Today, the Lana-obsession feels dated. The “will they/won’t they” drags. Kreuk does her best with material that often asks her to be a prize rather than a person. However, when the show lets her be angry—particularly regarding the secret of her parents’ death—she shines. Still, for every good Lana scene, there are three shots of Clark sighing in a loft. What elevates Season 1 above standard teen drama is its willingness to get dark. John Glover’s Lionel Luthor is a monstrous patriarch who chews scenery and destroys his son’s soul piece by piece. Annette O’Toole and John Schneider as Martha and Jonathan Kent provide the moral spine; they are the best parents in superhero fiction, offering tough love and unconditional acceptance.
That changed on October 16, 2001. When Smallville premiered on The WB, it made a radical promise: “No flights, no tights.” For ten seasons, the show would ignore the cape and the city skyline, focusing instead on the teenage angst of a lonely alien hiding in plain sight. Season 1, however, remains the most fascinating experiment of the series—a strange, beautiful, and often melodramatic hybrid of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Dawson’s Creek , and X-Files-style “freak of the week.” smallville season 1
Smallville Season 1 is currently streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime. Today, the Lana-obsession feels dated
In the vast pantheon of superhero media, the origin story is sacred ground. We’ve seen Bruce Wayne’s parents die in a dozen different alleys. We’ve watched Uncle Ben’s blood pool on Peter Parker’s fingers. But for nearly a century, one origin remained strangely untouchable: Clark Kent’s journey from the cornfields of Kansas to the Daily Planet. However, when the show lets her be angry—particularly
But the heart is there. In an era before the MCU, Smallville dared to suggest that the hero’s journey isn’t about the cape. It’s about the choice. It’s about a boy who can move mountains but learns that the hardest thing in the world is telling your best friend the truth.
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But the show’s secret weapon was Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor. In any other iteration, Lex is a megalomaniacal businessman. In Smallville Season 1, he is a lonely, wealthy outcast who sees a kindred spirit in the farm boy who saved his life. Their friendship—built on lies, secrets, and genuine affection—is the tragic engine that drives the entire season. Watching Lex and Clark play chess in the mansion’s living room is more compelling than most superhero fight scenes. The plot engine of Season 1 is deliberately absurd—and wonderfully ’00s. When Clark’s spaceship crashed, it rained kryptonite-infused meteorites onto the town. For the next 21 episodes, every single week, a high school student or townsperson gets exposed to the rocks and develops a specific superpower. You get a human bug zapper. You get a girl who controls fog. You get a living magnet.