UCFKevin's Smallville Pilot Episode Review

UCFKevin's Pilot Episode Review
MAY 11, 2001

Here's some news that we didn't expect to see....

Apparently the "Smallville" pilot has been completed, and test screenings are about to begin. Curiously, the show showed up in Florida on someone's cable system, and instead of C-SPAN which *should've* been on channel 98, a test of "Smallville" apparently surfaced.

Here's UCFKevin with his review of the "Smallville" pilot. Be warned that since this is an advance review, there are spoilers involved. Any and all opinions below are that of UCFKevin.

"Okay, I just watched the entire pilot, except for the first 10 minutes, so here's my take on it:

"The show, on a whole, was alright. It wasn't that great but it wasn't that bad. It suffers from the typical cliches that teen shows have, like Dawsons Creek and the like. There was WAY too much pop music on it, like every single scene had a #1 hit in it, that must've cost WB a fortune. The acting was ok, it wasn't anything special. I've never been a screener before, so I'll do my best here:

"Plot: I'm assuming this was the pilot since it began with Martha and Jonathan Kent finding Clark in the rocketship. I came in 10 minutes late, since I was just flipping through the channels and happened to find it. It establishes all the main characters, who I'll dissect one by one. Essentially, the plot was about this kid who was harrassed by senior football players years before, and somehow got super electricity powers as a result from a meteor shower (Smallville is, apparently the Meteor Capital of the US) So anyway, the kid wants revenge and decides to electrocute all the current senior football players...I'll leave it at that. Also, Clark saves Lex's life from drowning...kinda interesting.

"Clark: Tom Welling was good in the normal dialogue scenes, but kinda sucked during the sci fi parts, like when the electrokid was fighting him, Tom kinda had some goofy faces on, like he didn't feel comfortable doing those scenes or know what he was doing. Overall, he was pretty good. Way better than I expected. He didn't look too model-like AT ALL, which is a great thing. His hair was kinda shaggy, honestly, not really how you'd expect Clark Kent to look, but it was ok, not too bad. It wasn't Tom Cruise from MI2 bad, but it wasn't that great.

"Lana: Asian and hot. I don't know why she's Asian, but whatever. She was pretty good, too, I think her and Tom Welling are the best actors in the group, which honestly ain't saying much

"Pete Ross: He's black now, for some reason, and the guy playing him wasn't that great, kinda too schlocky and had a lot of the WB teen vocabulary.

"Jon and Martha: I've seen better. LandC's Ma and Pa were MUCH better, these didn't really seem to fit the role too well, but maybe that'll be improved with time. I didn't care for them.

"Lex Luthor: The guy playing him looked kinda young, 20's, bald (as a result from a meteor shower, of course). He did alright, nothing spectacular but nothing horrible. He was just sorta TVmovieoftheweek caliber. Could be better, maybe he will be.

"Those are the basics, Clark has a friend, a girl, I don't know who she is, but she seems to be the "Willow" of the show (Willow from Buffy I mean), apparently, her, Pete and Clark will investigate the strange happenings around Smallville.

"I'm pretty sure whatever I watched was the final product of the show. All the FX were completed, and as for his powers, Clark ran fast and used his strength, that's about it.

"The show could be good. David Nutter seemed to have a good enough grasp on the characters, could've been better, but it could've been worse. I enjoyed the Lois and Clark pilot a WHOLE lot, and this reminded me of that. So it could go either way: good or bad. So that's about it. I wonder if I was the only person in the area who managed to see it? Maybe the world? I dunno? I hope this helps."

Kevin also says that the music from the "Smallville" pilot includes Limp Bizkit and Coldplay.

Special thanks to Kevin for giving us the permission to reprint his review. And if anyone *else* happened to come across the recently, and happened to tape it, you know one newsletter editor who would be very happy, so e-mail me at PlanetKrypton@aol.com.