I only started watching Smallville because the Legion of Superheroes were on it. This Friday brings in the Justice Society, another of my long-time favorites.
So, as someone who didn’t watch an episode before the Legion stuff, what background do I need to jump into the series live this Friday?
Try Wiki. I found that the episode summaries were very helpful in getting up to speed.
I was hoping for something along the lines of themes (like Lex Luthor is dead, Oliver Queen is in the semi-Batman role, the significance of the Watchtower, etc.), rather than reading up on each episode. I guess I’m looking for the 30,000 foot view, not the 1,000 foot view.
Ah. I’m no help at all then. (Just like always!)
Let’s see.
Clark is well out of Smallville by this point, working as a cub reporter at the Planet along Lois, and already starting to develop a super-hero alterego, though not as dramatic a one as the ‘tights and flights’ Superman - Lois nicknamed the never-seen vigilante ‘The Red-blue blur’, and occasionally he calls her as the Blur to deliver his side of a story or to ask for help - sometimes asking her to wait at a phone booth for the next call. 
Chloe is the Sidekick Who Knows Too Much - Clark’s childhood friend, found out about his powers and origin just before they graduated high school, and has been through a lot lately, including becoming Brainiac for a few months and having her husband, Jimmy Olsen, killed by Doomsday. She’s also Lois’ cousin
Can’t think of anything particularly noteworthy to say about Lois that you won’t pick up quickly enough. 
Tess Mercer is the neo-Lex after the old one wanted to get out of the show and was killed off - she’s in control of the LuthorCorp corporate fortune and is somewhat morally ambiguous. She knows a fair bit about Clark’s alien origins by now, and keeps trying to persuade him that she’s on his side and just wants him to live up to his potential. (In this, she’s also taking over the role that Lex’s father, Lionel Luthor, had on the show before he died.
Lana Lang, in case you want to know, left the show for good because she had a nanotech suit bonded to her skin, and the suit absorbed a huge amount of kryptonite, so she can’t come near Clark without killing him.
Lunch break’s over, I’ll try to continue later.
So far all I know about Lois is that she is the most annoying Lois yet. I’ve seen a few Zod episodes, but that stuff thoroughly confused me. I think that Pete Ross, from the early seasons, also died somewhere? Also dead is the Duke boy who played Jonathan Kent?
Thanks for the overview so far.
A bit more on Lois: she was established as an ‘army brat’, who came to Smallville to solve the case of Chloe’s death, which turned out to be faked. Between the end of last season and the start of this one, she took a trip to the future where Major Zod had taken over Earth.
Oliver Queen: used to be the earnest do-gooder superhero type - after he found out about Clark’s powers, he was nagging Clark to do more with them than just look after the people that he was close to. His current angstier attitude is supposed to have something to do with the way the Doomsday fight went down.
Major Zod: A kryptonian clone, from some scheme by the Elders of Krypton to save their best and brightest in the event of a holocaust. He doesn’t remember the fact that Zod doomed the world, because that was after the cloning tech stored a copy of his brain pattern or something. Also this season’s running bad guy, like you couldn’t tell. Leads a unit of clone soldiers, who Zod commanded in a war.
There was a Jor-el clone too, who Zod killed. The original Jor-el did something to take away all the clones’ red sun powers. (He was assigned to lead the cloning project by the council.)
Pete Ross is still around somewhere, though he’s only had one guest starring appearance in the last five years or so, and Martha Kent is a US senator for Kansas who apparently spends no time in Kansas. Jonathan Kent died in season five, after Clark went back in time to save Lana after he told her his secret and it led to her death.
The drinking game is take a shot every time someone says, “Let’s just say…”
You must be open to awful, awful dialogue to watch this show.
Best I don’t have a glass in my hand for the Lois scenes. I wouldn’t want to throw them at the TV. Every incarnation of Lois has had its annoying points, but this one just really grates on me. I really wanted Zod to fry her.
I wasn’t interested as long as it was about a super-powered angsty teen and all his angsty teen friends in Smallville. But I’m a Legion mark/fanboy, so I watched and I saw they’re trying to make him into Superman slowly. I’m watching more for the peripheral heroes than for The Blue-Red Blur. As for bad dialogue, I’m a fan of 24 - this is amateur compared to Jack Bauer & co. for bad dialogue.