Unpopular Opinions

[amensisterfriend]

This is the place to safely confess the opinions about this show that you've found to be unpopular or just plain odd :) A few of mine:

 

1) I think this show is a lot better than it's given credit for. I know it's not a great show and often even an actively irksome one, but it's so often cited as an example of a total TV train wreck, and I actually think there's a lot about it that's highly engaging and entertaining. 

 

2) I like the last few seasons a lot. I think the first few and last few seasons were the best of the series---it's the middle seasons where the show hits its nadir, IMO. 

 

3) I definitely don't like Lana and agree she's a dull Mary Sue, but I don't agree with the popular opinion that she's one of the very worst characters ever. (There are a lot of dull Mary Sues out there!) And to make this even more unpopular, I should confess that I didn't dislike Lana any more than I disliked the more popular but, IMO, unbelievably annoying Lois. 

 

4) I never wanted Clark and Chloe together. I always thought she'd be better matched with someone far more interesting. 

 

5) Lex and Lionel are the show's best two characters for me. I enjoy them even more than Chloe, who I do really like a lot...and way more than Clark, who I'm mostly indifferent to despite it being 'his' show. In fact, Early Seasons Lex doesn't get  quite enough credit for just how great a character he is, IMO. He's not just awesome by Smallville standards, but awesome in general! 

 

6) I get that Justin Hartley isn't exactly an Emmy-worthy actor (and that's quite the understatement!), but somehow his Arrow really worked for me. The really unpopular part is that I FAR prefer him to Stephen Amell's Arrow. 

 

 

[BkWurm1]

) Lex and Lionel are the show's best two characters for me. I enjoy them even more than Chloe, who I do really like a lot...and way more than Clark, who I'm mostly indifferent to despite it being 'his' show. In fact, Early Seasons Lex doesn't get  quite enough credit for just how great a character he is, IMO. He's not just awesome by Smallville standards, but awesome in general!

 

Lex and Lionel were awesome.  You'll get no disagreement from me.  MR's Lex is my standard now.  Everyone else seems silly and cartoonish.  And Lionel. Well. never before had there been IMO a more Magnificent Bastard.  John Glover is mesmerizing.   

 

 

6) I get that Justin Hartley isn't exactly an Emmy-worthy actor (and that's quite the understatement!), but somehow his Arrow really worked for me. The really unpopular part is that I FAR prefer him to Stephen Amell's Arrow.

 

I like them both on their own merits, plus without Hartley, I seriously don't think Arrow would exist.   

 

1) I think this show is a lot better than it's given credit for. I know it's not a great show and often even an actively irksome one, but it's so often cited as an example of a total TV train wreck, and I actually think there's a lot about it that's highly engaging and entertaining.

 

I won't comment here on the lows, but yeah, this show produced some spectacular highs.  Moments where I was completely in awe of what was happening on screen. That musical montage at the end of season three remains one of the best moments on television EVER IMO. 

 

My unpopular opinion is that I never stopped loving Pa Kent.  He wasn't always right but his motives, even when they might appear self righteous came from a good place.  He wasn't perfect but I never stopped rooting for him.  Loved John Schneider from start to finish. 

[Bitterswete]

Early Seasons Lex doesn't get  quite enough credit for just how great a character he is, IMO. He's not just awesome by Smallville standards, but awesome in general! 

 

I think their portrayal of Lex, especially in the early seasons, is the best thing the show did. They eventually tried to mess it up, of course. But I think MR leaving when he did kept them from being able to do too much damage. And my brain just ignores anything Fake!Lex did after that.

 

MR's Lex is my standard now.  Everyone else seems silly and cartoonish.   

 

Yeah, MR set the bar for me as far as Lex Luthor is concerned. Before I started watching SV, I was perfectly happy with Lex Luthor as the ultimate Big Bad. What made him interesting was knowing how dangerous he was, how much damage he could cause, and how much trouble everyone was in when he showed up.

 

But thanks to MR (and, yes, the SV writers from back in the day), I need the Lex character to have layers, and motivations, and actual reasons (however messed up) for the things he does. Just watching him be the ultimate Big Bad isn't enough anymore. And most versions of Lex that I've seen since SV just fall flat. 

Edited April 2, 2015 by Bitterswete

[amensisterfriend]

I'm glad I'm not alone in the Lex Love :) And I found the relationship between Lex and Lionel to be by far the most interesting dynamic on the entire show. (And way more interesting than ANY of the romantic relationships!) 

 

My unpopular opinion is that I never stopped loving Pa Kent.  He wasn't always right but his motives, even when they might appear self righteous came from a good place.  He wasn't perfect but I never stopped rooting for him.  Loved John Schneider from start to finish.

 

Amen! I actually liked Jonathan in large part because he was so clearly flawed yet still a decent man at heart. Frankly, I find him a far more layered and compelling character than his son :)  

 

I was just looking over episode descriptions and clips and am wondering whether it's 'unpopular' to think that S3 was actually kind of awesome...?! 

[amensisterfriend]

ETA: I think Jimmy was really enjoyable---and I thought Aaron Ashmore was really well cast in the role. 

[BkWurm1]

was just looking over episode descriptions and clips and am wondering whether it's 'unpopular' to think that S3 was actually kind of awesome...?!

 

I'd count season three as one of the strongest.  A lot of storylines moving toward a grand and dramatic culmination.   I think you might have actually picked a popular opinion, ;)

[Athena]

4) I never wanted Clark and Chloe together. I always thought she'd be better matched with someone far more interesting. 

 

5) Lex and Lionel are the show's best two characters for me. I enjoy them even more than Chloe, who I do really like a lot...and way more than Clark, who I'm mostly indifferent to despite it being 'his' show. In fact, Early Seasons Lex doesn't get  quite enough credit for just how great a character he is, IMO. He's not just awesome by Smallville standards, but awesome in general! 

 

6) I get that Justin Hartley isn't exactly an Emmy-worthy actor (and that's quite the understatement!), but somehow his Arrow really worked for me. The really unpopular part is that I FAR prefer him to Stephen Amell's Arrow. 

 

Co-sign all of this.

 

Lex was always more compelling to me and once he left the show, I stopped watching the show altogether.

 

I really disliked Lois.

 

My big UO: I absolutely loved Lex/Lana. In fact, it was one of the highlights of the show for me. I didn't like or dislike early Lana, I felt sorry that the fandom hated her more than anything. I didn't really love any of the female characters on this show, but Lana and Kristen became infinitely better whenever she shared scenes with Lex/MR. They had a lot of chemistry. Much more than she had with anyone else and he really sold his affection for her. Their acrimonious and destructive marriage disappointed me. I hated how he made her think she was pregnant. Oh, Lex. I basically stopped watching the show regularly after that.

[amensisterfriend]

 I really disliked Lois.

 

I know, right?! It's funny how Lana gets a million times more ire. I'm not a Lana fan, but I find Lois more irksome. I get that Lois Lane is a spunky, confident character, but is every incarnation of her so self-impressed, arrogant, obnoxious and annoying?! Gah. I just can't not stand her, and somehow I'm liking her even less with rewatch.

 

I also agree with the UO re Lex/Lana being better than Clark/Lana. Then again, in my world Lex/anyone is pretty much always more interesting and enjoyable than Clark/anyone :) I'm even warped enough to love Lex/Chloe scenes.  

 

Clark may actually be the most disappointing character on the show for me. I love the endearingly shy(er), adorkable Clark Kent of the early Superman movies (at least I saw him that way!), while Tom Welling's Clark Kent was just a total block of wood for me. He almost never came off as smart or sweet or even interested in all that much besides his love life, IM(U)O...he was just so flat and dull and lacking in any sort of personality, and this is coming from someone who usually likes the 'nice guy' characters. And, honestly, this Clark was also kind of dopey---not in a cutely awkward way, but in a he-just-doesn't-have-much-going-on-upstairs sort of way...though I know he wasn't supposed to come across that way. 

