Smallville Season 5 Retrospective

Finally! Smallville fans must have been thinking this throughout Series Five as Clark and Lana broke out of their tedious back-and-forth relationship, Braniac appeared via meteor storm in a Kryptonian spaceship and Zod took hold of Lex Luthor's body in the epic game-changing finale. All these changes were definitely for the better, although John Schneider's departure from his role as Jonathan Kent is absolutely heartbreaking in the show's 100th story, especially when it means an irksome push of the reset button when everything seemed to change for the show. Clark made his own strides forward, though, in that the Fortress of Solitude was formed at the North Pole and the future war between the Man of Steel and his arch-nemesis Luthor began to take shape big time. What did become tiring, however, was our hero's tendency to ponder too long on the consequences of his actions, namely with ever-faithful friend Chloe Sullivan and his bride-to-be (not that he knows that yet!) Lois Lane, not to mention Season Five's massive focus on Braniac and Zod- okay they were key elements of Krypton's destruction so had to be introduced at some point, but would it not have been more interesting for a glimpse of the super suit to tease fans, or perhaps Lex to ultimately move into his role as the man who will become a tyrannical American president bent on death and destruction? Either way, it isn't worth dawdling too much on what might have been, as Season Five made enough major changes to the ageing formula of Smallville to be the best run yet.