It’s never been great, but I found Smallville watchable and entertaining in a fluffy, brainless kind of way. Repetitive freak of the week plots notwithstanding, I quite liked the evolution of Lex Luthor, and find Michael Rosenbaum to do a great job of offering a three-dimensional, interesting character.
But this season, yikes. Lana is possessed by a witch, in a vain attempt to give her a personality. The “mystery” villain who framed Alicia might as well have been called Mr. Law of Economy of Characters, and while Tom Welling is very cute, he delivered the most laughable “NOOOOOOOOO!!!” I’ve ever seen in that ep. And then they went to China, for chrissake. I also can no longer keep track of whether Lana and Clark are on or off, and I’m ceasing to care. Worst of all is the sudden heavy handed after-schoo-special messages such as “two thirds of teens who have sex regret it,” or whatever hamfisted factoid they had Chloe recite. Ugh!
And yet I’m going to watch next fall, at least for a few episodes, hoping for improvement. If nothing else, maybe they’ll show Tom in a wet t-shirt again.
