How Did You Discover "Smallville"?

[Admiral_Young]

"Smallville" is in it's tenth and final (allegedly lol) season and I was just thinking back to when I first started watching the show which was really mid-way through season two. I was not there from the beginning and had no interest in the series really due to my interest in "Superman" in general waning. In fact I kind of thought it was just an updated version of the old live action "Superboy" show to be naively honest. Then I came across an old interview in Wizard Magazine that they conducted with Miles and Gough and they're candid discussions and early plans for the series intrigued me enough to finally check it out.

This is not a thread to debate "Smallville's" merits or faults as as series (Rao knows we've done that enough on this forum) but to express instead how you heard or discovered the show. Feel free while we're at it to reminiscence about your favorite moments or episodes while we're at it, yes I'm feeling all retrospective right now since we're almost at mid-point of the final season.

I have to say that Lionel and especially Chloe were really the reasons why I decided to stick around along with Michael Rossenblaum's excellent portrayal of Lex Luthor. If not for these three I think I would have bailed on the series really early on.

 

[Lt. Trull]

I was going to say something flippent like.... I was 7 years old and bought this comic... Lo and behold it was a story about a youth in a town called smallville.... but, Ive been watching since the show began.... been downloading the episodes from the alt.binaries.multimedia newsgroup so I have every one... been collecting supernatural that way too....

 

[Jetfire]

I found it mid-way in S1...I didn't have the WB as a regular station and our local NBC affiliate showed WB programs at 2am-4am and I was looking around to see what was on and caught one episode in the middle I forgot which one but I believe it may have been "Leech" I actually thought it was stupid but tuned in for a full ep the following week...it took me a while to get into it but once I was...I haven't looked back. I haven't been a big comics fan and was a Superman fan but my knowledge was limited at that time.

I mainly like Kristin as Lana and liked the Kents family dynamic. To be honest I hated Chloe for the 1st 4 1/2 seasons.

 

[Procutus]

I have to say that Lionel and especially Chloe were really the reasons why I decided to stick around along with Michael Rossenblaum's excellent portrayal of Lex Luthor. If not for these three I think I would have bailed on the series really early on.

AY;

Before I answer the question you threw out, let me just ditto what you said there. Ally, Glover and Rosey were truly the glue that held this show together (with help from John Schneider and Annette O'Toole). We all know my obsesion with the Chlovage, so I won't go any further that what I just said.

With that out of my system, SV was actually in the middle of it's third season, when the Missus and I first discovered Season 1 running on Lifetime or some other obscure cable network. I had heard of the show, but had never watched it, primarily because at the time, it ran at the same time as 'Enterprise'. But we both kinda got hooked watching the re-runs and shortly afterwards found Season 2 on DVD for a really good price. Once S1 ended on cable, we immediately began watching the DVDs and have stayed with the series, for better or for worse, ever since.

I hope most of our regular gang chimes in on this thread. I'm curious to see when everyone else discovered the show.

 

[Procutus]

To be honest I hated Chloe for the 1st 4 1/2 seasons.

So you succumbed to the power of the Chlovage midway through Season 4?

 

[Jetfire]

As soon as she found out Clark's secret or whatever. I really enjoyed Chloe in S5, S6 & S7...I enjoyed AM playing Brainiac in S8 but the Chloe character fell off for me again and she really hasn't come back.

S5 Chloe!

 

[Procutus]

As soon as she found out Clark's secret or whatever. I really enjoyed Chloe in S5, S6 & S7...I enjoyed AM playing Brainiac in S8 but the Chloe character fell off for me again and she really hasn't come back.

S5 Chloe!

According to Kryptonsite, she'll be back sometime next year.

 

[Jetfire]

They said with bad-ass return!

 

[Procutus]

They said with bad-ass return!

I'll take her ass any way it returns!

 

[Admiral_Young]

I think that the episode that really hooked me on how good this show could be was "Rosetta" the Chris Reeve episode where Clark learns to read Kryptonian for the first time thanks to Dr. Swann. I think the Veritas storyline has kind of diminished the greatness of that character but I digress. The hint of John Williams theme at the end of the episode had me in goosebumps.

 

[od0_ital]

Smallville had a massive promotions campaign leadin' up the series premiere.

The thing that caught my attention was the billboard of Tom Welling in Jesus pose with the "S" drawn on his bare chest. I thought that was interestin' - who the hell could tie up Superman?

Damn Kryptonite made it too easy...

Not a regular viewer of the show anymore. I really stopped watchin' in the third season, I think, caught up via DVD but only up to the sixth season, and stopped watchin' again in the seventh season.

 

[Procutus]

The hint of John Williams theme at the end of the episode had me in goosebumps.

And correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't we also get a hint of the JW theme at the end of Season 5, after Zod/Lex banished Clark to the PZ? I kinda remembering having a minor nerdgasm at the end of that ep.

 

[Lookingglassman]

I saw a commercial and thought it was a good concept and started watching it from when it first aired.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Saw the ads but ignored the show for a few years. Then a friend recommended it,so I watched it and have for the last five seasons. Never bothered to watch the ones I missed though.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I remember the ads and promos for the pilot as well and as I stated in my original post ignored the show until the Wizard interview.

 

[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]

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.