Oh my god, I'm still laughing my *** of because Lynn's ability to create this feedback hyper I for one am definitely happy that you voice your thoughts to us, not only because they're fun but because I can agree with you.

Doranwen, SV never was lighthearted not even in season one. What you saw there was a slow introduction into Clark's life in his hometown Smallville. This is also my suggestion to why he plans on staying there, because this crazy town with even more crazy freaks is something he can't live without wink Sorry, just joking but the focus remains on the action part of SV.
I suppose the earth would open up under my feet before they decided to give Clark a chance to start a normal life in a non-freak-town in order to do some serious growing up and soulsearching. So not likely that this would ever happen!

And for the CLana shippering in the show, will this never end? In season one Clark's longing for the beauty in the neighbor's house was somewhat cute but this complicate relationship was a) overused and b) both actors portrayed it awfully. I've read some comments to that topic on the Kryptonsite forums (Doranwen, I think I spotted you there too) from a guy who learns from SV that any attempt on starting a relationship is doomed from the start and that you better not even try. There's so much possibility in SV with lots of possible shippers, so much personal issues and growing up to do but the writers throw it away carelessly.