I watched the first five or six seasons, but haven’t watched since. I decided to watch the finale. Mostly, I wanted to see the return of Michael Rosenbaum as Lex. I wanted to see Tom Welling don the tights. We also got to see Annette O’Toole, John Schneider, and John Glover. No Lana except in Lex’s flash. No Pete at all that I noticed. He might have had a blip in Clark’s flashback. I thought Lois was annoying when I watched it before, but I really liked her here. She and Clark actually worked for me. I don’t get the need for the framing device. Chloe was the only one to say Superman, to her son at the end. I thought it was a nice way to end the series overall.
It was a fitting finale to the series. All Smallville fans have been waiting to see Clark don the Superman costume and that payoff came at the end although you never really saw Tom Welling in the costume full on. But it was enough. Some plot points didn’t make a lot of sense, but the show has been like that for a while. So when all is done, Clark puts on the uni, he and Lois haven’t but may soon marry, Jimmy Olsen’s brother now works for the Planet, Lex Luthor is back and president of the USA and has no memory of his past, and Chloe has a cute kid who reads Superman comics and has a nice set of bow and arrows.
I thought clark looked fabulous in his unitard. 
I’m a little disapointed by the “clip show” part of this episode. I also wasn’t digging the whole “Superman” comics bit.
I’m not gonna bitch tho’, because for the past three or four years this show has brought me a lot of enjoyment. I’m sorry to see this series end.
I only ever saw the pilot, so I just watched the last 15 minutes or so. I have to say, it was cool to see him put on the suit and even cooler to watch him rip his shirt open and reveal the suit at the end.
I loved it. It was truly a great show. Now if only the first few seasons can be erased from existance.
I thought it was rushed–knowing it was coming for the last two seasons, I would have preferred a little more steady build-up. They could have lost a few episodes (I enjoyed the Booster Gold ep, but it was expendable for example) and set up the final confrontation between Darkseid and Supes so it lasted more than…what? 2 punches? As far as I can tell, Clark was in uniform for about 7 minutes of screen time. I would have liked it to have been more like 30 minutes–a little more epic fight with Darkseid, something a little more intense than simply giving Apokolypse a single punch to make it go away, a little more crowd reaction, etc.
The dialogue was gibberish–but then–this is Smallville. People just talk weirdly there. (This one seemed expecially cringeworthy though)
The plot really made little sense–after last episode’s realizing he had to make his own destiny he decides that no, Jor-El and Jonathon Kent were necessary after all? And why in the world would he turn Jor-El back on given that Jor-El has nothing better to do than fuck with his powers–giving them to Lois (another useless episode) or turning them off or whatever. I would have preferred him defeating Darkseid on his own and THEN turning the Jor-El computer back on and saying “Screw you, Dad–you’ve been a dick for 10 seasons. I finally figured out the way to win is to not pay attention to you.”
With the flashback stuff, I wish they’d gone slower-I really couldn’t see anything and I really would have liked a flashback moment showing Dr Swan (Chris Reeve). (If there was one, it went by too fast.)
That said, the last minute or so where Clark runs up the stairs, rips open his shirt and the “real” Superman theme plays? Wow—that bit alone made me forget all my concerns about the previous couple hours. 
They’d been teasing the Superman theme for about the previous 30 minutes (and there was a clear excerpt from “Can you read my mind”) but I figured that they were just teasing the theme because they couldn’t get the rights. It was freakin’ awsome the way they ended it.
I am / was only the occasional Smallville watcher - probably missed most of it, but I have watched more this season knowing it was the last.
I wished Lana could have made at least a short appearance (not in a flashback)
The music was way cool.
Also disapointed the battle was anticlimactic.
Brian
I don’t get the whole “there’s a published comic book which reveals Superman’s secret identity” bit.
I liked it.
Been an avid viewer of the show since the beginning and while the first season, (at the very least), was pretty much trash they managed to right the ship eventually and produced a pretty interesting take on Superman’s legacy. It’s weird because I think this came far too late, the show should have ended 3 or 4 years ago. But that would have denied us all the delving into the lore of the comics with Supergirl, the JSA, the Legion and so on which wound up being some of the best stuff Smallville did. That stuff should have been done in seasons 4 and 5 rather than 8, 9, and 10. But if there’s one thing Smallville was good at, it was wasting time dicking around with pointless bullshit.
That probably sounds needlessly harsh, but the finale was incredibly typical of the show. It was an hour and a half of build up, almost to the point where you begin to lose interest, and then the last thirty minutes they pull out all the stops and they remind me why I’ve loved this character since I was small child. From the moment Clark is confronted by Darkseid/Lionel in the barn onward is all gold. I particularly liked the sequence after he accepted the suit in the FOS and he flies up busts out out of the ceiling. The Clark that we’ve watched for 10 years is gone. The Man of Steel has finally arrived.
I liked the reference to Clark saving the airplane Lois was on. It was short but sweet.
Michael Rosenbaum as Lex had to be there. Best actor in the whole series. Charismatic as hell and deliciously evil.
Tess was batting for the good guys till the very end. I was afraid they were going to turn her for real. A feel good moment.
The ending did feel rushed. Clark going all Silver Age and pushing planets around had a certain nostalgic quality to it, but it felt like a cheat.
LOVED the John Williams score at the end. The show has had a history of teasing that music, particularly when Reeves was guest starring early on, but it was entirely appropriate.
A missed opportunity I felt was the closing shot. The show should have ended with Clark flying around the Earth in full costume, and then turning and smiling at the camera.
One final thought… Tom Welling REALLY did not want to wear the suit apparently. Oh well… At least they convinced him to put the shirt on at the very end at least.
