Does Smallville’s Season 8 Stand a Chance?
Smallville’s Final Season Is Coming, But With Many Changes
Smallville
June 23rd, 2008 - With the recent casting news on Smallville's eighth and (presumably) final season, I decided it was high time to revisit my thoughts on what the show will look like next year. (For my first article on the matter, click here.) But before we get to the show’s new additions, let’s review who is confirmed to be leaving Superman’s home town.
First off, it has been confirmed that Michael Rosenbaum will not be returning as a regular cast member in season eight. The official press release stated, and I quote: "While Michael won't be a series regular and we won't have the pleasure of working with him on a weekly basis this fall, we like to think that we haven't seen the last of Lex Luthor." After reading that, I thought, all right, well he basically HAS to come back for at least the season premiere, to explain what happened to him after the Fortress of Solitude collapsed on him. But then I read this interview, where Michael said, and again I quote: "It was a great run, and I'll miss them all, and the producers they always think, 'Well, he'll do a couple' and I go, 'No!' You realize, if I do a couple, it means I shave my head and I won't have hair for three more months, so if I do a couple, I might as well do them all." The interviewer then asks him if he won't do one last final appearance, to which Rosenbaum replies, "Nah, this was it. This was it. It was a good, good ending."
Now, let's get something straight right here: Lex's descent into evil was amazing, but if this is the last we're seeing of Lex, even the cool aspects of the Veritas arc will have been totally undone. Lex was so consumed with discovering the identity of the Traveler that he was willing to murder his own father. He became totally obsessed with the thought of being able to control this visitor from another world. When he finally discovers that the alien in question was Clark Kent and he gets his hands on the device that will make Clark his slave, the Fortress collapses, and Lex is... what? He can't be dead, right? The Smallville continuity is clearly separate from the main Superman DC comics version, but killing off Superman's future adversary now, in such anti-climactic fashion just seems... wrong. Really, really wrong. And so that means that the purpose of the mysterious device was a lie? A hoax? Or was there just a random earthquake in the Arctic at the moment Lex decided to turn on his former friend? I suppose these questions could be answered with some clever writing, but I gotta admit, I'm skeptical.
On to Laura Vandervoort, who has confirmed that she will not be back on the show next year, though she may fly by for a few episodes. Um, then what was the point of introducing her in season seven? In the season finale, it was revealed that Kara was trapped in the Phantom Zone. While it's good that the show plans to address this and have Clark rescue her in an episode or two (I hope - letting her float there in empty space while the show closes down would be a real shame), it just reinforces how the show has mishandled the character of Kara/Supergirl. The writers couldn't find much for her to do, so maybe it does make sense for them to dump her, but I can’t understand why they didn't instead try to focus on ways to make her more interesting.
Kristin Kreuk aka Lana Lang aka The Most Beautiful Woman Ever won’t be a series regular, but she will be back for a handful of episodes, presumably because she’s got her hands full with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. The way they ended the Clana relationship in the season finale, with Lana leaving Clark via a videotaped message, was absolutely horrible. The concept of her leaving Clark because she feels that she was holding him back from his destiny made perfect sense, but its execution was totally wrong. I love looking at Kristin, so I’m glad that she’ll be back, but again I’m worried about how they will tie up this story. Part of me wonders if they would be better off just cutting their losses with the character altogether, even though it pains me to say it.
Behind the scenes, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar won't be back as show-runners next year. This could prove either disastrous or the perfect jolt the show needs next year. Kelly Souders, Brian Peterson, Todd Slavkin, and Darren Swimmer all know the universe well, so perhaps they will be better able to guide the show toward a successful conclusion, and perhaps some new blood will be just what the doctor ordered; Gough and Millar have certainly dropped the ball more than a few times over the years, after all. Still, the fact that those two are leaving a show that was basically their baby makes you wonder that if they thought there was nowhere else for the show to go, why go on at all?
All right, enough of who’s not going to be back. Let’s examine the announced additions to the cast. Justin Hartley will be back as a regular playing Oliver Queen/Green Arrow. I liked this character in season six, as he was one of the few people to call out Clark for wasting his talents and abilities by working as a farmhand. And if season eight is in fact the show’s last year, it makes sense that Oliver will help further push Clark into accepting his destiny as a superhero. Also, it’s nice for Clark to have a dude to share his secret with, now that Jonathan, Lionel, and Pete have all moved on to Heaven, Hell, and Wichita, respectively.
The show also announced two brand spanking new additions to the show: Sam Witwer will be playing Doomsday, and Cassidy Freeman will be playing Tess.
Yeah, so a human being is going to be playing Doomsday. His real name on the show will be Davis Bloome, and he’s a bartender. In other words, he’ll be a regular person who is also a monster, in sort of a Jekyll and Hyde sort of way. The show has screwed around with DC continuity before, but this move is sure to piss off fanboys. It could work in theory, but the appeal of Doomsday as a character was that he was a monster, pure and simple. No one would sympathize or empathize with a beast whose only purpose is to kill all that he sees. So making him human could seriously backfire. When the show made Brainiac a professor, they took the Milton Fine name from Superman comics lore, and played off of the theme that he was artificial intelligence. Davis Bloome is, to my knowledge, a completely original creation, as is the fact that Doomsday would have even a sliver of humanity in him. In a nutshell, Doomsday just seems like a bad choice to be re-imagined in the Smallville world.
Tess was first described as a character that would be familiar to some fans, and while there is no “Tess” in canon that I know of, it seems like a safe bet that Tess is a play on Miss Teschmacher from the first two Superman films. This new gal seems to be easy on the eyes, but let’s be honest here – she has some pretty big “shoes” to fill, if you catch my meaning. Valerie Perrine was an absolute hottie in her day, after all. And while I’m grateful that the people behind the show opted against bringing in Lori Lemaris, Tess seems destined to be a weak love interest for Clark and an even weaker substitute for the show’s true villain, Lex Luthor.
So, all in all, the odds are stacked against the show’s final year, and it hasn’t even begun shooting. I’ll keep watching, because I’m just that kind of guy, and I truly hope to be proven wrong and be treated to some great episodes of Smallville into 2009. But what do you think? Will the show suck next year? Is there any hope? Will these changes serve to enhance a formula that had grown somewhat stale? Do you even still care?
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