Frankly, I can't believe this ever got made. How does one sell the prospect of using a franchise character without ever showing the franchise on-screen? TV is not known for its subtlety and nuance. But then, if they can make a sitcom out of a guy who knows how to cook, then I guess TV can do anything. The very idea that an idea this far afield could make it to air is a good thing. You couldn't do it with any other superhero. Teen Spider-Man would feature a weekly hour of young Peter Parker getting wedgies and/or swirlies.

 

Young Superman isn't a new idea. I was introduced to comics by the old stuff when I first started reading, and I read plenty of DC Comics' 1950s and 1960s Superboy comics, "The Adventures of Superman When He Was A Boy!" But they weren't like this. Superboy was in costume, at full power, and was completely angst-free. Come on, it was the 1950s. No one had any problems at all back then, right?

 

And don't fret about this show about the past taking place in the present. I think it just establishes that the Superman story isn't locked down into any one time period. The Superboy comics weren't about growing up in the 1950s, either. There's enough on this show's plate: no need for it to be That Early 90s Show. "Hey, Clark! Check out this new band called Nirvana! They're gonna be bigger than Vanilla Ice!"

 

The show's soundtrack takes a Creeky stance on modernity, by playing snips of current pop songs in nearly every single scene. After about the first dozen, I really got tired of it, but I begrudgingly admit that most of the songs were placed appropriately. If they don't get Five For Fighting's current hit song "Superman" on this show, they're stupid.

 

Surprisingly, they've taken bits and pieces from the Superman comics history. The Smallville cast is complete, with Ma, Pa, Lana Lang, and Superman's best friend Pete, who isn't given a last name here, so he could be the Pete Ross of the comics. Pete isn't black in the comics, but then, nobody else was, either. In the above-mentioned early Superboy comics, Luthor was indeed a teen menace in Smallville, but he was excised during a rewrite in the mid-80s. Now he's back, with the rich-bastard persona that was added to the Luthor character in that same rewrite.

 

The first episode establishes several plot twists unique to the Superman mythos, believe it or not. The usual stuff happens: rocket from Krypton lands, bringing baby Clark with it, Pa Kent revealing to Clark his alien-ness. But then, it turns out that Clark's rocket brought with it a meteor shower that serves as a catalyst for weird stuff to happen in the town. Lana's parents are killed in the meteor shower (extra guilt for Clark). She wears a strange glowing green rock as a necklace, thus, Clark is mild-mannered and klutzy around her.

 

In case that was too subtle, the green rock is Superman's weakness, kryptonite. There are other subtle and some ham-fisted references to Super-you-know-who throughout the show. It's good to know that the creators know we know.

 

John Welling is a good fit as Clark. He has blue eyes and a face that reminds me of Christopher Reeve, and that's a very good thing. Young Lex Luthor has an Eddie Haskell - like menace about him. Pa Kent is played as a salt-of-the-earth country guy by John "Bo Duke Forever" Schneider. The only flop in the casting is Lana Lang, who just looks really, really young to me, like Olsen Twins young.

 

The first episode is pretty good. It's very Creek-like, as anticipated. But what I didn't expect is, there's super-action, too. Clark fights a super-powered bad guy in the first episode. I didn't expect that, but I'm glad it's there. Since, you know, fighting bad guys is kind of what Superman does.

 

So far, it looks like the show is actually using young people's issues to explore the nature of Superman, rather than the much-less entertaining reverse of using Superman to get at angsty teen problems. We'll see.

Rosville... Smallwell... Total Request Lana... Smallville, It Is
Review by Kenn McCracken

Say what you want about the WB network -- they know their target audience well. He's been paying attention, that irritating little frog has, and they seem to have nailed a formula down. Need proof? Make sure you check out Smallville.

