The final episode of Smallville has finally aired. Ten years is a long time for any television series to be on the air, but for a comic book based franchise to last that long is an accomplishment.
What did you think? Now is your time to use the comment section to reflect on ten years of pseudo-Superman and all it created. Did you love it? Did you hate it? Did you remember things differently than Matthew did earlier today?
AAAANNNNNNDDDDDDD… go.
Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
27 Comments
I really enjoyed it, especially when they started introducing the other super heroes. Don’t have a TV, so I’ve been watching online. Hope CW posts the finale so I can watch it.
Watching the finale, cant believe that I have been with this show for all 10 years. I have been with other long running shows from beginning to end, but this one feels different. All the Star Trek, Buffy, Lost, and others. Many people shit all over this show for the obvious reasons, but I have to say that I am going to miss it greatly. Having a show like this on the air for so long, where you can turn into weekly, I think a lot of people took it for granite all these years.
You are very, very true.
a great finale…kinda. emotionally, it was powerful, but lackluster in terms of action. they kept mentioning the other heroes all throughout the season, so i was expecting a brawl between the League and some parademons, but there were maybe three or four 30 second fights in the whole thing. still, i’m glad i watched it and i’m really glad i kept with it all these years.
Agreed, I wanted more action. They had 2 hours after all. I also wanted a better picture of the suit and cape.
loved the show! Never missed a season. Would have loved to have seen more of the league. i think they did a great job with the Lois and Clark dynamic. Hyped to see Rosenbaum again. Dude really deserves some job offers. I will miss miss miss Allison Mack. Tom looked good in the red and blue. Thor tomorrow! great weekend! Goodbye Smallville!
That was a pretty great way to end a series.
I loved all the nods to the Pre-Crisis continuity (gold Kryptonite, amazing feats of strength, etc.)
Having Michael Rosenbaum come back for a few scened was a lovely touch.
See Apokalips in all of its fire-pit glory was extremely cool.
And the last 10 seconds of the show just summed it up for me.
I’m not sad that I skipped the 8 seasons in the middle. This show started well and ended great.
Rest in Peace (and syndicated reruns)
I’m sorry, but it wasn’t enough. The character moments of Clark reconnecting with his upbringing by the Kents and understanding with Jor-El were touching, the return of Lex and the manner in which they dealt with saving the secret identity were nice, and even Chloe reading to her son (I hope that was supposed to be Conner Queen) felt right.
However, fans who watched the show for 10 years…10 YEARS deserved more than 7 min of a CGI Superman and shots of Welling’s face with a red cape hanging off a shoulder. Even the last scene looked digital, could he not put on the suit and stand there for 2 minutes?
In classic Smallville tradition, everything had the right spirit of Superman…except Superman.
Brilliant and it’s hard to see an old friend go. So much emotion in the last ep and the payoffs were perfection.
I could not ask for more. Clark ascending to the mantle was so satisfying. Superman is Hope!
This was great but I’m ready for the new Critical Hit. I do hope last week’s suprise doesn’t turn out to be a fight!
I could ask for more. Mostly nitpicking Michael Rosenbaum smiling when Lex ascended to the Presidency for one. Lex is nothing if not arrogant. Maybe instead of a bomb in an elevator, yes I know it was a throwback, but something a bit more worthwhile. Like J’onn J’onzz calling from the watchtower in space, possibly passing on a message from Bruce. Would’ve liked to see Lex’s bodyguard played by Cassidy Freeman only with short brown hair.
Ultimately though I understand that the show was about Smallville. That’s why they did a montage of past episodes before he flew, instead of a montage of the heroes seven years later. I that light I can appreciate the episode.
Hell of a cast though. I feel sorry for whoever they try to get to fill Tom Wellings shoes, or Michael Rosenbaum. Even Annette O’Toole and Jon Schneider were great.
Usually this show tries to do too much in the finale, but this year they almost pulled it off. Though, as usual, they squeezed 45 minutes of action scenes into 5. Not as badly as in the Doomsday finale, but still, it should have taken a lot more to resolve the Darkseid storyline. (And was Apokalyps really big enough to be a planet???)
I loved seeing Jimmy II (of course, the opening credits gave away that cameo), but I hated what they did with Tess, who has had a much more interesting storyline than anyone else on the show since she arrived. At least she went out in a way that honors her character’s growth.
And during all the psycho-babble in the first 30 minutes, I wanted to throw my laptop at the screen: Has Clark learned NOTHING from the last 5 seasons? No, you can’t do it alone–you need other people and you have plenty of friends to help. (Although to be honest, all he actually needed here was a triple-arrow, Lois’s brash speech on the plane, and a little faith in himself.)
I’m relieved they didn’t show a full shot of him in that costume. The jacket ensemble is so much cooler and more believable. And as much as I’ll miss all the supporting actors, who were routinely the most interesting characters in the series, I won’t miss Tom Welling playing Clark as if he’s auditioning for the next Batman movie….
Not a bad finale. Not great, and certainly cheesy at times (Jonathan Kent appears to him, Jor-El finally hugs him, and he gets his own clip-show montage!!), but a fitting way to acknowledge the fans while still setting up his future.
Oh, and I was joking all the way the way through that they weren’t actually married–and look how they ended it!! You’d think they could have quickly taken care of that problem right after the church scene (did the pastor run off?)…..
I was a tad underwhelmed. It wasn’t a bad ending overall, but I felt like there could have been a little more. Not more “action” scenes or anything, but I just got a lacking feeling when it was over, like something was missing or could have been done a little differently. Maybe when the DVDs come out there might be an extended or deleted scene that fills that gap.
