SMALLVILLE

THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: violence, sensuality, thematic elements

Rated:

Comparatively more emotional than usual, the third season is arguably the greatest in the Smallville series, about teenage Clark Kent (Tom Welling) and his adventures of handling newly discovered superpowers and keeping out of the crosshairs of intrepid reporters. It's been three months since the accident on the Kent Farm that left Martha Kent hospitalized and their storm cellar demolished with the destruction of the spaceship. Rather than face the emotional consequences of his actions, Clark has slipped on a red kryptonite ring that brings out his dark side and wrecks havoc in Metropolis. With no way of stopping him, Jonathan and Martha Kent (John Schneider, Annette O'Toole) can only hope that he sees reason and comes home on his own. They've scoured the city for him without unearthing his hideout.

Clark's mysterious disappearance has a traumatic effect on his girlfriend Lana Lang (Kristen Kruek), who is desperate to locate him. The town is reeling from two devastating blows in as many hours: Clark vanishing into the unknown, and the loss of Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) in a plane accident in the Pacific. His grieving widow has spun a heroic tale of his sacrifice to save her, remaining with the plane as it went down, and his multi-billion dollar father Lionel (John Glover) has sworn to bring Lex's murderers to justice, but one or both may be responsible. Despite the national mourning of the loss of the world's most aspiring young businessman, Lex is far from dead. In fact, he's trapped on a deserted island with a madman. Eventually finding his way back to civilization, he faces the emotional consequences of betrayal and repressed rage over the actions of those who have set out to destroy him. Mental collapse is in the cards, while Clark is eventually brought home and must face an entirely new set of perilous adventures.

A phone call from the future, a young woman who invades Clark's dreams crying out for help, an FBI investigation that sets the Luthors at odds, and a serum that can raise people from the dead are the least of the assemblage of storylines that involve heavy doses of psychology. There's a "freak" serial killer who targets anyone affected by the meteor shower, the appearance of famous comic book character Perry White, and an allusion to an interesting cousin of Chloe's named Lois Lane. Match it up with girls who can teleport through walls, hypnotic e-mails, and recurring visions from the past, and you have the third season of Smallville, yet another turn in the cornfields of western Kansas where romance buds, things prowl in the night, and everyone is just a little bit strange. That's the appeal of the show, along with its mostly solid values. While some of the characters' choices aren't wise and occasional content threatens this otherwise enchanting comic book world, the strength of Smallville is that you forget it's just a American fairy tale. The people and places seem real. 

We know every detail of The Talon by heart. We become emotionally involved whenever Lex is manipulated by his treacherous father. We empathize with the plight of  teenagers learning to live in "the real world," where people who know things are thrown into the line of fire. This season has some nice surprises for fans and newcomers alike, including impressive cameos from such respected thespians as Rutger Hayer and Christopher Reeve, but the real lure is beyond famous faces and weekly psychotic villains: it lies with the character development and storyline, as layers are peeled back to reveal much more about these individuals than we've ever known before. One particularly impacting episode tells us all about the Luthor family in its early years. Another compels characters to be completely honest with their feelings because of a truth drug. In each case we are shocked, horrified, and sorrowful with the revelations that it forces. To say it's a good show is an understatement since much of the third season is classic storytelling and received numerous awards, including a British Film Award for Rosenbaum.

As with most shows on television, Smallville comes with cautions, but for the most part they're minimal and consist primarily of violence. There are large amounts of action in every installment. The show is famous for its high automobile body count. They flip off the road, tumble head over end, go up in enormous fireballs, crash into electric polls, swerve out of control, and ram through bridge railings. Men are thrown through walls, knocked unconscious, flung through the air, and impaled. One is hit by a car and flipped onto the pavement. Lana puts her karate skills to good use, sending one man tumbling down a flight of stairs and inadvertently kicking another into a pitchfork. Chloe is attacked by an axe-wielding assassin. Snipers play a role in several episodes; some people are killed, others manage to survive. Clark is hit with kryptonite bullets, with gruesome results. Experimental therapy makes patients cry blood.

There's mild language on occasion and heavy implied thematic elements, including a child being smothered with a pillow and a stint of electroshock in a mental asylum for a patient. Clark dreams about skinny dipping with Lana in the lake in Slumber; we see a far off shot of both diving in, details obscured. In Obsession an aggressive girl teleports into his room, climbs on top of him in bed (she's in her underwear and on top of the covers) and they kiss. Clark sees flashbacks from his father's stint on earth in which Jor-El carries on an affair with Lana's great aunt (Relic). They're seen passionately making out in the barn. A girl's catfight at school winds up taking us through the locker rooms, where underwear-clad females observe the battle (Truth). Lex's pants ride a little low while on the deserted island. There's mild innuendo and kissing throughout. The final episode features a nude girl (details carefully obscured) approaching the Kent Farm, and a nearly-nude shot of Clark in the final few seconds.

The series handles things like racism (one student targets "meteor freaks" with the intent to kill) and telepathy. A comatose girl manages to lure Clark into her nightmarish dreams, begging for his help. Critics call the third season much darker than the first two and it's true. Where we've been accustomed to dealing with "freak of the week" installments, this one handles much harsher stuff. Chloe learns the dangers of dealing with Lionel Luthor. Lex is framed for mental insanity and suffers an emotional breakdown. Lana's friendship with the new kid rapidly turns sour, and through it all Clark must deal with the notion of being alone and having to sacrifice everything for his gifts. It's far from light fare but is also rock solid storytelling.