If this sounds overly cynical, it's because Smallville shows a lot of promise, and it really has a lot of strong points. The cast was well chosen, the writing is strong, and the premise is, if not entirely original, at least a nicely skewed perspective. The potential, though, is buried in a lot of Dawson's Creek / MTV's Total Request Live kewlness.

Some of you have heard my rants about television, so let me state up front that I'm biased going into this. I watch very little television, have no time for another show (hey, after WWF RAW and NBC's Thursday night line-up, what can I do?), and generally despise the tone that new shows are launched with. This is especially true of comic-based franchises: from the 1970's camp of Spider-Man to Lois and Clark, the networks have managed to do nothing other than water-down characters that I grew up with. The network executives -- to paraphrase Jon Stewart, a group of which is a shame -- seem to aim directly for the mass market, no differently than pop radio and the majority of Hollywood films; tragically, they seem to botch even that.

As noted above, though, they've done well here, at least in that respect. And for that, they probably ought to be shot.

The writing is the real strong point of the show. It's a nice brew of X-Files action-adventure crossed with high school drama -- very reminiscent of the few episodes of Buffy that I've seen. There's an extra selling point for me, as well: the writers have obviously taken pains to learn the comic history behind the show. Sure, there are tweaks, some even necessary to prevent alienating the target market. The show focuses on Clark Kent, not (and as I understand it, never) Superboy; though there are superhuman powers on display, this is more about relationships and the natural internal conflict that comes with being a teenager. The twist, of course, is that the teen angst is augmented by super-strength, speed, and invulnerability (so far).

The cast was well chosen; there are some that I might have picked differently, but there are no Tori Spellings in this batch (of course, I don't think the producers have children who fancy themselves actors). Tom Welling is an especially good choice in the lead role; not only does he seem to have a real grip on the idea that this Clark Kent's arrival on Earth caused more than a sixty plus year comic run (watch the show), but he's so dreamy... Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) must be living some sort of dream, having previously done voice work for both JLA and Batman Beyond. He's got a great chemistry with Welling, too, which, if nothing else, is incentive to watch future episodes, as the rivalry between Kent and Luthor defines the arch-nemesis ideal. The supporting cast, including Kristen Kreuk as Clark's high school sweetheart Lana Lang, Sam Jones III as future Vice-President Pete Ross (you have been keeping up with the comics, right?), and an almost unrecognizable John Schneider as Pa Kent, are quite capable themselves. One question, though: is there any character that John Glover hasn't played yet?

On those lines, where hasn't Moby's Porcelain popped up yet? This is perfect evidence of what might ruin the show for me: the pilot alone features enough radio-friendly song clips to support its own soundtrack (I counted five in the first fifteen minutes). Featuring real music makes the show seem more real -- I get it already -- but one or two would have been plenty, and I might not have been waiting on the edge of my seat for a Carson Daly or Martha Quinn cameo.

One thing that I must mention, breaking my usual Spoiler Silence: there is a scene in the beginning (and again, towards the end) that is beyond reminiscent of the Matthew Sheppard murder. I won't say that it should have been pulled -- I find it offensive that creators would remove a scene or line to pacify an overly sensitive audience -- but there are a lot of people that might find it uncomfortable, and given the tone of the show, it comes out of left field (no pun intended -- watch the show).

So on the one hand, we have what seems on the surface to be a quality show, one that is playing it close to the source material (at least where it counts), with strong technical work and some in-jokes for us comic fans. On the other hand, we have the promise of more cloying dialogue (any show that I can predict 5 lines before they are spoken...), occasionally heavy-handed directing, and the fact that a Carson Daly cameo wouldn't be out of place. Will it be a hit where so many other franchises have failed? I have no clue. I predicted that Lone Gunmen would be a hit and that Ally McBeal wouldn't last any longer than dinner with Calista Flockhart. I will say that, at least from the sofa of a lifelong comic reader and non-fan of television, that it's worth a try. Whether I'm here for the season finale depends on which side of the fence the creators fall on, but it's too early to say that I won't be here.