 

 Another UO---I feel like I'm the only Smallville fan who doesn't lament that Pete left the show as early as he did. He just wasn't a remotely interesting character IMO, and his friendship with Clark felt really forced and stiff to me. 

Edited May 8, 2015 by amensisterfriend

[Athena]

I know, right?! It's funny how Lana gets a million times more ire. I'm not a Lana fan, but I find Lois more irksome. I get that Lois Lane is a spunky, confident character, but is every incarnation of her so self-impressed, arrogant, obnoxious and annoying?! Gah. I just can't not stand her, and somehow I'm liking her even less with rewatch.

 

Lois as a character is not someone I'd necessarily be friends or even love, but this Lois was the worse of all of them. From the beginning, I found the writing and acting horrible for the character. ED would ham it up and say a lot of her lines in what she probably thought was spunky and interesting, but was just annoying. She was a caricature. I found her much more one dimensional than Lana from the get-go. She lacked Chloe's intelligence and ambition. Even Lana managed to find things to do and go after, but Lois was just there to make snide remarks. I saw a one final season episode and the writing and acting had improved, but while watching Lois's earlier scenes, I would zone out.

[BkWurm1]

Another UO---I feel like I'm the only Smallville fan who doesn't lament that Pete left the show as early as he did. He just wasn't a remotely interesting character IMO, and his friendship with Clark felt really forced and stiff to me.

 

I missed the uncomplicated ordinary friendship they were supposed to have (the idea of it at least in contrast to Clark and Lex) but when he was gone I didn't miss him.  His character too often felt shoehorned in when they could have just given his lines to someone else.  I hated it when suddenly he was jealous of Clark.  It kinda retroactively ruined their friendship for me. 

 

but Lana and Kristen became infinitely better whenever she shared scenes with Lex/MR. They had a lot of chemistry. Much more than she had with anyone else and he really sold his affection for her. Their acrimonious and destructive marriage disappointed me. I hated how he made her think she was pregnant. Oh, Lex. I basically stopped watching the show regularly after that.

 

I think she was more interesting with Lex and yeah, Kristen was always better when she got to play Lana darker  I still feel like the show runners just lost their nerve about the Lexana baby.   The whole pregnancy being faked never rang true and was a copout when they'd actually built of a foundation for why Lana wanted to be with Lex.  Missed opportunities.

 

I tend to shake my head about Lana and mock her but it is Lois that still brings out my hate.    

Edited May 9, 2015 by BkWurm1

[Athena]

I think she was more interesting with Lex and yeah, Kristen was always better when she got to play Lana darker  I still feel like the show runners just lost their nerve about the Lexana baby.   The whole pregnancy being faked never rang true and was a copout when they'd actually built of a foundation for why Lana wanted to be with Lex.  Missed opportunities.

 

I tend to shake my head about Lana and mock her but it is Lois that still brings out my hate.

 

I agree it rang very false and the writing imploded the relationship in such a disingenuous way. Lex did a lot of bad things, but writing him like that made him look very stupid. I know everyone (including Kristen) said Lana never loved Lex, but the chemistry said otherwise for me especially after seeing how lackluster she and Clark were together.

[Bitterswete]

I didn't like or dislike early Lana, I felt sorry that the fandom hated her more than anything.

 

I didn't hate Lana. I didn't love her either, but it's not like I thought she was a terrible person or anything. Mostly, she was just boring to me. I wasn't interested in her, her relationships, or her storylines, and so much screen time being devoted to so much stuff I wasn't interested in (instead of stuff I was interested in) was annoying.

 

Lana and Kristen became infinitely better whenever she shared scenes with Lex/MR.

 

I agree that Lana was often at her best in storylines with Lex. But Lex wasn't at his best in storylines with Lana. So it was like a trade off. Lana was more tolerable (even slightly more interesting) but Lex was less awesome. And I didn't care enough about Lana to be okay with that trade off. Especially given how much I think the Lex/Lana stuff ended up hurting Lex's character.

 

They had a lot of chemistry. Much more than she had with anyone else

 

Lex/Lana is actually the example I pull out of a pairing that I thought had chemistry but didn't want to see together. Because I don't automatically think characters having chemistry means they should hook up, or that putting them together would make for a good storyline that I would actually enjoy. And I think I was right in the case of Lex/Lana. 

 

Also, what I said above applies here. Lana had more chemistry with Lex than just about anybody else. But Lex had more chemistry with lots of other characters besides Lana. So while being with Lex brought Lana's character up, I felt that being with Lana brought Lex's character down.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Bitterswete

[GHScorpiosRule]

I think I may have mentioned this in the other threads, so I'll add my .02 in here:

 

Lana. Could NOT Stand her. No hate for her really, but the whole set up from the beginning, just irked me. She was the most specialistist of snow flakes that ever specialed because she had that magic wand and was in her pink fairy princess outfit in the pilot--talking to Martha, to only have her parents pancaked by the meteors. According to the show, she suffered the most, and her loss was the worst and everyone else was just fine and dandy.

 

And then there was Lana, 14 at the beginning of the show, dating Whitney, who was now a senior, but it was said they'd been dating for a long time, which, just EWWW. Like Whitney couldn't find someone closer to his own age, that he had to date a child?

 

And then there was everyone was in love with her. EVERYONE.  That's EVERY.ONE. It was sickening.  Then she was the worst waitress ever, but with Lex's help, she became owner? manager of that coffee shop? Where'd she get her business acumen from? Some high school elective?

 

Then when she left at the end of Season 3, returns in 4, after two, three months, SUCH a suave, sophisticated woman of the world, dating Jensen Ackles, who was older, and no, they never had sex. I think I saw somewhere someone said that they had. Nope. She wanted to, but he turned her down. I will always hate they turned Evan into a bad guy at the end, when he SO wasn't when he was introduced.

 

I could never accept this sheltered girl being so worldly after two months in Paris. Her turning bitter and dark, yes...her being snarky as possessed yes, because, she was possessed, though that whole arc was RIDONKULOUS.

 

That said, I found Kristen to be a good actress. I cannot say the same for Erica Durance.

 

Hated her introduction; her abrasivness, her just waltzing into the Kent house as if she owned it, helping herself to Martha's coffee before Martha could offer...just moving her lazy arrogant ass into the Kent home as if she had every right to do so. And I'll stop right here, because if I go on, it will be a fucking dissertation, and I might break the site.

Edited May 13, 2015 by GHScorpiosRule

[rue721]

My big UO:  I'm OK with the fake!baby plot of S6.

 

I figured that Lex was afraid of Lana dying in childbirth, since that's what drove him over the edge in Lexmas. So when it turned out he'd made some weird lifeless clone!Lana, I figured that the clone was supposed to act as the "surrogate" mother for their baby. But he'd know that Lana wouldn't agree to something as creepy as using a clone!Lana as her surrogate, so he had to make her think she was the one carrying the baby (hence the hormones). I mean, that's just fanwank, since there was never any onscreen mention of the possibility that the clone that Lana blew up might have been pregnant with her child. But it made enough sense to me that the idea made me OK with the fake!baby storyline overall.

 

Also, I generally assumed that Lex wouldn't be all that confident about the safety of pregnancy/childbirth, given what happened with Lillian, and assumed he would be weird (and controlling, per usual) about becoming a father/father-to-be because of that. But he decided to pump Lana with pregnancy hormones, so I guess that wasn't an issue for him *shrug.*

 

Lex was also nuts, so if the show had floated the theory that the fake!baby was also meant to act as a decoy to protect an actual!baby from Lionel/getting Lionel's attention, I would have bought that pretty easily, too. Since Lex murdered clone!Julian to "protect" him from Lionel, it's probably best that he and Lana never had a baby after all. He probably would have had a nervous breakdown the first time he saw Lionel anywhere near the kid. 

 

Another UO:

 

I think Smallville holds up really well. I actually like it more with each viewing.

