DVD : Smallville - The Complete Fifth Season

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- Best season so far!
If you've been a fan this long, you definately need Season 5. DVD's are so much better than television or VHS, no commercials to deal with. You get ot see a lot more of Lois Lane in this one and you finally get ot see the REAL Lex Luther in all his glory. It's awesome and you totally need it! Buy from Amazon and save $$$ over you're local stores.

Rating:

- WOW.....
This is one of the best seasons i have people who have never liked smallville fall in love w/ it....... this season leaves you wanting more.....

Rating:

- Superman is not a hero of the deaf
Just because Superman has superhearing does not mean that every human does, but I guess Superman (or its human creators) don't care about that. There are no English subtitles or English closed captioning on this set even though all previous seasons 1 - 4 did. The HD-DVD does have English subtitles, but the end user is charged over $10.00 more this "feature". In other words, the company did the work to create the closed captioning (which is required by federal law for public broadcasting), but where too cheap to include it on this DVD set. The company also went cheap on the box. Two DVDs are placed on top of each other which makes it difficult to get them out without scratching them. Superman is supposed to be a hero againt big companies doing evil things, but this philosphy only applies to the fictional world of Smallville -- not the real world that we live in. Superman now represents the philosphy of "Do as I say, not as a do." What a mixed message we are giving to the next generation.

Rating:

- SuperSoap
My children persuaded me to acquire this series (Smallville Series 5) on DVD and so we sat down to be serially entertained. First, the good news: Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex Luthor, the antagonist to the protagonist hero Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman, can act. Rosenbaum's abilities as an actor enable Lex to become the most interesting and compelling character in what is otherwise a sea of standard-for-TV mediocrity. The other piece of good news is that the direction of some episodes is first-rate. An example of this is the episode called Reckoning, in which the director coaxes creditable performances even from the weakest of the cast members and uses James Blunt's song You're Beautiful to masterful effect as incidental music.

The bad news is that, in what appears to be the standard tradition of American TV series, there are simply too many episodes for the ideas they contain. Themes recur again and again to the point where the characters appear catatonic. The script writers are lazy, so their scripts lack internal consistency and they fall back on trite plot devices instead of taking the trouble to craft the stories more carefully. You can almost hear the bored writers sitting around sipping lattes and saying, "OK, what haven't we had XXX do yet? And YYY wants an opportunity to show how she can do heartbreak so let's have the characters all drink something that changes their personalities, covers them in bright orange body hair, and brings back the dead. Then Clark can marry a corpse and Lana can look crushed." (Note - if this turns out to be a real episode in Series Seven, don't blame me...)

There's probably enough (intentional) humor and situational possibilities in Smallville for one really good series of about 12 episodes, but there's clearly not enough to stretch interminably over six series with 23 episodes each, especially given the limitations of the cast and the insouciance of the writers. We did, however, appreciate the determination of the writers to avoid "tights and flights" which at least precluded additional embarrassment. And some of the special effects are excellent.

Rating:

- Action packed!!
What a good season! Lots of action, new heroes, a deadly villian and all the while the animosity grows between Lex and Clark! Its an exciting season with a few touching moments! The series just keeps getting better and season 5 leaves you at the edge of your seat... with Clark... both waiting to fly!

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