I guess I’m the only one who liked the early seasons better than the later ones. Sure they were fluff, but they were entertaining fluff. They didn’t make you wonder what the hell everybody was thinking.
I thought the finale was awful. Nothing made any sense, from everybody showing up for work the day the world was obviously going to end, to a gigantic planet a couple hundred miles from earth not creating tsunamis, to Lois getting on Air Force One with somebody else’s picture ID, to Clark taking a detour to buzz the streets of Metropolis on his way from a plane 30,000 feet in the air to the menacing planet above him, to Clark and Lois then waiting another 7 years to resume their interrupted wedding.
Even the flying, the absolute climax that everybody’s been waiting for, sucked compared to flying scenes in earlier shows. Huge disappointment.
I liked the finale okay and have enjoyed most of the series. I do agree, an epic battle with Darkseid would have been better than planet juggling. Clearly Welling did not want to wear the tights which was too bad. Loved the music at the end but the lingering shot of Clark on the roof , and opening the shirt was also to 50s 60s, He moves at super speed.
Olsen’s brother at the planet, and Perry White. Great. Lex as president, not necessary. Way too young. But overall, the emergence of Superman at the end of a series about Smallville, was the right ending.
I’d like to see a different series take it’s place. Green Arrow, Supergirl, the Legion, continue the modern interpretation of the DC universe. How about Conner Kent taking the reigns. There ya go.
!st season, as he discovered his powers, was great. Somewhere along the way I got real tired of Lana,. Overall, the way they stuck with the DC universe but with some new twists was enjoyable.
It would have been cool if Clark could have at least met Bruce Wayne , but I’m sure licensing was an issue for that.
Let’s not forget that it could’ve really sucked. Think of all the ways they easily could’ve Jumped the Snagriff (Kryptonian shark).
I leave it to more astute Lit-Crit types than I to detail all the train wrecks we avoided… (my personal fear was watching an hour of Clark in blue long-undies being all smiley and cheesy, trying to act like Christopher Reeve, rescuing kittens out of trees).
I have a number of criticisms… But it could’ve been a lot worse.
For me, that was around season Two…about the 3000th time she went into the “trust” speech. 
That’s bizarre.
I wonder why he objected so much given the totally stupid-looking outfit he’s been wearing.
He looked far better in the costume than in the “Hey, ! escaped from a gay disco circa 1983” red leather look.
Bear in mind that the whole premise of the series is that it’s pre-Superman. That’s why it’s called Smallville. To show too much (or any) Superman would’ve been counter to that premise. I’m not defending the finale which had some questionable plot elements, but overall it was well-done. There was enough of a glimpse of Tom Welling wearing the uniform to say that he’s now the Superman we know. Going in I knew that it was very unlikely that we’ll get to see Tom Welling in the costume full on since he’s previously indicated his unwillingness to do so. What we saw was pretty good considering. Then they did some things to put the DC universe back on track as much as they could, like resurrecting Lex and making him forget what he knew about Clark, Jimmy working for the Planet, etc. All in all, as finales go, it was a good one.
The battle with Darkseid was a letdown. I’m guessing that they wanted to do so much that adding super-smackdown would have cost too much. TV budgets, especially CW, limit what they can do.
I watched for the superhero stuff. Super-emo man and his emo friends were the in-between parts that dragged the show down. And I agree, kill a few episodes to make Darkseid the focus of the last 5 hours and really have him truly take over. They did a better job with the Kandorian plotline.
My feeling is that you’re not harsh enough.
I totally agree. Here my list of scenes where we saw Clark in costume:
[ol]
[li]when he broke out of the Fortress[/li][li]when Lois was looking out of the plane window[/li][li]when we see him holding the plane’s engine[/li][li]after the closeups (see below) we see him outside the plane, near Lois’s window, from a few different angles[/li][li]after getting rid of the dangerous planet we see him in space[/li][/ol]From what I see, ALL of those were so small and so out-of-focus that I suspect them all of being animated! (I’m serious about that. Watch it in slow motion, and see how much detail you can make out on his face, or of the “S”.)
(We also see him come up close to Lois’s window on the plane, but that doesn’t count because we see his costume only from behind. In the same scene, we do see his face from the inside of the plane, but we do not see his shirt at all, only the cape flapping in the background.)
What was Welling’s phobia? If he is really afraid of some kind of Superman death-curse, he shouldn’t have taken this job. The way they built up everything about the costume, I really thought we’d see him wearing it. I don’t get it. If Welling was that much against wearing it, he should have found another way to end the series.
And there are lots of other stupid things about this episode:[ul]
[li]Clark still isn’t wearing his glasses all the time![/li][li]It took another seven years for Lois and Clark to get married?[/li][li]What was this whole business with 2018 and Chloe anyway? Did they have something against using the name “Superman” in 2018?[/li][li]That artsy-fartsy business in the Fortress, showing us scenes for the whole series took up 120 whole seconds!!! The recap at the beginning of the episode was nice, and should have been enough. But it wasn’t enough - we got to see 35 seconds of Lex’s life flashing before his eyes too![/li][/ul]
Ecch. I’m fed up.
In fairness, there were good things too. Jonathan was great. And it was very nice of Jor-El to acknowledge the value of the Kents’ influence on Clark. And I suppose I have to admit that although he did it without the costume, when Clark flew at Lionel, that was genuine flying, and well-filmed.
Yeah, the scenes with him in full costume looked like CGI.
Does anyone think the problem of showing the full costume has anything to do with the lawsuit from the families of the creators of Superman character? Evidently, the lawsuit involves copyright infringement with the names Smallville, Superboy etc. I would think that includes the costume.