The Hollywood Reporter's Live Feed notes, "The veteran drama has held up so well on Friday nights earlier this season, but the past few weeks the show has been in a free fall. Smallville (1.9 million viewers, 0.7 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) was averaging about a 1.4 back in February. Since it came back from a brief March hiatus, the series has dropped to 1.0, then a 0.8 last week, and now a 0.7 -- Melrose Place territory. And that's with CBS and Fox airing repeats and NBC running a movie. It's almost as if relieved fans stopping watching the show (or, at least, stopped watching the show on Fridays) as soon as they heard it was renewed."
This descent is really surprising and disappointing, because the show has rebounded so strongly this season creatively, especially after the majorly disappointing season eight. In fact, in its ninth season Smallville has actually been soaring as its embraced the Superman mythology more fully. Not to say that there haven't been mis-steps along the way (there always are), but the whole Checkmate arc has really had things heating up in a big way.
So what's your opinion? Why do you think the ratings are dropping and what do you think of season nine -- beyond statements like, "Smallville sucks!" Let's get a serious critical discussion going on this season -- what have been the strengths and weaknesses and how could they improve things (forgetting the notion that Clark should be in the Superman costume, because that ain't happening!)?