 

The first time through, I kept waiting for things to happen that never actually ended up happening -- and that was super frustrating. For example, I kept waiting for Lex to learn Clark's secret and to use it against him. Way back in S4, in Onyx, bad!Lex figured "the secret" out in about ten seconds and even had a kryptonite ring made ASAP, but by the end of the episode, when bad!Lex and good!Lex are combined again, Lex goes back to "not knowing" about Clark's kryptonite problem or really any specifics about Clark's secret. And he keeps "not knowing" pretty much forever (well, as far as Lex-on-Smallville goes, "forever" means through the end of S7 imo. YMMV!).

 

But going back and rewatching, already knowing that things aren't going to come to fruition like that, I can appreciate what actually *does* happen more, and enjoy the show a lot more.

 

Also, I think in some ways, Smallville is a pretty subtle show. Imo it's all about the difference between how people perceive themselves and how other people perceive them, and maybe also, the difference between perception and reality -- and when I go back and rewatch it now, *knowing* that those differences aren't ever going to be resolved, and everyone's perceptions are *always* going to be biased and idiosyncratic and manipulated, I find it a lot less frustrating and a lot more interesting. 

 

Another UO:

Lionel kind of drives me nuts because he's SO EVIL and the whole time, when the characters are hanging out with him and doing business with him and inviting him to Thanksgiving (ffs!), I'm half-freaking-out, like, "how is NOBODY SEEING that this man is EVIL?!" Which obviously makes me really sympathetic to Lex, because I'm like THANK YOU AT LEAST YOU'RE SEEING IT. But in Lex's head, Lionel's the Biggest Bad who ever Badded, which is also such an extreme way of perceiving Lionel that it constantly ends up making Lex look *and act* like a nutjob.

 

So Idk, I can't really get on the Magnificent Bastard train with Lionel, because he's just too terrible and too popular/successful (with the other characters within the show). I find him infuriating. When he dies thinking he's ~martyring~ himself for Clark and has that self-satisfied look on his face, as though his soul has been ~saved~ through that ~martyrdom~, I find that in particular so infuriating!

[BkWurm1]

When Lionel was supposed to be EVOL then it was so easy to love to hate him.  His later quasi redemption was weird and confusing but when he showed up again from the parallel world and he was just 100% evil Lionel again, oh I was a happy camper. 

My big UO:  I'm OK with the fake!baby plot of S6.

 

I figured that Lex was afraid of Lana dying in childbirth, since that's what drove him over the edge in Lexmas. So when it turned out he'd made some weird lifeless clone!Lana, I figured that the clone was supposed to act as the "surrogate" mother for their baby. But he'd know that Lana wouldn't agree to something as creepy as using a clone!Lana as her surrogate, so he had to make her think she was the one carrying the baby (hence the hormones). I mean, that's just fanwank, since there was never any onscreen mention of the possibility that the clone that Lana blew up might have been pregnant with her child. But it made enough sense to me that the idea made me OK with the fake!baby storyline overall.

 

Also, I generally assumed that Lex wouldn't be all that confident about the safety of pregnancy/childbirth, given what happened with Lillian, and assumed he would be weird (and controlling, per usual) about becoming a father/father-to-be because of that. But he decided to pump Lana with pregnancy hormones, so I guess that wasn't an issue for him *shrug.*

 

Lex was also nuts, so if the show had floated the theory that the fake!baby was also meant to act as a decoy to protect an actual!baby from Lionel/getting Lionel's attention, I would have bought that pretty easily, too. Since Lex murdered clone!Julian to "protect" him from Lionel, it's probably best that he and Lana never had a baby after all. He probably would have had a nervous breakdown the first time he saw Lionel anywhere near the kid.

 

I kept expecting them to tie the clones to the fake baby storyline just like you described and I think that they didn't made it that much worse IMO.  I would have enjoyed what you laid out. 

[rue721]

When Lionel was supposed to be EVOL then it was so easy to love to hate him.  His later quasi redemption was weird and confusing but when he showed up again from the parallel world and he was just 100% evil Lionel again, oh I was a happy camper. 

 

What do you mean by "love to hate"? (Actual question -- because I don't know if I loved to hate him or not!) On the one hand, he was always interesting. He was so enigmatic. And he was legitimately scary, which is tough for a goofy superhero show like SV to pull off! So I never hated *watching* him, and I think he was a pretty successful character. But on the other hand, he was just so infuriatingly horrible. And he just ALWAYS managed to come out on top -- by being just the worst person he possibly could be, too.

 

What killed me about the "redemption" thing was that Lionel himself seemed to believe it wholeheartedly and to seem very confident/smug that he was "on the side of the angels." I think that the redemption storyline made sense from his perspective. Imo, he worshiped "the Traveler" as a sort of messiah -- so for him, finding the Traveler, recognizing him, becoming his prophet/apostle, and martyring himself (at Lex's hands) for his sake all saved/redeemed him. Even though literally NOTHING else about Lionel or his behavior was "good." But since I don't think that Clark was actually the messiah even within the world of the show, Lionel wasn't saved in my eyes -- and I wanted his "redemption" to be revealed as a fraud within the show :P. (Though I still don't have the DVDs past S7, so I haven't seen S8-10 STILL, and don't know about parallel-world!Lional, lol).

 

The salt in the wound in terms of the redemption storyline, imo, is that Lionel went to his grave feeling/looking vindicated and self-satisfied. Like Lex had put the final touch on his "redemption" story by martyring him. It just was so frustrating to see! 

 

Also, it just drove me nuts all through those seasons -- four through six, I guess? -- how Lionel would be all sweetness and light to Martha or Clark, bought everyone who he couldn't seduce (even Jonathan), cleaned up his public image, etc etc etc, and then he'd go over to the mansion, close the doors to the study, and rip Lex a new one. How many times did Lionel actively try to murder Lex during those seasons? In Transference alone, he tries to murder him twice, ffs! But not only did none of the characters ever call him on that, afaik, none of them (aside from Lex, obviously) even KNEW about it! Which makes sense -- I mean, who was going to tell? But I still wanted to see Lionel exposed and shamed.

 

It pissed me off that it was pretty much an open secret that Lionel was a horrible person who was continually doing appalling things, but everyone made this enormous effort to ~not see~ it. And their efforts paid off, they really did ~not see~ it, I guess! They kept acting like Lionel was bad in the way that Lex was bad. And yeah, Lex did eventually become a straight up delusional sociopath, and he probably became more dangerous than Lionel anyway, since he tended to aim higher -- it's not like Lex *wasn't* bad at all. But whereas Lex was massively and dangerously fucked up, Lionel was in a whole different category from him imo -- and that different category is "evil sadist." LOL.

 

Clark's relationship with Lionel frustrated the hell out of me, but that's for another day I guess :)

[BkWurm1]

What do you mean by "love to hate"? (Actual question -- because I don't know if I loved to hate him or not!) On the one hand, he was always interesting. He was so enigmatic. And he was legitimately scary, which is tough for a goofy superhero show like SV to pull off! So I never hated *watching* him, and I think he was a pretty successful character. But on the other hand, he was just so infuriatingly horrible. And he just ALWAYS managed to come out on top -- by being just the worst person he possibly could be, too

 

So on one hand you hated him for all he was doing but you pretty much enjoyed it when he was on screen, maybe even got excited when he showed up in an "oh, what is he going to do now?" kinda way.  That's what I mean by love to hate. 

 

Back in the beginning he was the ultimate magnificent bastard.  Top notch acting, smooth and kind of scary, always way ahead of the game to the point that you would curse him for his brilliance even as you admired him for pulling it off. (And sooo mean!)   I loved the character but he was doing awful things deserving of my hate.  I enjoyed hating him and looked forward to the next dastardly thing he did so I could hate him some more and I wanted him to lose but I also wanted him to stay around. 

 

After season four though, his characterization was too murky and wishy washy to root for.  He was still doing bad things but only sometimes and there were reasons but you didn't know if you were supposed to be on his side or against him and maybe he really was trying to help but maybe it was the wrong kind of help except he seemed connected to Jor-El, but Jor-El's AI was pretty much psychotic.  The fun of his character went away.  Some flashes of his brilliance occasionally shined through but he stopped being the top predator and at the same time was still a creep so all the heroes rubbing shoulders with him was confusing and maddening. 

 

But before that, he was a sight to behold.  So much menace wrapped up in a smile. 

[Bitterswete]

But going back and rewatching, already knowing that things aren't going to come to fruition like that, I can appreciate what actually *does* happen more, and enjoy the show a lot more.

 

It's the opposite for me. When I try to re-watch the show, all I can think of is how great it seemed like something was going to be. Only now I know that it didn't turn out to be all that great. At least on first viewing, I had that anticipation that a great set-up was going to lead to a great pay-off, so I was all excited for it. Now, I mostly find myself thinking, "Oh, remember how excited you were after this episode because it looked like it was going to lead to a really great storyline? Well, we know how that turned out, don't we." It makes it hard to enjoy the setup on re-watch, even if it's pretty good, because I know it's not going to really lead to anything. 

 

it's not like Lex *wasn't* bad at all. But whereas Lex was massively and dangerously fucked up, Lionel was in a whole different category from him imo -- and that different category is "evil sadist." LOL.

 

I think the difference is that Lionel was a sociopath and Lex wasn't. They were both capable of doing bad things. But whereas Lionel could do something truly horrendous and just not feel all that bad about it (unless it caused problems for him or something), every bad thing Lex did just made him hate himself more, and convinced him he didn't deserve anything (happiness, love, friendship, etc.) But, at the same time, he would convince himself that the bad things he was doing were "right" or "necessary" for whatever reason. And since he was already such a lost cause, he might as well do the bad thing.  Which only made him feel even worse about himself, and pushed him more towards the edge. It was like a vicious cycle. 

 

Lionel, on the other hand, couldn't really "get" that what he was doing was bad, let alone hate himself for it. And even when he did something because it was "right," there was still this vibe that there was something in it for him somehow. While Lex would often do the right thing because he truly believed it was the right thing and, as often as not, there really wasn't anything in it for him.

[rue721]

What I thought was confusing about Lionel's "Lion-El" stage wasn't so much Lionel's behavior but how everyone else reacted to it. They seemed really pretty willing to take him at face value and accept that he'd "changed." Even though he clearly HADN'T changed and was keeping up an even more extreme version of his same old "butter wouldn't melt in my mouth" act in public, and still used fall guys and patsies in order to keep plausible deniability, and still gaslit people and was untrustworthy as a snake.

 

I think that Lionel actively liked being a horrible person, because being cruel to people was a power trip for him. Being an asshole made him feel like a Boss. Like with Lex -- I think he was so domineering with Lex because it made him feel big to make Lex feel small. Simplistic, but so common. And also, I think that any vulnerability was like chum in the water to him. I think Lionel tried to use *everyone's* vulnerabilities and fears against them -- "everyone" including Clark. That was after he was "Lion-El," too. I haven't seen Parallel Universe Lionel, but up through S7 at least, that's just who Lionel was imo.

 

But with Lex in particular, Lionel was the one who created the insecurities that he then preyed upon, and I think that was something that made their relationship different from Lionel's relationship with other people. I think that because it was Lionel who nurtured and then exploited Lex's insecurities/fears from the beginning, Lex wasn't just afraid of any particular jabs or threats from Lionel, he was afraid of Lionel altogether, and Lionel didn't despise any particular vulnerabilities or insecurities of Lex's, he despised Lex altogether. For me, it was Lionel's behavior with Lex specifically that made him seem like a monster. I mean, Lionel was arguably worse to other people (he ordered hits on lots of people, for example!), but the way he tormented Lex reminded me of kid tearing the wings off a butterfly or something. Or a budding serial killer trapping a stray cat and tormenting it to death. It was just so aimlessly psychopathic.

 

Anyway, Clark's relative willingness to take Lionel at face value and to ultimately adopt him as a sort of father figure was especially bizarre to me, since Clark knew better than most what Lionel was like behind closed doors. He'd seen things like Lionel electrocute Lex in an effort to make him brain damaged enough to be more compliant. I try to give the characters quite a bit of slack when it comes to Lionel, because they didn't see a lot of what went on between him and Lex, which was some of the most damning stuff Lionel did. And because Lex clearly wanted to keep his family stuff private, too, which probably led to the other characters (especially Clark) ~not knowing~ the (open) secret of how messed up the Luthors were, just like Clark clearly wanting to keep his superpowers a secret led to the other characters (especially Lex) ~not knowing~ the (open) secret that Clark was a superpowered alien. I even want to give Clark credit for ~not knowing~ about the Luthors and going with the story that Lex preferred to be out there (namely, that he was bad rather than weak)...

 

I don't know what I would rather Clark have done, really. If Lex wanted everyone to think that he was bad instead of weak, then he couldn't really get upset at his friend taking that at face value, and assuming the worst of him, and overestimating the power he has over his life/his father/Luthorcorp/whatever. But of course, it was still going to be hard for him to take his friend thinking he was bad. And Clark respecting Lex's privacy made it so that he really couldn't help him, when Lex clearly needed help. Watching stuff like how Clark (doesn't) deal with Lex being drugged and imprisoned in Belle Reve, and how he lets Lex going skipping off alone with his father once Lionel has effectively lobotomized him enough to "trust" him not to be a threat, was just so frustrating. But it wouldn't have been right for Clark to just blow open Lex's life, either, especially when Lex was in pretty bad shape. Idk, I don't know what would have been best for Clark to do.

 

LOL see, I said I found it confusing how the other characters treated Lionel. I mean, according to Lionel's *and* Lex's story, Lex wasn't just some powerless punching bag to Lionel, Lionel was a father trying to do his best to keep his pathetic, crazy, evil son in line. So Clark didn't pry, treated that story as true, and treated Lex and Lionel accordingly. But UGH obviously that story wasn't true. Like bad!Lex says in Onyx about Clark's secret -- all the pieces were right there out in the open, but friendship blinded him to putting them together and doing anything about it. And pretending like Lionel and Lex's story about the Luthor family was true meant basically sacrificing Lex's well-being to maintain that story, because Lionel *was* actually a huge threat to him. I just can't decide if that was Clark being a good friend or not.

[BkWurm1]

I haven't seen Parallel Universe Lionel, but up through S7 at least, that's just who Lionel was imo.

 

You would have enjoyed Parallel Universe Lionel.  He was the pure bastard back in his original incarnation.  There was no pretense of good.  

[Gilmorefan]

My big UO: I absolutely loved Lex/Lana. In fact, it was one of the highlights of the show for me. I didn't like or dislike early Lana, I felt sorry that the fandom hated her more than anything. I didn't really love any of the female characters on this show, but Lana and Kristen became infinitely better whenever she shared scenes with Lex/MR. They had a lot of chemistry. Much more than she had with anyone else and he really sold his affection for her. Their acrimonious and destructive marriage disappointed me. I hated how he made her think she was pregnant. Oh, Lex. I basically stopped watching the show regularly after that.

I loved Lex and Lana too! I saw the hints of it from the beginning, when it was confirmed in late season four that Lex had feelings for her, I totally fangirled. And then late season five and early season six they were together and it was great. I hated the fake pregnancy too. It didn't seem like Lex to me, I figured it would be revealed that it was Lionel.

[DigitalCount]

I once saw it said of Lionel that as a bad guy he did evil things to achieve bad ends that he deemed in his best interests, and as a good guy he did evil things to achieve good ends that he deemed in his best interests. He's like Mr. Burns in the episode where he creates the slurry company using giant plastic nets thanks to Lisa teaching him about recycling, except played for drama.

My UO: Lois was more of a show-killer than Lana. At least with Lana we were given reason to believe, before we got past the facade to see how selfish she really was, that she was a good-hearted person and that people had realistic reactions to her. Her problem was that she was disgustingly saccharine, making it satisfying when she started going for blood later. But Lois was always this brash, rude, unlikable jerk who seemed incapable of being civil even when it made no sense for her to be antagonistic. She was written with no compassion, no empathy and no brain, and yet the show started treating her like Lana out of nowhere. People would comment on how insufferable she was in the same breath as giving her some undeserved accolades or esteem. The disconnect was too much for me.

