I'm a huge fan of "Smallville." While not quite as good as "Lois and Clark," I think the show did a very good job at giving us a new spin on the Superman story and keeping the characters in the limelight for a new generation. I've written some of my thoughts about each of the main characters below.
Clark: Tom Welling did a great job at portraying Clark. I didn't think the writing for his character was always as good as the writing for Dean Cain's Clark was, but when the writing was good, Tom's Clark was near perfection.
Lois: I absolutely adore Erica Durance's portrayal of Lois. She was smart, sassy, and sexy, everything I look for in a good Lois Lane. I like her almost as much as I like Teri Hatcher's Lois, and that's saying a lot. I can't think of a single bad thing to say about Erica Durance's Lois Lane.
Lex: It was a real treat to see Lex's evolution from friend of Clark and pretty likeable guy to enemy of Clark and ultimate villain. I also enjoyed the delightfully evil Lionel Luthor, one of the best written villains on the show. You could totally see why Lex would end up the way he eventually did based on the way he was raised by Lionel.
Lana: I actually did like Lana a little bit during the first season, but as time went on, her character became less interesting to me. For a time, I was sort of neutral towards her character, liking Lois and Chloe more but still not disliking her. Then, by season seven, I no longer liked her at all due to the way that her character seemed to take a darker turn. And, like everyone else said, her storyline during her season eight return was completely ridiculous. I hated that she was given powers so that she could go off and be some type of superhero even though she'd proven she wasn't worthy of having that responsibility in 'Wrath' when she had Clark's powers for a while. I hated that she and Clark were forced apart by kryptonite instead of getting real closure to their relationship, too. I was just left completely unsatisfied with her return.
Chloe: During most of the run of the show, I thought Chloe was a great friend to Clark and very likeable. Then, starting with season eight, the writers did a few things that really tainted her for me. When she chose to believe Davis over Jimmy and actually used a Taser on Jimmy was probably the point where I started disliking her. Her stopping Clark from putting Davis in the Phantom Zone and thereby causing more deaths at the hands of Doomsday also turned me off to her character. I won't go into the things she did in season 9 that annoyed me, but I will say that she was never really the same to me during the last few seasons of the show as she was during the early years.
Jonathan and Martha Kent: I liked the way both of the Kents were written most of the time. I do think that Martha was underutilized at times, though, and I wish that Jonathan hadn't been killed off when he was. It seems like "Lois and Clark" is the only live action version of Superman to date that didn't kill off Jonathan.
Jimmy: I liked how Jimmy on "Smallville" referred to Clark as CK. It was a nice homage to "Lois and Clark." However, whenever I think about the Jimmy Olsen of this show I'm always angered that the writers decided to kill him off at the end of season eight. To me, that moment stands next to Lana's last couple of episodes as some of the show's low points.
Oliver Queen/Green Arrow and the other superheroes: I really enjoyed Oliver's first few appearances on the show. It was great to finally see a full-fledged - costume and all - superhero on the show. I also enjoyed his relationship with Lois during season six. Erica Durance and Justin Hartley had great chemistry, and it was fun to see Lois have a pre-Superman relationship with another superhero. Sadly, I didn't like where the writers took the character of Oliver Queen in some of his later appearances, especially when they had him betray Clark with an arrow in the back during the season eight finale.
I was thrilled to see all of the other heroes that made appearances on the show, though. Kara/Supergirl and Zatanna were probably the ones I liked the most of those that had appeared up until the end of season eight. I won't go into listing any of my favorites of the other superheroes that appeared later on, but there are at least a couple of more them that I really enjoyed seeing.
Davis and Tess: I enjoyed Tess a lot, but I could have done without Davis. It's not that I minded them changing the way Doomsday was portrayed in the comics. I hadn't even heard of Doomsday before the first time I watched him on "Smallville," and there are many other places that the writers deviated from the comics that didn't bother me. What annoys me about Davis was the fact that the writers decided to use him for the Chloe/Davis/Jimmy love triangle that I didn't care for at all.
