Smallville Season 8: Bringing You Up To Speed

Last season’s finale of Smallville left me feeling disjointed. It felt like a lot was pulled out of the woodwork to make the episode work. While some things did, others didn’t jive with any sense of evolving details.

What didn’t blend for me were things like:

• The ever suspicious Lois Lane (Erica Durance) acting the gullible fool and believing some of Jimmy Olsen’s (Aaron Ashmore) explanations.
• An unexplained set of events that ended with Kara (Laura Vandervoort) being banished.
• Brainiac (James Marsters) spilling the beans that killing him would save the ladies.
• How Chloe (Allison Mack) was toted off by the secret government police? My suspicious mind wonders if that was set up because contract negotiations were up in the air with Mack. Always good to have a plan B, right? (Don’t worry, things are fine now.)

We’ve covered Smallville quite a bit here on Screen Rant. It’s a perennial favorite that we’d like to see pull one off and finish its run in a decent fashion with its 8th and final season.

First a congrats to the show for winning an Emmy for Sound Editing in the Bizarro episode!

But now, I’d like to recap a few things we’ve talked about previously and touch on a couple of new things before Thursday’s season 8 premiere:

1933:

• Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had created a bald, telepathic villain that was the center piece in a short story called The Reign of the Super-Man that evolved into what we now know as Superman today. (When I said recap, I meant it!)

1938

• The evolution of the Superman we know branched out into Action Comics.

1940’s

• The phrase “Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” came from the fact that Superman didn’t start flying until he “developed” the powers of flight in the 40’s. (Huh? Did they have a no flight rule also? No, but I thought I’d mess with your head.)

April 2008

• Alfred Gough and Miles Millar announced their exodus from the show. That meant that the 2nd string team of Kelly Souders, Todd Slavkin, Darren Swimmer, and Brian Peterson were in line to take over the final season. They’ve been with the series for some time, so I don’t expect any traumatic changes!

May 2008

• Michael Rosenbaum announced his leaving the show. (BTW: Thank you Michael for the Lex Luthor that I’ll remember, as I watched you develop Lex towards the man doomed to become that which we all knew was coming. I included his image to pay homage.)
• Allison Mack who plays Chloe was negotiating her contract. There were unmitigated concerns of her leaving the show. (She’s not.)
• Announcements for the regular cast for season 8 did not include Laura Vandervoort who plays Kara, and she found out via the upfronts, of all places.

June 2008

• We reported that Kristen Kreuk (Lana) was going to be in a minimal number of episodes.
• Justin Hartley coming back full time to play Oliver Queen / Green Arrow.
• Cassidy Freeman is joining the story as Tess Mercer, the acting CEO of Luthorcorp in Lex’s absence.
• Sam Witwer will play Davis Bloome, who becomes Doomsday. (Lower right corner of post image.)

July 2008

• As early as July we touched on the upcoming plots of season 8: The return of the Justice League to help find Clark. Clark’s dual identity, getting a job at the Daily Planet and other parts of the legend coming to fruition.

August 2008

• In regards to the no-fly rules, or the costume, well, we aren’t going to be seeing the ever popular suit (tights) made famous since the late 30’s. So mayhaps, there’s hope for flight? I hope so ’cause I’m sick of seeing that Clark can fly, but only when he’s high. Uh, that wasn’t a pun. Really… I’m talking about the red kryptonite. Face it, we all knew from early on in the very first episode in season 1 that he could fly. Do you remember of whence I speak?

September 2008

Oh, wait.. that’s now.

BTW, there are a few spoiler below!

With Lana being in a minimal number of episodes, I say “Finally!”. In the mythos, Lana and Clark did have a thing when he was young, and she did know “about” him, but Smallville drew it out awfully long. And it’s about time they move the Lois connection along, or at least that’s what I’m hoping. They’ve set her character up perfectly for it. Does anyone remember way back in the comic when Clark Kent revealed to Lois Lane he was Superman? She busted out laughing at first and it took a little convincing on his part. I can see that with Durance’s spin on Lois.

Speaking of Erica Durance, she was recently interviewed by IGN.com about her fifth season playing the role of Lois Lane and dropped a few notes for us to gnaw on.

• We’re going to start seeing more of the classic Lois / Jimmy / Clark of the Superman mythos. She thinks the fans will really like where the show goes. (I’m waiting for the secret signal watch they get to call Superman for help with! Someone, please tell me you remember that?)
• Lois will be the mentor of Clark as he learns his new job at the Daily Planet, which includes helping him look less “Smallville” and more Metropolis.
• She touched on the relationship between Lois and Clark, and surprisingly, the wrangling of what is allowed and not, due to licensing concerns. (Wow, hadn’t even thought of that angle.)
• Lois will show more of her intellect this season, as the sharp reporter she is… not unlike myself.
• She has to address her own feelings about Clark, but then she’ll be interacting with Maxima. (Maxima?? Yes… see below)
• Lois may get her own set of powers, or so Erica hints at. And if she had a choice, she’d want to be able to throw people. (Hmm, sounds like my kind of girl!)

We’re also going to be seeing more DC characters and mythology. Possibly pitching upcoming events, movies or what not? One example of that would be the casting of Charlotte Sullivan in the role of Maxima. Maxima is slated to appear by the 4th episode of the season.

This is going to be an interesting addition to the cast since she’s been both good and evil in the comic. Being a fickle horn-dog of an alien, she had the hots for Superman and switched sides from evil to good for him. She later helped fight Doomsday, but when Superman spurned her advances, she snapped and joined an anti-Superman gang. I wonder what they will do with her character here? They have themselves a super powered, mood swinging alien with all kinds of options. Zoinks!

I’ve also encountered some info out and about that:

• Michael Rosenbaum will not be making any appearance whatsoever in season 8.
• Kara will show up later on in the season for an episode.
• We’ll see the Legion of Superheroes who are sent on a mission from Superman in the future.
• Talk of Darkseid showing up. Darkseid? I have no problem with that, but that seems more on the cosmic scale than the show has traditionally dealt with. Then again, it could be a nice new wrinkle to add to Clark’s issues.

And in case you think I forgot, Chloe: She’s got her powers, and she’ll be dealing with issue. She and Clark will be dealing with some “tension” in the air also. There’s also a bunch of stuff out there about the upcoming first episode and I’ve probably given enough away for one day. I mean heck, with Clark supposedly losing his powers yet again, and… oops. Did I just say that? I hate when that happens. I just don’t want to be giving everything away… what’s the fun in that?

Here’s the official take from the CW Smallville website on the upcoming season start:

The Justice League, led by the Green Arrow (Justin Hartley), hits the Arctic in search of Clark (Tom Welling), who disappeared after the fortress collapsed. The team immediately has a confrontation with the new CEO of Luthorcorp, Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman).

Meanwhile, Chloe (Allison Mack) is being held prisoner by a suspicious group who has discovered she has a new power, and Clark has been stripped of his powers by Jor-El.

Well, that’s that for the moment. Smallville kicks season 8 in gear this Thursday gang!

Sources: Wikipedia, The Emmys, IGN.com, E Online, Buddy TV, TV Squad, TV Guide

Mucho thanks to The CW Smallville site for making the images available. ((Sheesh, who didn’t I source?)