[amensisterfriend]

Yes! My UO is that I'd watch Lana over Lois any day, and, honestly, it isn't even close. I'm not a Clark/Lana fan or Lana-in-general fan, but she didn't actively grate on me as much as she did on the vast majority of Smallville fans. Honestly, despite the large amount of screentime and storylines she got, she was mostly in the 'just there' category for me, not eliciting especially strong feelings one way or the other aside from a deep envy of the actress's hair. And I did find myself sitting at the tiny but increasingly crowded table of those who enjoyed Lana/Lex. (Which contributes to my newfound and presumably unpopular fondness for S5!) 

 

Lois, though, was totally insufferable for me. So unbearably arrogant, obnoxious, smirky, self-impressed etc. It doesn't help that I saw less than no chemistry between her and Clark and, while I'm not the biggest Clark fan, I hated the way Lois acted like she was doing him (and the many other guys she was with) a major favor by deigning to date him. 

 

But here's a related UO: I don't really think ANY of these characters were especially well drawn other than Lex, Lionel and (mostly!) Jonathan. Not even Chloe, who I liked primarily because I liked the actress and not because I found her character very well or even consistently written.  

 

This show has so much wrong with it, but I'm still fond of it anyway. My TV taste continues to defy logic :) 

[Gilmorefan]

I guess my unpopular opinion is that I like Lois. She can be irritating sometimes, but usually when she is, she's called on it in show, unlike Lana and Chloe. I like all three of them, but Lois is probably my favorite. I mean, c'mon, she's Lois Lane ;)

[Bitterswete]

I guess my unpopular opinion is that I like Lois. She can be irritating sometimes, but usually when she is, she's called on it in show, unlike Lana and Chloe. I like all three of them, but Lois is probably my favorite. I mean, c'mon, she's Lois Lane ;)

 

I guess that was my problem with the character. SV Lois had the name, but she was not Lois Lane to me.

 

I really wanted to like SV's version of her because, like you said, she was Lois Lane. But, the longer she was on the show, the more "not Lois" she felt to me. She had some of Lois's traits, just not the ones that made me a fan of the character. Then when they tried to give her those traits (with retcons and lightswitching) I just couldn't buy it. 

 

I was never into the "Chloe is Lois" thing. But Chloe always felt closer to how I think of Lois Lane than SV's Lois was.

Edited September 26, 2015 by Bitterswete

[Gilmorefan]

I think Smallville's problem was that Chloe was (basically) just a Lois substitute, and they couldn't make Lois into an exact replica of an already existing character. I think Lois's development has been realistic so far (just finished season seven), aside from the barn door (they honestly couldn't think of anything better?) thing. She isn't quite the Lois I know yet, but she's getting there.

[BkWurm1]

It became in the end for me, why would I want the watered down replacement version when I'd had the original from the beginning?  Shakespeare got it right.  A rose by any other name. 

[Chloe]

First post in this forum. I'm happy there are still Smallville fans and to have found an active forum for discussing TV shows like Smallville.

My unpopular opinions are:

 

1) Smallville is an underrated show. Prove is that almost everyone who watches it from the very beginning ends enjoying it, but those who don't give it an opportunity just say that it was a cliché show, and think that is a Freak of The Week show all 10 seasons.

 

2) Lana Lang is my second favourite character (Chloe being my number 1). I know there are a lot of Lana haters that just can't stand her and a majority that just think she is just passable. I'm proud of my decision of choosing her as my number 2. And I liked her even more as the seasons passed. (In season 1 I though she was acceptable).

 

3) When watching it, I used to ship Chlark and Clana at the same time. I know it's a contradiction, but it's my contradiction. Clana was a great love story from my point of view from the beginning till the end. I loved S8 Lana's arc as well.

 

4)

I guess that was my problem with the character. SV Lois had the name, but she was not Lois Lane to me.

 

I really wanted to like SV's version of her because, like you said, she was Lois Lane. But, the longer she was on the show, the more "not Lois" she felt to me. She had some of Lois's traits, just not the ones that made me a fan of the character. Then when they tried to give her those traits (with retcons and lightswitching) I just couldn't buy it. 

 

I was never into the "Chloe is Lois" thing. But Chloe always felt closer to how I think of Lois Lane than SV's Lois was.

4) Me too. I like (not love) Lois' character, but couldn't stand Clois (especially in season 9). I tried, but it always felt too rushed and artificial for me. Moreover, I didn't like how she "robbed" Chloe's traits. 

 

5) Season 9 was horrible (but had some funny moments: Oliver being a drag queen was hilarious).

 

6) I enjoyed Lexana.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Chloe

[BkWurm1]

Welcome!

 

I found that while all my complaints about Lana have stayed the same, I disliked her less and less as the show went along.  Actually, I liked her in the first season but by number two, nope!  I enjoyed her turning to Lex more and more, I just feel bad that she didn't stay there, lol.  Also in rewatches, again, same complaints but they are not so deeply felt.  I think Lana benefited in comparison to Lois. The new frustrations overrode the old. 

 

1) Smallville is an underrated show. Prove is that almost everyone who watches it from the very beginning ends enjoying it, but those who don't give it an opportunity just say that it was a cliché show, and think that is a Freak of The Week show all 10 seasons.

 

I think that Smallville is both underrated and the worst thing I've ever put myself through.  Oh, the flashes of greatness brought us to such peaks of wonder...making the fall that much harder.  I flat out loved watching it until mid season six, still had a lot of enjoyment and love through almost all of season eight and still found things worth watching the rest of the series.  So yeah, it probably suffers from a bad rap but I can only endorse such an epitaph since if I really suffered monumental disappointments which I'm clearly still working through, lol.  Do I have the right to subject others to such and experience?  So it remains both the best and worst show I've ever watched.   

[Chloe]

I think it was not a balanced show, but it is very difficult to find one with each and every of the episodes at high level. The last episode of each season were astonishing. I remember watching 5.10....Commencement.....but even the not-so-good episodes such as Spirit or Thirst or even Subterranean were not so bad, you could watch them. Well, Spirit is one of my favourites....very funny

[GHScorpiosRule]

I don't know how unpopular this is, but for me, the final scenes in the finales of Seasons 4, 5, and 6 remain my favorites.  We got:

 

Season 4: The Fortress of Solitude!!!

 

Season 5: Lex as Zod and the apocalyptic ending.

 

Season 6: Bizzaro!!!!

[Chloe]

I don't know how unpopular this is, but for me, the final scenes in the finales of Seasons 4, 5, and 6 remain my favorites.  We got:

 

Season 4: The Fortress of Solitude!!!

 

Season 5: Lex as Zod and the apocalyptic ending.

 

Season 6: Bizzaro!!!!

My favourite is the ending of s4, also! Chloe all the way, Lana, Lex, the meteor shower!!!

I like the ending of s5 too, not my favourite!!!!!! But there is THE KISS.....and also lex-zod flying with clark.....

 

and bizzarro, lana's death....oMG, bizzarro was amazing. I love Tom's acting as a villain

 

you are not alone

[amensisterfriend]

Rewatching has inspired some new UOs while reinforcing a few old ones :) 

 

---I like Lana more than Lois. Or, more accurately, I dislike Lois much more than I dislike Lana :) I'm strangely fine with Lana for most of the series, though I do find her ENDLESS ups and downs with Clark to be tiresome to the extreme. I actually see her as having real flaws---insecure, too eager to please, unsure of who she is, at times passive and emotionally clueless, easily misled and duped etc, rather than a perfect 'Mary Sue.' Lois is much more of a Mary Sue to me, and I find her overblown ego and smirky, too-awesome-for-whoever-I'm-with-at-the-moment smugness extraordinarily annoying. (That's just how I see Smallville's Lois---I know many disagree!) 

 

---Pete was a really undefined and superfluous character IMO, and while I liked the idea of Clark having another male friend, I can't say that I'm with those who missed him when he was gone. 