I might go and catch up with the series. I stopped at the introduction of Supergirl but a seasons worth of DVD’s are now $30NZD ($15 US).
I liked the last 5 minutes the most. That’s the kind of show we should have had 7 seasons ago. I do feel kind of cheated that we never got to see a full on costume shot, but what else should I expect. Oh well. This finale gets 3.5 Stars, out of 5.
Smallville lived up to what it was about… Clark Kent. And like Lois and Clark before it, this was a version of Superman for its time. While I didn’t like it (I’m guessing I’ve seen less than a whole season of shows when all added up) more than enough did and helped give Smallville ten seasons. Good for them.
GOOD things about last night?
-seeing APOKALYPS!
-Zombie!Lionel! (okay, just for a quick laugh, then it got LOLwhiut?)
-the thought of all the Chlark ‘shippers seemingly getting their wish for the briefest of seconds when she knocked the ring away. (HOW did they explain what was going on to all the guests?)
-Lex’s Big Pep Talk being the one to FINALLY convince Clark. That’s right, LEX made Superman.
-the “revolving door/wall” convo/reading of the wedding vows.
BAD?
-wearing SpeedoiBoi’s hand-me-down….even in CGI.
-yet another full season build up Big Bad, then 2 minutes or less fight/victory.
-no sign of the JLA beyond the (CW) Big Two.
– wtf was Jimmy wearing? did he have a “top secret” haircut for another upcoming project? Because Beardo already failed at that a while back, making an appearance while filming HO2.
Overall, I liked it. I have my own collection of unfulfilled fanboy demands (such as the absence of every guest star in full costume on screen at once), but overall, I thought it was a fairly cool finale.
For me, it was the quiet parts of the finale which worked the best. I liked seeing Clark walk Lois down the isle as a symbol of their equal footing, and I also really liked it when lightning struck the Luthorcorp building, spelling out Lexcorp with a steel beam providing the “X”.
On the other hand, for a episode about embracing the past, there was painfully little of it. While it’s true we did get Annette O’Toole and John Schnieder, we didn’t get any Sam Jones or Kirsten Kreuk. Oddly enough, I don’t think Lana was even mentioned, which felt odd given the roots of the series. I also thought it was a bit odd Alison Mack practically disappeared in the middle of the finale.
Overall though, it was a very good finale, and the Superman bits worked well despite some budget limitations. I think Zach Synder will have even bigger shoes to fill now, because whether people like about it or not, Tom Wellings has been Clark Kent for 10 years, further creating its own set of expectations for the Superman mythos.
Overall, I liked it.
– I did like the DC comic read by Chloe that bookended it all. (And if you notice, still seven years into the future DC will hold the line at 2.99! Hopefully so, DC)
-The scene between Lex and Clark was great
-Clark learning to fly was great, and finally explained why Jor-El has been a prick for all these years.
– Not getting to see a full on shot of Tom Welling in the suit was a bit of a let down. And I can understand Tom not wanting to be seen in the suit. But the camera angles they picked, kept making it painfully obvious that they were avoiding it. So that irked me.
– The last five minutes were great, and the last shot was perfect. But to be honest with you, I think it’s time to retire the John Williams Superman music. It’s been overused.
I would give the finale a 3 out of 5.
It was what it was a great tv show nothing more and nothing less . I loved it and it didn’t have what we would get in a movie but it ended how most of us thought it would with the last minutes of him wearing /cgi in the suit . The show was never about superman but Clark journey toward being superman . I would have loved a full on fight between Darkseid and more of Lex quoting Socrates and other great philosophers like he use to do but i was still happy how those two interacted in the end . Smallville will be missed by me along with tess she was hot .
its Luthor not Luther damit! and whats with the flash backs and hearing their wedding vows 2 times in their entirety? really ur gonna intentionally waste time on ur series finally? Whats with the token diversity, ie black people sprinkled into the wedding and the female priest? then the 1 character who should be ethnic (the president) is white (according to the hand thats shown)? and darkseids voice, he sounded like a narc on 60 minutes trying to disguise his vioce.
i did like the look of Apokalypse, and Pres Luthor at the end.
the costume was obviously a left over prop from the last movie, which is why there isnt a full shot of him in the it. it was custom made to fit Brandon Routh like a glove im sure, and would fit him right.
Im just glad that abortion is finally over.
oh and 1 more thing apparently in the smallville universe hes the blur, not superman. brilliant. where they not allowed to use the name superman or the correct pronunciation of Luthor?
I think they were actually showing Biden — they had to kill off the minority president to bring back the older, more established white version of the president….
heh…..
Smallville was an incredibly original retelling of the early origins of Superman/Clark Kent. But after the third season, this show went off the tracks and sadly it never recovered.
While I agree the show absolutely went off the rails after the third season, I don’t agree it never recovered. Somewhere between season 7 and season 9 it started to get good again. Rather, it just seems like the show was really two different shows – one Smallville-themed and one more Metropolis-themed.
After finally powering through the last season I must say I am greatly disappointed with many parts of the finale. With two hours of TV time as a storyteller you are essentially making a movie, and the pacing was terrible for that sort of story.
The major threat seemed to resolve itself way too quickly. His greatest trial was defeated quicker than his battle with Metallo. They had an entire season of build up to how hard it would be to defeat Darkseid and apparently it just took a punch to the chest. The lack of one last appearance from the JLA was also a let down since the season kept saying he would need all of their help to face this great evil. I can understand not showing the costume, but it was a little sad that as a fan I never got to see Superman completely at the end. But his running and opening the shirt to reveal the shield seemed unnatural in the way it played out.