium. Smallville is a gem in a seemingly endless pile of American sit-coms and series, dare I say it, it’s super!
One of only a few programmes I actually watch on TV these days.
I love the subtlety they add, such as Lana saying to clark 'I think blue suits you' We all know where that will lead!
> I watch this, it's a damn good programme.
Shame about the crap N64 game though!