 

---I get that Chloe served some important functions later on in the series. but for me she'll always fit best as a journalist, and I really missed her in that role. 

 

---I actually love that Jonathan was self-righteous, obstinate, prideful etc---it made him much more interesting than a more dully perfect father would have been.

 

---I'm finding Tom Welling less dully wooden in the role than I had recalled. Maybe it's just that he does exude a genuine 'nice guy who tries to do the right thing!' vibe that fits for Clark Kent/Superman...and that he's so lovely to look at. I'm getting more shallow in my old age :) 

 

---I'm a Jimmy Olsen fan. Lord knows why :) 

 

---I find it nearly impossible to pick favorite and least favorite seasons because literally every season has a few glaring problems IMO...but also a whole lot that I love :) 

 

---For all that we justifiably snark on the show and its many missteps, I really think it's immensely enjoyable for the most part and deserves far more credit than it tends to get :) Chloe, Lex and Lionel alone would make this series worth rewatching multiple times for me! 

Edited March 13, 2016 by amensisterfriend

[Spartan Girl]

From seasons 1 through 4, I didn't like Chloe.

Before you all throw tomatoes, hear me out.

The writers pretty much wrote her as a Nice Girl. Yes, it sucks that your crush doesn't feel the same way about you, but that doesn't really justify passive-aggressively tolerating it until your resentment explodes. And nothing really justifies the fact that she was willing to sell out Clark to Lionel Luthor. Yes she came to her senses and backed out of it, but it was still a really shitty thing to do.

I didn't start liking Chloe until she found out Clark was an alien. It showed enormous growth that instead of being angry and upset that Clark hid it from her (which she had no right to be IMO because being someone's friend doesn't entitle you to every aspect of their personal life), she understood why he did it and decided not to push him until he was ready to tell her. Even though she knew full well that day may never come.

While on the subject, am I the only one that understood why Clark kept it hidden for so long? Maybe it wasn't always a smart decision, but it was HIS decision to make. And it was natural to be afraid of how his friends would react or whet would happen. Don't forget, telling Pete came back to bite him in the ass several times, not only with the red kryptonite incident but also the stress of keeping it secret ultimately drove Pete away. So I got why Clark would be reluctant to share it with anyone else. In his eyes, it was a no-win situation.

More importantly, IT WAS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS. Just once, I would have loved Clark to have said that at least ONCE.

[GHScorpiosRule]

I didn't start liking Chloe until she found out Clark was an alien. It showed enormous growth that instead of being angry and upset that Clark hid it from her (which she had no right to be IMO because being someone's friend doesn't entitle you to every aspect of their personal life), she understood why he did it and decided not to push him until he was ready to tell her. Even though she knew full well that day may never come.

While on the subject, am I the only one that understood why Clark kept it hidden for so long? Maybe it wasn't always a smart decision, but it was HIS decision to make. And it was natural to be afraid of how his friends would react or whet would happen. Don't forget, telling Pete came back to bite him in the ass several times, not only with the red kryptonite incident but also the stress of keeping it secret ultimately drove Pete away. So I got why Clark would be reluctant to share it with anyone else. In his eyes, it was a no-win situation.

More importantly, IT WAS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS. Just once, I would have loved Clark to have said that at least ONCE.

 

Technically, you didn't start liking her until the  last stretch of Season 4, hee.

 

And I'm in TOTAL agreement with you about how knowing Clark's secret was none of their business.  As much as I loved Chloe, her, Lex, and Lana wanting, nagging, needing to know his secret or every damned aspect of his life gave me hives.

 

And I totally understood why he didn't tell anyone.  And he didn't even tell Lois until he saw the future and had that guarantee or whatever and if not for that, would never have told her.  

 

So other than you not liking Chloe for the first three and three fourths of the fourth season, I'm with you on everything else.  And as much as I love Chloe, you'll find in the various season threads, I've called her out on her passive agressiveness toward Clark, and Lana as well. Like the episode with Jonathan Taylor Thomas and his splitting himself. Loved what Clark said to BOTH of them. They deserved it and I'm glad it was Clark who walked away.

[Bitterswete]

From seasons 1 through 4, I didn't like Chloe.

 

I couldn't stand Chloe in season 2, even before she seemed willing to sell out Clark.  Then, through season 3, I liked her more and more. And, by season 4, she'd become one of my favorite characters on the show.

 

And nothing really justifies the fact that she was willing to sell out Clark to Lionel Luthor. Yes she came to her senses and backed out of it, but it was still a really shitty thing to do.

 

I'm actually cool with a character doing a truly terrible thing if they learn from it and become better as a result. In fact, I've grown to love characters who've done far worse than anything Chloe ever did.

 

Also, it's hard for my brain to not to see that season as a huge aberration for Chloe's character given some of the stuff I know about why she was written the way she was in season two, and why they seemed to do such a 180 with her character in season 3.

 

While on the subject, am I the only one that understood why Clark kept it hidden for so long? Maybe it wasn't always a smart decision, but it was HIS decision to make.

 

I never thought there was anything wrong with Clark keeping his secret. If he had something he didn't want to tell anyone, it was his business.

 

However, I didn't think it was wrong for the other characters to be upset because they knew he was hiding something from them, which caused him to lie to them on a regular basis. Because nobody really likes being lied to, or knowing someone they care about is hiding stuff from them.

 

So I guess I saw both sides.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Bitterswete

[Spartan Girl]

 

So other than you not liking Chloe for the first three and three fourths of the fourth season, I'm with you on everything else.  And as much as I love Chloe, you'll find in the various season threads, I've called her out on her passive agressiveness toward Clark, and Lana as well. Like the episode with Jonathan Taylor Thomas and his splitting himself. Loved what Clark said to BOTH of them. They deserved it and I'm glad it was Clark who walked away.

Too bad it didn't STAY that way. I guess it would have really killed the writers to have Clark actually grow a pair when it came to the women in his life.

I really wish Clark would have told Lana off -- or better yet have Martha get her mama bear claws out -- when she was snooping around the Kent farm taking pictures of the loft in season six. That would have been awesome. But I guess Princess Lana always had to be coddled.

[BkWurm1]

I

never thought there was anything wrong with Clark keeping his secret. If he had something he didn't want to tell anyone, it was his business.

 

However, I didn't think it was wrong for the other characters to be upset because they knew he was hiding something from them, which caused him to lie to them on a regular basis. Because nobody really likes being lied to, or knowing someone they care about is hiding stuff from them.

 

Agreed.  But then I never found Chloe's interest in Clark's secrets that bad.  The first time it happened she was actually doing an homework assignment and had Clark not been so weird about answering what should have been extremely simple questions (they had more than a decade to come up with a story about his adoption)  then Chloe wouldn't have started digging.  (I mean good grief, they wouldn't even answer what his favorite veggie was!) Then then next time, she thought she was doing him a favor in digging into his birth history.  Her intentions were good. 

 

She really stopped digging specifically into Clark at that point.  The stuff she had on Clark Lionel pointed out was stuff he already knew.  (I'll return to this deal in a moment)  Until Chloe got the truth power in season three, she left his secrets alone.  What she didn't leave alone was investigating the random weird stuff that happened in Smallviille. 

 

A lot of what she was looking into (like the writing on the barn) was Clark related, but she didn't know it but despite that, she still gets IMO the blame for trying to find out Clark's secret even when it was Clark adjacent.  By season four she and Clark had been involved in so much odd and unexplained that she basically flat out said she knew he was special but she wouldn't pressure him to give her the details and that was before she had it all confirmed.  

 

I think she deserves extra credit for being understanding because after years of being so heavily involved in fixing the problems of Smallville, not knowing Clark's secrets was putting her in danger more than knowing it would have.  So at that point, I think there was a case to be made that it kind of was her business.  Clark was never obligated to spill the alien angle but it just made sense to let the person putting their life on the line know what he could or couldn't be counted on to do.  Either that or stop involving Chloe (of course more often than not Chloe was the one proactively gathering knowledge of what needed to be fixed)

 

   And nothing really justifies the fact that she was willing to sell out Clark to Lionel Luthor. Yes she came to her senses and backed out of it, but it was still a really shitty thing to do.

