Wow! See, this is what I was hoping to find. Reasons why people love/hate this show. And some of the points people have made are pretty valid and thought provoking.
I was never a Superman fan until Lois and Clark, and truthfully, I did watch that show for the romance angle. Perhaps that's why I didn't think that Season 4 sucked - I was glad they got married and I got a chance to see them being a normal couple (well, relatively speaking
).
And I guess being a pseudo Superman fan, I never read comics, so I have no "canon" on which to base my expectations. For all I know, Lana can be blond, red-headed, brunette, etc or Asian or African American or whatever. And as long as eventually Clark ends up with Lois, I don't mind watching a teen-aged Clark have a crush or a high school sweetheart.
The one area in which I think Smallville excels is making Clark out to be a more conflicted character - one who runs a little deeper than absolute-pure-hero-who-always-knows-good-from-bad. Part of my lack of "canon" means that I'm not having as much of an issue with a Clark who is a little darker and who makes some pretty major mistakes. I know a lot of Superman purists feel that Smallville is taking Clark down some pretty dark roads that totally screw up Superman's future icon status, but I'm OK with that. LnC's Clark was almost a little too goody-goody for me sometimes. I wanted some tough-guy Clark (watch for some fanfic y'all!)
What I find most appealing about LnC
and Smallville - what I think that the two shows have in common - is that both place Clark/Superman in a "real world" for me. In the comics, everything is so unreal. But to see LnC in a real city that I can imagine working at real jobs and living in apartments makes the whole thing reachable or believable. Same with Smallville - seeing Clark as a real teenager in the early 2000s really pulls me in and helps me suspend my disbelief that Superman could never exist. I can lose myself in the fantasy and imagine that such a hero might really be out there. And if he looks anything like Dean Cain or Tom Welling, so much the better!!
About the Lex thing - it is so strange to know that Lex turns out so evil, because in Smallville, he is so charismatic. So much of that is due to Michael Rosenbaum's portrayal of the character, but it is kind of cool to see a Lex Luther who is not a cardboard cutout of a Pure Evil Bad Guy. He's been made out to be a real person who has reasons for turning out the way he eventually does. And I would much rather see Superman up against that than the FOTW or generic Bad Guy.
So in the end, I get my romance/soul mate love story from LnC and I get my Superman mythos from Smallville. And it's a pretty sure bet that if they ever do make that new Superman movie that's been tossed around, I'll be in line buying a ticket opening weekend!
