How Did You Discover "Smallville"?

[Trekker4747]

Around the release of "Superman Returns" there was a TV documentary on the history of Superman in his various incarnations part of this special talked about "Smallville" and some of the clips and scenes they showed in it piqued my interest. Esp. the treatment of the Clark/Lex relationship so I started in on the DVDs and had, mostly caught up with the show by the end of that Summer in time for the start of the (Sixth?) season and joined in the discussion threads here with my cunning wit.

I remember being slightly interested in checking it out when it premiered and I saw a bit of the pilot and saw all of the last episode of the first season. What little I saw of those two didn't leave me with much of a good impression as it struck me as a "Roswell"-ian angsty teen melodrama. Well, I was partly right. It also had a healthy dose of X-Filesian freak-of-the-week, Sunnydale effect on the characters and residents of Smallville/Metropolis, an assload of angst and, well, when I finally started watching the show I started appreciating these sillier things for the sake of some really good mythos stories. I mean this series is filled with a lot of fluff but when you get through it you can find some really good Superman origin stuff.

The show just has a lot of useless filler between all of the meat. It's the hot dog of TV series.

[RandyS]

My girlfriend got me into it three years ago with her DVD's. Before that, it was constantly: "You love Superman, why don't you like this show?".

Simple answer: It wasn't really a question of like or dislike, just one of perception. When it was first announced, I heard it was for kids. Also, I saw Teri Hatcher (at the time about four years out from Lois & Clark) on some interview show, and she was asked about it, and said something to the effect of "Oh no, I'm too old for this one.", and that further put me off.

[Admiral_Young]

I should add too that I really truly first heard about "Smallville" was when I read that Kristen Kreuk had been cast as Lana Lang. I had been and still am a fan of hers from when she was on "Edgemont" (yes I watched that show, she made that show as far as I'm concerned) but ultimately dismissed it. Kristen was my first crush on "Smallville".

[Trekker4747]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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Kristen was my first crush on "Smallville".

Blasphemy.

[Gaith]

I started watching a few weeks after the pilot aired, beginning with the episode about the girl who had to eat... a lot. She had been overly weight-conscious, so, as the producers put it, the meteor rocks "accentuated the sin" by forcing her to eat ever-increasing quantities of food to avoid starvation. See, back in those days, Smallville was fundamentally about characters, especially the way ordinary people react when exposed to or given powers. The "freaks of the week" were actually people, not an endless supply of evil aliens, bad seed clones, unredeemable hired goons or what-have you. Anyway, being myself an only child high-school noble dweeb pining after a beautiful but attainable girl, I was instantly taken with the show's nouveau-Rock aesthetic and, just as importantly, heart.

Then Lana freakin' killed a guy in 3.2 and it was never mentioned again, and the original Smallville died, leaving behind an increasingly heartless and pointless copy, which has now apparently devolved into the filmed result of a room full of monkeys throwing DC Comics panels and George Lucas' Screenwriting for Beginners at a wall.

[od0_ital]

My favorite episode is still from the first season, when the guy who played the dad in The Wonder Years was the football coach who could make fire. The field's sprinkler system spittin' out flames was an awesome visual.

[Admiral_Young]

I remember that episode. My favorite episode is "Legion". There was almost nothing wrong with it

[Aragorn]

I knew the show was starting, so I tuned in for the pilot. A roommate was also interested in the show since he was big on comic books. Even in the pilot, I knew Clark was an idiot for ignoring Chloe while pining after Lana.

Unfortunately, it turned out the second episode with the kryptonite freak football coach was a sign of things to come, which of course I didn't know at the time. Another roommate happened to walk by while that episode was playing and thought it was the most stupid thing ever on TV.

Eventually I bailed on the show, I think sometime before or during when Michael Rosenbaum and/or Kristin Kreuk quit.

It was the second time I had watched a few seasons of a long-running show only to be burned out/annoyed by how bad it was and quit, after Star Trek: Voyager.

[Admiral_Young]

I remember that episode where Lana killed someone and Clark tried to protect her or something. It was never brought up again. That would have been a mature and interesting story arc to play around with if they wanted to.

[Mike Farley]

I was living in L.A. and there were billboards EVERYWHERE. Naked guy tied up with a big "S" spraypainted on his chest. It was inexcapable.

Watched the pilot. Didn't like it outside of Rosenbaum as Lex. Watched the occasional random episode over the years: Christopher Reeve appearance, Geoff Johns penned tales, etc.

10 is the first season I've watched all the way through....so far.

[trekkiebaggio]

I started watching in 2006 I think. My housemate at uni had all the seasons that were released on dvd and we watched it while eating dinner, usually a few episodes a night. Didn't take us long to work through the first 6/7 seasons.

And then when we caught up with the show we watched them weekly.

Because we watched the first half of the series so close together it's a bit of a blur () so I can't really pinpoint what really grabbed me, but it's a good show and yeah it has it's problems but you know what you're getting with Smallville. It's reliable and has pretty people it's been pretty good with DC mythology, especially in the last couple of years.

[Chris3123]

I know it was in early 2001 sometime, I just can't remember the specifics. I assume on the internet somewhere. I know I heard that The WB was coming out with a show about a teenaged Clark Kent. I also remember that first thing I actually saw of it was a preview image of the scene with Clark and Lana at the cemetery. Now, given my impressions of what WB programming was like, I assumed that it would mostly be typical teen angst stuff, with a little bit of emerging super-powers thrown in. I still planned on checking it out anyway, because it was Superman for Pete's sake. Thankfully, the angst/superhero ratio wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (though there still was plenty of the former).

I've been watching since day one. Over 9 straight years.

[Agent Richard07]

I don't remember exactly when I heard about the show, but I did see some cast photos in a magazine in the summer of 2001 and this being Superman, I knew I'd check it out but I didn't have WB in my cable package so I couldn't. Then November 2001 came around and a station started airing it, so I started watching. As I remember it, I had taped the first two episodes and watched them while I was home, sick with a bad cold.

[Corran Horn]

From the pilot. I actually think I Tivo'd it and it ran long on WGN Chicago...I still haven't seen the last few minutes of the pilot all these years later.

[saturn5]

I first watched an ep because it had Lynda Carter as a guest star. Aside from that Kristin Keurk is hot and so is supergirl but it's nothing special