 

I've always thought it was more nuanced than that.  Lionel was offering to reward her with all sorts of good stuff for whatever Chloe knew about Clark which she initially refused on principle but later decided, why not?  The reason why I see nuance is that she didn't have anything on Clark that  Lionel didn't.  It was principle that she wavered on not anything that could actually hurt him.  Still wrong, but one version is her taking advantage of an opportunity that seemed technically harmless though also technically a betrayal and the other suggests she was plotting specific harm.to Clark.  I don't think she was ever plotting him harm, just was no longer worried about what her actions would look like. 

Edited March 31, 2016 by BkWurm1

[DittyDotDot]

While on the subject, am I the only one that understood why Clark kept it hidden for so long? .

 

Oh, I totally understood why Clark kept his secret--don't need the villagers showing up at the farm with pitchforks--but I just got tired of hearing him whine about keeping his secret. By the end of S1, I just wanted him to shut up about it, and now I'm at the tail end of S10 and I feel no different. 

 

I would've liked Clark to be honest with himself about why he was really keeping his secret. He kept saying it was to keep them safe, but in reality he was just protecting himself. IMO, he actually put them in more danger by keeping them in the dark. Knowledge is power and if a few of these folks had been granted some knowledge they could've at least protected themselves better. 

 

It also drove me nuts how terrible a liar Clark was in keeping his secret. How Chloe never figured it out on her own is totally beyond me. 

 

But mostly, I just didn't need to see Clark almost tell someone only to decide not to tell them, over and over and over and over and over again.

[BkWurm1]

Wasn't really sure where to put this.  I was over on Ksite in the Arrow forum and in cross talk I was told the following about Chloe and Oliver:

 

In the finale they show Chloe married to someone else at the end. when she & Oliver are married at the start they clearly show they don't do wedding rings, make a point of showing it. at the time jump they make a point of her wearing wedding & engagement rings. Chloe & Oliver were never engaged. It was in the box set about Oliver being single & dating BC. I read that DC had something to do with that being included. But the son is probably theirs, they just split sometime after he was born.

 

Now I had no trouble dismissing the first part as nonsense.  Couples frequently upgrade to engagement rings or flashier wedding bands as time goes on.  So the ides that she's wearing a ring is proof she divorced Oliver and remarried someone else is absurd IMO. 

 

It's the second claim that I was wondering if anyone had ever come across.  I've never heard of anything outside of fan fiction  that claimed Oliver was divorced and dating BC at the end of the Smallville.  I would think fans of Chlollie would have made a stink about it if it was  slipped in some box set. 

 

Myself, I enjoy my own head cannon that she only wears a big fake wedding ring to keep the jerks she meets at work from hitting on her and she was merely babysitting someone else's kid (Die hard Chlarker right here)  So I don't have an axe to grind except I am really skeptical about the claim being true.  Anyone have access to the actual box set version? 

[Chloe]

Wasn't really sure where to put this.  I was over on Ksite in the Arrow forum and in cross talk I was told the following about Chloe and Oliver:

 

Now I had no trouble dismissing the first part as nonsense.  Couples frequently upgrade to engagement rings or flashier wedding bands as time goes on.  So the ides that she's wearing a ring is proof she divorced Oliver and remarried someone else is absurd IMO. 

 

It's the second claim that I was wondering if anyone had ever come across.  I've never heard of anything outside of fan fiction  that claimed Oliver was divorced and dating BC at the end of the Smallville.  I would think fans of Chlollie would have made a stink about it if it was  slipped in some box set. 

 

Myself, I enjoy my own head cannon that she only wears a big fake wedding ring to keep the jerks she meets at work from hitting on her and she was merely babysitting someone else's kid (Die hard Chlarker right here)  So I don't have an axe to grind except I am really skeptical about the claim being true.  Anyone have access to the actual box set version? 

Don't think they got divorced, nothing pointed to this, although I haven't read S11

mmm...that is my head canon, as well

[BkWurm1]

I've read the synopsis for season 11 and they are definitely together at the end of that run. (Season 11 aka Brian Q Miller's illustrated fan fiction)

 

And I am laughing at how pleased I was to have someone else join me on the river de Nile.  :D

Edited April 15, 2016 by BkWurm1

[Chloe]

S11: read ir or not read it? That's the question?

DO you recommend it??

[Flyingwoman]

While on the subject, am I the only one that understood why Clark kept it hidden for so long? Maybe it wasn't always a smart decision, but it was HIS decision to make. And it was natural to be afraid of how his friends would react or whet would happen. Don't forget, telling Pete came back to bite him in the ass several times, not only with the red kryptonite incident but also the stress of keeping it secret ultimately drove Pete away. So I got why Clark would be reluctant to share it with anyone else. In his eyes, it was a no-win situation.

More importantly, IT WAS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS. Just once, I would have loved Clark to have said that at least ONCE.

I can feel this with perhaps every character listed but Lex. His failure to hit Clark with his car was an event that had very ontological and existential implications for him and the show treated his exploration of that as if it was crazy and/or evil of him to question what had happened. And yes, it would have been an enormous risk for Clark to tell him his secret and I don't think Clark had a moral or ethical duty to tell him, but I do think Lex had the right to investigate his own experiences (as, for that matter, did Lana and Chloe re: things that had happened to them).

[BkWurm1]

S11: read ir or not read it? That's the question?

DO you recommend it??

I am probably the wrong person to ask.  If you like Chlollie, then I've heard yes, read them.  But I have no use for them even though as a Chlark fan I take away some pleasure in hearing about how Chloe and Clark seemed to get big moments regarding

her pregnancy and the baby's birth

 that one would have expected to be given to Oliver. 

Chloe tells Clark she's pregnant and they go flying just the to of them. Then after she's given birth the baby is named after his father (Johnathan) and practically presented like Simba in the Lion King. And Oliver doesn't even get a reaction scene with Chloe, lol. Fans of the fanfic idea that Chloe unknowingly got pregnant with Clark's kid when Zantanna got them all drunk loved it because the way it was treated almost supported that idea.

[Chloe]

I am probably the wrong person to ask.  If you like Chlollie, then I've heard yes, read them.  But I have no use for them even though as a Chlark fan I take away some pleasure in hearing about how Chloe and Clark seemed to get big moments regarding

her pregnancy and the baby's birth

 that one would have expected to be given to Oliver. 

Chloe tells Clark she's pregnant and they go flying just the to of them. Then after she's given birth the baby is named after his father (Johnathan) and practically presented like Simba in the Lion King. And Oliver doesn't even get a reaction scene with Chloe, lol. Fans of the fanfic idea that Chloe unknowingly got pregnant with Clark's kid when Zantanna got them all drunk loved it because the way it was treated almost supported that idea.

I'm a not a Chlollie fan because I felt that Lois and Oliver would have been perfect together, they had  a lot of chemistry.

Besides, I'm a Charlk fan as well, although the second partner I'd prefer for Chloe is Oliver.

 

But I'm aware that S11 would be full of Clois and (maybe) Chlollie. Just asking if the story is good. If anyone knows.

[AndySmith]

My UO: I neither hated Lana nor Lois.

[amensisterfriend]

I've recently been rewatching and am so much more hooked on this show than I should be. So I guess still loving most of it despite its major flaws is my first UO :) 

A few other UOs, some of which I think I just formed with this latest rewatch:

I could have very happily watched an entire series revolving around just Lex and his father. The acting, the writing, the snark, the amazingly complex dynamic---it's all just pure gold, and it's one major reason why I can never dismiss this show as subpar! 

That said, I liked Clark a lot more this time around. Or maybe I just love looking at Tom Welling :) 

Lana bothered me much less than she used to and much less than she still bothers most fans. At times I actually liked her! 

