Somebody Save Me

It's interesting that it seems to be impossible these days to do a reveal of Superman without John Williams' theme. After ten years of Smallville Tom Welling finally got to wear the red cape, although it was for barely five minutes! Over the years I've watched a lot of Superman. It wasn't the first but Superman IV was one of my earliest cinema going experiences. I don't remember the order but I presume I'd seen at least one of the first three films on TV before that. I forget because I've seen them repeated on so many Saturday afternoons since. Then on top of that was the nineties where Saturday tea time was always about fish & chips and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman with the family. With the exception of a scan of Action Comics #1 I've never read any of the comic though. I think I'll stick with catching up on the X-Men for now though, there's far too much history in both those franchises to catch up on both at once.

I didn't actually start watching Smallville when it first aired. I caught up much later, I think season six was airing at the time. I was probably too busy doing university things in 2001 when it started. However after it had been on the air for so long I figured that must be for a reason so I decided to give it a try. I've never regretted that decision. Like any long-running series it's not always been perfect, but it's always kept me entertained. My favorite episodes were always the ones related to the overall mythology and Clark's journey towards becoming Superman, rather than the general villain of the week type stuff. Of course of the episodes were always spread thinly as the producers tried to stretch the story for as long as possible and so Clark learned about one new power per year. The highlight for me was probably the creation of the Fortress of Solitude.

So we've had a long ten year tease and flashes of destiny but unfortunately the grand finale was a bit of a disappointment. It started off extremely slowly with preparations for Lois and Clark's wedding day, complete with cold feet and second thoughts. Then Darksied's apocalypse planet arrives and that's all interrupted. So Clark jumps into action by running around and having a quick chat with all the major characters, some of which haven't even been in the show for a few years. All this while meteors are raining down on the Earth. I understand that for Clark it's mental journey. He's got all this power but has to find the strength of will to use it and become the hero. Still I was expecting a little less talking and a bit more action. It's seems like they'd got too many plot threads to tie up in an hour and twenty minutes, especially when you spend the first half on a wedding that didn't even happen. Why did Green Arrow need to spend all the previous episode getting the Bow of Osiris? To shoot three of Darksied's minions in a thirty second throw-away scene? I thought it was going to be more important than that. Then there was all the parts about Lex and Tess. I appreciate where this all fits in the mythology but it didn't really affect Clark and so seemed a bit out of place here. That probably would have been better placed a couple of episodes earlier.

The one saving grace was the five minutes of "seven years in the future" at the end. Here everyone one was in their more typical roles. It was great fun and almost redeemed the whole thing. Finally of course it ended like this: