Smallville: Blast from the past
With the premiere of the final season of Smallville coming up this Friday, I thought it would be fun to take a look back. Were you watching on October 16, 2001, when the pilot first aired? If so, what did you think? And if not, what was your first episode? What made you fall in love with this wonderful, amazing, sometimes infuriating show?
I didn't watch Smallville in the beginning. Back then I had a job where I worked nights, and I only watched TV on DVD, so I never even saw a commercial for the show. When I checked out the DVDs I was skeptical, afraid they had turned my beloved Superman into an angsty teen a la Dawson Leery, and there were as many bad reviews as good ones on Amazon. But during the summer after S4, I was desperate for something new to watch, so I decided to order S1.
By the end of the first episode I was hooked, utterly captivated by Tom Welling, and fascinated by the relationship between Clark and Lex. I ordered S2 and S3, and blew through them in a matter of days. Then I started over, watching every episode again while I counted the days until the release of S4. And thus an obsession was born.
I wasn't around in the early days of fandom, and missed a lot of the media coverage of the show. Recently I bought the November 23, 2001 issue of Entertainment Weekly (#627), which must have been one of Tom's first magazine covers. It's interesting to read the article inside, an interview with the show's creators (there's a single quote from Tom), and see the road the series has traveled as compared to their original vision for Clark's story. I still can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that Smallville will have been on the air for a decade by the time it's done. I feel like Jeremy Piven's character in Gross Pointe Blank; I have this irresistible urge to yell out, "Ten years! Ten years!!"
Here are my scans of EW. Click for BIGGER.
I didn't watch Smallville in the beginning. Back then I had a job where I worked nights, and I only watched TV on DVD, so I never even saw a commercial for the show. When I checked out the DVDs I was skeptical, afraid they had turned my beloved Superman into an angsty teen a la Dawson Leery, and there were as many bad reviews as good ones on Amazon. But during the summer after S4, I was desperate for something new to watch, so I decided to order S1.
By the end of the first episode I was hooked, utterly captivated by Tom Welling, and fascinated by the relationship between Clark and Lex. I ordered S2 and S3, and blew through them in a matter of days. Then I started over, watching every episode again while I counted the days until the release of S4. And thus an obsession was born.
I wasn't around in the early days of fandom, and missed a lot of the media coverage of the show. Recently I bought the November 23, 2001 issue of Entertainment Weekly (#627), which must have been one of Tom's first magazine covers. It's interesting to read the article inside, an interview with the show's creators (there's a single quote from Tom), and see the road the series has traveled as compared to their original vision for Clark's story. I still can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that Smallville will have been on the air for a decade by the time it's done. I feel like Jeremy Piven's character in Gross Pointe Blank; I have this irresistible urge to yell out, "Ten years! Ten years!!"
Here are my scans of EW. Click for BIGGER.
