DVD : Smallville - The Complete Fourth Season

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- season 4 - still good, but uneven
I've purchased all 4 seasons of Smallville, and one of the things that I've enjoyed doing is rewatching the shows to see just how much I missed the first time around. The character development is very good. It is so difficult to decide at times if Lex is struggling with his inner self, or just trying to manipulate Clark. Anyway, Season #4 takes a step backwards from the excellent writing of the previous three years. I guess the writers got tired of the "freak of the week" plot lines and decided to exploit Superman's other weakness - magic. However, this whole thing about the Countess is so lame. Episode 8, Spell, is too painful to watch a second time! The idea of the 3 stones is bizarre too, since Jor-el could have just placed the information in the ship if it had been so important for Clark to have...or shoot, he could just tell Clark about Zod from the beginning instead of misleading him with only a little piece of this or that at a time. But then we wouldn't have a show, would we? Season 4 is just too contrived. I've often wondered if the death of Christopher Reeve didn't force them to rewrite at the last minute....it sure seems like it was done overnight! Bad year, but it's still Smallville. Hang in there!!!

Rating:

- GREAT AND FUNNY SEASON..LOIS IS EXCELLENT
I LOVED THIS SEASON! it was the PERFECT TIME to add lois! i stopped watching smallville middle of season 2 and got back into it at end of season 3 since smalleville always delivers fantastic jaw-dropping finales and i love chloe so i had to watch s4 to see if she was really dead or not & then in the season premiere i see lois comes to town.. She is NOT boring..she adds some banter and life to the show!the lana/clark thing was getting tiresome..LANA is boring to me. i love chloe..but not with clark...i would like to see their characters happy with other guys..I am a lex/lana shipper actually.-Lois is witty and fun.its nice to see one of the main girls on the show NOT in love with clark.(well not YET anyways)I am a superman movie/tv show fan..i have seen all the tv shows (dean cain one and all) but i havent read the comics. so if you are a die-hard comic fan you may be mad at the show for some things. they did change some stuff to make it so you dont know whats going to happen and when but if you are like me i think you will like this series. and this season is great. erica durance rocks as lois-she had a lot of pressure on her but she is the best lois to me. Smallvilles different because unlike the other lois/clark shows/movies you can see them when they're younger so their bantering is more immature.(like teens)and its nice we get to see lois as a teen and how she becomes a reporter AT the daily planet too(well that doesnt happen this season but i have a feeling it will LATER ON) My fav. episodes in this season are Onyx(michael rosenbaum (lex) was awesome in that episode..i liked it when he hit on lana).., Facade(the ending with the avril song and chloe looks at lois/clark and sees something only her and the rest of us see is perfect)Krypto( just because i am a dog lover haha) Spirit (when martha gets possessed by the girl she is sooo funny and lois says that there will sooner be a man on mars than her going to prom with clark..and when she said that clark looked kinda offended..)and Recruit(tells us why clark didnt go the football route..and i like it when he got realllly upset when that guy took lois.) anyways bottom line is if you STOPPED watching smallville like me--this is the season you may want to start again b/c this one shows the show is about to get better!!

Rating:

- writers alienate their conservative, family audience
One of Smallvilles best qualitys in the early seasons was the relationship between Clark and his Dad (John Schnieder)and
clarks progress in becoming a great man.
Nowadays Dads are portrayed as either non-existent or idiots. Bringing in Witches, Vampires and more sexual content was a big mistake, I know many people who ended their
Smallville experience with this Season. Thankfully the series got somewhat away from this in later seasons.

Rating:

- I'm More Than a Man in a Silly Red Cape
So as somewhat a nerd, I do find myself required to watch Smallville, the WB-ification (i.e. hot, moody teenagers) of the greatest superhero ever written, even though I can't say I actually own any comic books (aside from a few Beavis and Butthead one I picked up in my formative years). I did enjoy the Christopher Reeves movies as a kid although I passed on the Dean Cain version as it seemed more like a chick flick but on TV. And nothing bothered me more than the idea of a whipped Superman. Then four years ago came Smallville or Superman - The High School Years. An interesting concept considering Lex Luther was not Clark Kent archenemies yet, nor had Kent don the tights yet. The episode drew a lot on the Buffy monster of the week philosophy but with a kryptonite twist.

We left off the third season with Lex being poisoned, Lana leaving for Paris, Chloe being blown up, Pete has skipped town, Lionel was dieing from a bad liver and suddenly bald, and Clark disappeared with some naked hot chick. But of course no one really died and everything was back to normal by the third episode of the current season. Although Pete never came back and was replace instead was replace by Lana's boyfriend that she met in Paris. And yes, I hated him for that.

The big news of the fourth season was that Lana was promoted from the Token Hot Chick of the show and actually had a decent storyline this year. Sadly this took her out of the running for the title of Hottest Token Hot Chick in the 1st annual Scooter Television Awards. So Lana apparently is the decent of a witch who decided to use Miss Lang to get back at the lineage that burned her at the stake. Luckily evil ancestor is successful and we get the greatest Smallville invention: evil Lana. For anyone who saw Eurotrip, you know how entertaining that can be. Evil Lana, like Clark, Lex, Lionel, Lana's new boyfriend and his mom, is after three stone that apparently do something.

So with Lana dropping the title of token hot chick and no show is complete without one, so enter Lois Lane. A sassier version that the other LL's, but then again she is a teenager so I guess it makes sense. She was also a slight twist on the token hot chick in that she could kick my butt, and that only made her hotter. Smallville also brought in some other characters from the Superman lexicon including the Flash and Krypto the dog.

Then by the end of the season, just like at the end of last season, everyone is in peril as another meteor shower has hit Smallville. And it looks like the stones everyone wanted transported Clark to what may become his Fortress of Solitude. Looking forward to next season, I assume it's safe to assume that everything will be back to normal by the start of the third episode. But when it comes down to it, hopefully we will get to see more of bad Lana.

Rating:

- Kept my interest but not as good as prior seasons.
This season of Smallville seemed to be lacking plot ideas and the character development was stagnant. The episode where Lana turns into a witch disappointed. The witch character was stereotypically evil without any variation or complexity.

Lois Lane is annoying and boring. The actress does a fine job but she doesn't have much to work with. Lex is no longer sympathetic as he spirals into obsession. The "close but no cigar" relationship between Lana and Clark continues but needs more and more rather flimsy excuses to keep them apart.

The theme that Clark/Kalel cannot have a close relationship smacks of adolescent ideas about relationships. It seems that in a more modern psychological mature version of Superman that he could have some kind of relationship with a woman.

Complaints aside, Smallville still remains one of the top fantasy shows on TV and is eminently enjoyable.

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