Smallville Final Episode - A Review

Well, actually it was a little of both.

The SuperEpic highlights of the episode were:

1) The Poignant Reunion of the Kent Family - Who didn't have a lump in their throat or a small tear in their eye seeing the warm family embrace of Jonathan, Martha and Clark as the end of the world approached them? The humanity of this series was crystallized by the small exhortations from Jonathan and Martha to their son to remember them and what they taught him and to treasure his past as he boldly stepped into his future.

2) The Return of Lex Luthor - Michael Rosenbaum saved this episode and had us cheering. The visuals of his dramatic return, the dialogue with Clark, and the scenes with Lex and his sister were fantastic.

3) The Fight Between Oliver and Clark - In their moment as "frenemies", Clark and Oliver have a great rough and tumble fight scene, oh how much we had hoped this would have been carried on to the ultimate fight between Clark and Darkseid, but noooooo.

4) The Last Three Minutes of the Episode - Flash 7 years into the future. Chloe appears to be reading to little blonde-haired Oliver Junior (arrows in the corner), Clark at his nerdiest (except why didn't he slick his hair back like he did in the prior episode of nerdy Clark of the future?), Lois at her Lanelinest, and the return of (the voice of) Perry White and Jimmy Olsen! (or brother of Jimmy Olsen also named Jimmy??), and finally the tearing off the shirt to reveal the Super S with the John Williams music in the background!

And now, the SuperFails:

1) The Wedding - yes, it was nice to see the tender letters between Clark and Lois...but this whole set-up and set of scenes should have been cut down...it was way too long, leaving the second part feeling very rushed and non-climactic. This lack of proper pacing was characteristic of the whole final episode.

2) The Fight Between LionelDarkseid and Clark - Ok, so after blowing all their CGI budget on Blue Beetle earlier in the year, they just couldn't come up with enough money to make a spectacular fight between Clark and Darkseid, instead optimizing for the cheap effect of putting a distorted Darkseid voice on Lionel's lips so we see him possessed by the Dark one. First we get the typical, fist to the Clark knocking him half way across the room, then we get this kind of limbo scene as he is slow mo-ing through the air where we see flashback scenes from the last 10 years..... a lot of scenes.....and very ....long. Then after Clark realizes his destiny, he comes back into his reality, stops, floats and zooms through crazed Lionel, smashing him into smithereens then QUICK cut to commercial break. That was the big battle we were waiting for...no sense of tension, epic battle and release...just a quick zoom through the body and a commercial break. Wow.

3) The Reveal of Superman - In prior episodes, extended shots of Clark in his black Superman t-shirt and red leather Superman jacket took place all the time, but no, we fans couldn't get to enjoy having the camera shoot and linger on Tom Welling in a full body shot of him in his Superman suit. And then when we do see scenes of him in the suit, he is like super tiny ..up in the air or in space...I have a large screen TV and from what I could tell, Tom was so small it almost appeared it was just CGI.

So in summary, as characteristic of this whole series and seasons, Smallville ended as it always was...moments of sheer brilliance and moments of wasted opportunities to achieve greatness. We can only hope that one day the producers and/or network will understand what we really wanted and bring back these fantastic actors and their characterizations in a Metropolis/Superman TV-Film!