One of our readers sent in the following review:

A friend of mine has a tape of the pilot episode of Smallville and, let me tell you, watching it was the longest, most excruciating 50 minutes and 12 seconds of my entire life.

I won't give you too many spoilers, but it is, seriously, disappointing, depressing and, simply, downright bad.

A few observations:

Superman's coming to earth is no longer the lone Kent couple finding a downed spaceship, but, rather, an elaborate meteor shower which decimates a substantial portion of Smallville.  (It makes Smallville "meteor capital of the world.")

All of the emotions throughout have this "Hallmark" effect: they are delicately lit with sappy music and are telegraphed way in advance.  (The show is saying: "okay, now feel this.")   There is a scene with Kent and Lana Lang in a graveyard that plays more like a greeting card commercial.  And the villains, aside from the super-powered baddie that eventually shows up, are the standard issue football team villains.   Sob.

Worse than that -- most of the show is about teen angst.  Now, this might be fine (if you're a teen or a really forgiving adult), but the resulting pathos is just too much.  Clark finds out that he can be hit by cars or stick his hand in sharp farm implements and doesn't get hurt -- oh, woe is him!  (Wanna trade places, Bunky?)  He's also a nerd, can't get a date, and is too smart for his own good.  (Pass the handkerchiefs.)  Even more amazing, he's utterly awash in self-pity.  This might fly if the character was named Wilbur Schmendrick, or something, but it is so -- ooo alien to the can-do Superman or Superboy -- the person of boundless enthusiasm -- that it just doesn't ring true for an instant.

The acting is atrocious -- young Supes is especially bad.  You know a show is in trouble when John Schnieder is the best thing in it.

They have changed Smallville from an idyllic American dreamscape to this dark town of weird occurrences and dark secrets -- like David Lynch meets Norman Rockwell.  This kind of thing can be effective if handled well... but that's not the case with Smallville.

The special effects are lamentable.

The script is ludicrous -- deductive leaps are made by teens that would shame Sherlock Holmes; and it quickly disintegrates (in the first episode!) to something along the lines of Superman vs. Electric Man.   Ho-hum.

Finally, a key plot point is that teen outcasts are abducted and crucified in cornfields.  As this is just two years after the brutal Matthew Shepard murder, one can only assume that the show's writers/creators are (a) totally clueless, (b) have never read a paper, or, (c) would cynically exploit a real American tragedy for a sappy kid's show.

It's bad Superman and bad television.

I'm glad that I got an advance tape, because now I know that Smallville is a place that I don't have to visit in the future.

- Bob Madison, August 17, 2001