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Warner / 2008-2009 / 1012 Minutes / Unrated / Street Date: August 25, 2009
Every time Smallville gets close to really pulling me in, it keeps me at bay. I don’t know whether it’s my love/hate relationship with the modern state of comic-book-turned-movie/TV material or what, but I can’t escape the mixed emotions I feel when I review the show. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a sucker for the Lex Luthor and Clark Kent push/pull in any form (with the exception of Superman Returns, the franchise has, at the very least, never left me bored). Whenever those two are in some kind of argument or fight, I’m ready to soak up the good vs. evil that they conjure up.
But, like the seventh season of the show, Smallville: The Complete Eighth Season is simply really not very good. It’s a drag, too, because The Complete Sixth Season was a notable improvement over its predecessors (and for a show that's been on the air this long, that's saying something). Yes, there were some lackluster he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not moments there that hearkened back to the comparatively silly Lois and Clark (when Clark’s ex-flame Lana Lang marries Lex Luthor, let’s just say that each member of that particular love triangle had some dialogue that would give Susan Lucci pause), but as a whole, that season wasn’t bad at all.
In season eight, though, things are pretty much same-old-same-old. Clark Kent (Tom Welling) works as a reporter for the Daily Planet with the ubiquitous Lois Lane (Erica Durance), and it goes without saying that because the twentysomething Man of Steel can travel at something like six-trillion-times the speed of light, he can get the scoop on pretty much any story that pops up in town. There's also the developing relationship - and impending marriage of Jimmy Olsen (Aaron Ashmore) and ladyfriend Allison Mack, but the real gloom-and-doom hovering over the season is the return of Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum). For much of this season, he's MIA, but his Luthorcorp VP Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) spends a lot of time searching him out, and the results are... well, they're pretty dramatic (surprise, surprise).
But where the seventh season of Smallville was a real step in the wrong direction, season eight is merely a pivot: There's no motion any which way here. There's not a ton of mano-a-mano fighting to mention - the season is far more about Clark Kent the adventurous kid slowly turning into Clark Kent the mild-mannered adult reporter - and when the show simply focuses on the character aspects of its dramatic world without throwing its audience the bone of at least a little action, the results are stillborn.
Somehow, though, I must admit that I want to keep watching Smallville. This eighth season may be less violently unbelievable than its older brother, but neither hold a candle to some of the show's earlier go-rounds. But TV's benevolent crack-pipe paradigm keeps me coming back: I’ve invested enough in the series that I want to see how it ends. Sure, there are some rough spots – in Smallville's case, it's almost season-long potholes – but with TV, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And even a fair-weather fan like me simply has to see how these Superman stories play out.
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