Tuesday 6 July 2021

Smallville, Season 6 (2006)


 

Clark Kent is trapped in the 'inescapable' Phantom Zone while Kryptonian supervillain General Zod, now occupying the hijacked the body of Lex Luthor, plots to conquer the Earth. Truly, all is lost!

Don't be silly, this is Smallville.  By the end of the first episode you can bet Clark will be back, Lex will be restored, and the two of them will be back to their familiar rivalry while Zod is back in his box until the next time we need him as a Big Bad (when who knows?  He might even get his own actor to play the role!).

That may sound like a slam on the show, but I don't really mean it as one.  'Colossal season finale crisis that will be solved in 45 minutes when we come back' is kind of a motif of the show by now, and I think I would miss it a little if it didn't happen.  It's not even that big a deal that the writers clearly have a firm comfort zone (romantic dramedy where the super-powers stuff exists mostly to complicate the characters' personal lives) they prefer to come back to as quickly and as often as possible.  Six years into the show that pattern should hardly be a surprise, and to be honest, the cast works very well in that space.

It's possible also that wading through several years of the Arrowverse shows has made me appreciate a show that resolutely tacks to the lighter side of super-heroic action, but I found season six of Smallville to be thoroughly watchable comfort food TV.

No comments:

Post a Comment