Lois, though, is even more insufferable to me--arrogant, rude, obnoxious and just incredibly annoying. Also, while I would have preferred a Clark/Chloe pairing (and don't even get me started on my ridiculously deep love for Chloe!), I actually bought that Clark loved Lana a lot more than I bought that he truly loved Lois despite knowing Lois and Clark were endgame for obvious reasons :) 

The problem with singling out favorite and very much not favorite seasons is that all of them have a few things about them that I really love and some I really don't. But I think if I had to pick my top five in order at the moment I'd go S3, S6, S5, S1 and S2. Or maybe S8? 

Martha kind of annoys me. I can't justify why :) 

Edited July 14, 2016 by amensisterfriend

[betterthisway]

I think the fifth and sixth seasons are the best too. That's the only unpopular opinion I have that isn't too controversial, LOL. Here are some others...

Agree with those who love this show not just despite how cheesy and overly earnest it can be but because of that. 

Lois, though, is even more insufferable to me--arrogant, rude, obnoxious and just incredibly annoying.

You have company on that one. I hated SV's Lois. I wanted to love her but she's so egotistical and grating. Even the way she calls Clark "Smallville" gets on my nerves and makes her sound so condescending. I agree that obnoxious is the right word for her. I also agree that I didn't believe she and Clark had a deep and real love. Their bickering just made it seem like they got on each other's nerves, not that it was secretly masking sizzling chemistry and feelings they didn't want to face. 

I love Lana Lang. I view her as an unsure, introverted and somewhat meek young woman who was always eager to be liked and never confident of her real identity and purpose, and I relate to that a lot. She was defined and saved by other people and ultimately had to strive to define and save herself. Along the way she still managed to be empathetic, intuitive, generous, hardworking, supportive, smart, and stronger than she seems. Not trying to argue at all or change anyone's mind, but I just wanted to try to explain why the unpopular Lana Lang has always been one of my favorite characters. And I will always be a Clark/Lana fan even though I knew from the beginning it was futile lol. 

I love Chloe too but I wish she had never had a crush on Clark in the first place. I liked her with Oliver but loved her with Jimmy. 

I read in a lot of places that the last two or three seasons are considered a "resurgence" for the show and a significant improvement over the show's middle seasons, but I thought the show's middle seasons were the best ones. 

Tom Welling gets trashed for being a wooden actor but I really like how he played this role. To be honest I thought Justn Hartley as the Green Arrow was a lot worse of an actor, but I enjoyed his character anyway. 

[BkWurm1]

Quote

I love Lana Lang. I view her as an unsure, introverted and somewhat meek young woman who was always eager to be liked and never confident of her real identity and purpose, and I relate to that a lot. She was defined and saved by other people and ultimately had to strive to define and save herself. Along the way she still managed to be empathetic, intuitive, generous, hardworking, supportive, smart, and stronger than she seems. Not trying to argue at all or change anyone's mind, but I just wanted to try to explain why the unpopular Lana Lang has always been one of my favorite characters. And I will always be a Clark/Lana fan even though I knew from the beginning it was futile lol. 

Fascinating to hear someone see her as such.

  I'm pretty sure instead of "introverted" I took away self absorbed.  Instead of "unsure" or "meek" or "eager to be liked" I saw manipulative and two faced.  "Never confident of her real identity and purpose" I read a bit spoiled, kind of ungrateful and Lana endlessly feeling sorry for herself. 

She was for me impossible to view as introverted since she was introduced as part of the popular crowd and a cheerleader and dating a senior.  She came off "nice" but when push came to shove she didn't care how big a bully her boyfriend was as long as he was good to her (well, until she dumped him using a dear John video). 

I have a feeling her sticking with Whitney even though she knew what he'd done to Clark was the moment that kept me from ever really cutting her a break after that.  In those early episodes I remember thinking maybe she was genuinely nice and was just caught up in the wrong crowd but once she went back to Whitney with pretty much only an "oh well" at that point over the Scarecrow "prank" I couldn't help think that beyond a superficial politeness, anytime she was empathetic and supportive and generous it was only because it got her something or made her feel a certain way. 

She liked Clark's attention so she was nice and friendly to him which initially seemed harmless but was the start of her always getting that back up boyfriend in place before she dumped someone cause she'd found a reason to be unsatisfied with them. (Yes she had some good reasons but typically she started getting restless before she was in possession of the good reasons and in Clark's case, she just always wanted something he couldn't give and typically she didn't have an automatic right to know.) 

I think that feeling of her never being satisfied or anyone being good enough in the long term kind of goes back to how she interacted with her aunt.  The show didn't give us any reason early on to think that her aunt hadn't loved and adored her as her own daughter, but Lana put the smile on in public and then acted like she was a martyr in her own life.  Her obsession with her parents didn't make sense since a three year old wouldn't have actually remembered them or the life she had before enough to miss them or it specifically.  It was more that she was obsessed with the IDEA of missing them and the life that was stolen from her and since her life seemed pretty good, it was hard to be overly sympathetic. 

Even when her aunt got the boyfriend it played out on the screen to me like Lana was the one that distanced herself first from Nell, not the other way around.  

As the seasons went on it just got worse and worse for Lana's characterization IMO but in those early episodes they had a window where I know I was very open to liking her and really at the end of the first season I still liked her but thought the show viewed her like I did, as deeply flawed. 

Yet when season two started her supposed perfection was shoved down my throat until I was sick to death of the sight and sound of her and was convinced that they were trying to marginalize or ruin Chloe to prop Lana which only made me like Lana less. 

Then in the second half of season two I thought they were setting up the rise of Clana so it could die a natural death, only I was out of patience by early season three.  I was genuinely rooting for her to be stomped to death by the horse.  Boy oh boy I hated her by season three. 

Season four I surprisingly I liked her (not the witch part) for most of the season, pretty much until she started for no in show reason doubting Jason and positioning Clark as her back up boyfriend again. 

Season five and on I still didn't like her but I was pretty zen about her existence by then.  I think I was used to hating her by then, that and the show stopped trying to pretend she was perfect.   Either that or what they were doing with Lois was so bad that Lana started looking better in comparison, lol.

I genuinely believed at least that Clark and Lana loved each other - even if IMO their love was based more on ideals and childhood fantasies than the real person.  With Lois and Clark I didn't believe they had anything but a basic affection born of familiarity between them.  

The show relied on light switches, anvils and retcons rather than actually showing the evolution of their relationship on screen.  They barely convinced me they were friends by the end of season eight (and even then more like work friends than real friends)  Then POOF!  Start of season nine Clark LOOOOOVVVVED her?  Yeah, I don't think so. 

Skipping ever showing them fall in love was bad enough but then they set it that they basically break up after Clark decides Lois wouldn't be interested him long term without the excitement that the Blur could bring to her life (proof of that seems born out when a week after he's asked her if he was enough all on his own when she is forced to give up working with the Blur [zod in disguise] that she dumps him cause he's not ambitious enough to help her career.)  He also choses not to tell her his secret even when he thinks he's leaving forever.  But when he suddenly doesn't have to leave, he also still doubles down on not telling her.

Season ten starts with him deciding overall that he's not only not going to tell her his secret but he's not even going to date her - even when she's returned and dropping hints.  He only dates her and tells her cause he's told she's a done deal by what Brainiac5's trip to the future shows him. (Which is hilarious after season nine was about how the future is NOT set in stone) And Lois only seems to want Clark back cause she figured out he was the Blur.  How romantic. 

I thought that was as low as they could go but season ten they wrote them as so incredibly dysfunctional.  He likes that she leaves him alone to handle stuff on his own, not telling her really anything most of the time.  And she doesn't care.  Cause she doesnt' think it's her business and besides, he's perfect and a god.  She finally needs CHLOE to explain that Clark needs love and attention and isn't some cold god like figure.  Insult to injury seven years after the finale they still hadn't gotten married?  Epic love story?  Sure, sure. 

Lana may have been walking poison but at least she knew there was a man underneath the powers.  Not sure Lois ever did, or rather I don't think she would have kept the real man long if she hadn't found out he had powers. 

Edited September 6, 2016 by BkWurm1