by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 01, 2008   Last Updated: September 22, 2008

"Smallville" set a record in its first episode, drawing 8.4 million viewers to its story of young Superman (the largest audience ever recorded for the Warner Brothers network). The show follows young Clark Kent through his high school years in small-town America, sustaining interest in the future Superman with good acting and good stories.

The producers originally spent over five months assembling their excellent cast. (Actor Tom Welling had turned down the part of Clark Kent twice before finally discovering that the script "was amazing".) "Smallville" also boasts two charismatic actors playing Jonathan and Martha Kent, the middle-aged midwestern couple who adopt the super-strong teenager from outer space. Clark's adopted father is played by John Schneider, who played Bo Duke on the original Dukes of Hazzard, and Annette O'Toole plays Martha Kent. She'd played Lana Lang in the 1983 movie Superman III, making her the only actress to play both Superman's girlfriend and his mother!

"Smallville" succeeds because its actors create compelling characters, highlighting the personal struggles of the future hero rather than his uniform and superpowers. (The producers once said their philosophy is "no tights, no flights!") From the very first episode Clark finds emotional struggles, knowing that the meteor which brought him to earth also killed the parents of Lana Lang. Clark has an earnest but isolated adolescence, hiding his powers from the world and keeping an eye on teenaged Lex Luthor (who audiences know will someday grow up to become Superman's arch nemesis).

Lex's character creates much of the show's conflict, suspiciously eying his friend Clark for signs of his superpowers. But there's another interesting wrinkle. Lex must also deal with difficult father Lionel, a ruthless businessman. Lionel's machinations lend additional tension to the show. (In one story arc, he was temporarily blinded by a surgical procedure, but then continued faking the blindness after his sight recovers to spy on the other characters.) He conducts illegal experiments with kryptonite, but is sympathetically shown to be seeking a cure for his rare, fatal disease.

The series continues to follow these story lines in interesting directions. In the fourth season, Lionel is in prison, but escapes by transferring his body to his son Lex (and later, to Clark Kent.) Amazingly, when Lionel returns to his own body, the disease is cured, and he swears he's now become "good," devoting himself to a life of philanthropy.

By the time "Smallville" reached its seventh season, actor Michael Rosenbaum announced he would soon be leaving the series. But "Smallville" has already done a fantastic job of creating real people out of comic book characters - thanks to its actors, and the insightful stories that were written for them.

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