I'm watching it through for the first time now, and I'm currently on season 7. I absolutely cannot STAND Lana. I think Kreuk terribly over acts and is completely a waste of a character. I'm not being critical either, that is literally the ONLY part of the show I have a problem with. I love this show, but Lana just drives me nuts, even more so now that she's divorced Lex and is back with Clark. Thanks for reading. That is all.
shareI had no problem with the actress but her relationship with Clark lasted way too long just like her character did. I celebrated when she left. She took up way too much of Clark's story on the show even when he got older. I'm glad that the show writers admit that Lana should have left a lot sooner than she did; or at least her relationship with Clark.
shareSpoiler alert! Lol! Well I'll now be awaiting her departure with anticipation! I was done with her before the Lex thing, now that she and Clark are back together I can barely watch her scenes. I just finished the episode where she got Clark's powers temporarily. Only episode I've disliked thus far.
Personally, I just felt like she overacted... like, a lot.
I had no problem with the actress but her relationship with Clark lasted way too long just like her character did.
They strongly felt early on they should not end Clana until the very end, they thought if they ended it sooner the show would take a turn for the worst or once she's no longer the love of his life the show will end. The whole love interest can never know the hero's identity has become a dying cliché as you see with Arrow, Flash and Supergirl with people finding out all the time.
shareI think the reason why Clana didn't end sooner because the format of the show demands that Clark be obsessing over the same girl for the seven seasons she was on much like Ross and Rachel.
shareQ: Looking back, is there anywhere you wish you’d taken the characters of Smallville?
AG: I wish we had a better trajectory for Lana Lang. That was probably a three-season love story that lasted six seasons.
MM: It’s so torturous and slow. Ultimately, it damaged Lana in the audience’s mind. Because Clark refused to tell her the truth about his identity, he was constantly forced to lie to her. Although justified, Lana’s response to his behavior made her seem cold and unsympathetic — even though from her POV, Clark was a sneaky, bold-faced liar.
Well,imho the root cause of all this was the bad idea to split Lana Lang into Lana the love interest and Chloe the friend in the show. That developed into a toxic
teen melodrama that went on far to long and resulted in a couple very frustrating
to watch episodes. Like for example the episode were Clark finaly decided to let
Lana in on his secret and propose to her. OMG,what a desaster.
Clark having a lover in Lana and a best friend in Chloe was not a problem at all. It was the absurdity between Lana and Clark that drag everything down. Luckily they got past that and moved onto the Metropolis stuff.
shareWell,for the most part good old Clark was pretty much cockblocked by
alien and artificial circumstances. Lovers,or even potential lovers where
quickly killed off. Its was a mess,realy. But imho splitting Lana Lang in
two characters was a most stupid idea. Anyway,the whole unnecessary melodrama
is the reason why i only watched this show one time. Enough is enough. Never
ever again.
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You are definitely not alone. I know a lot of people that couldn't stand Lana and celebrated when they wrote her out of the show at the end of Season 7 only to bring her back again in the following season when it looked like Clark and Lois were going to get together. I personally didn't mind her and think her and the actress got a lot of unfair hate from fans over her relationship with Clark. I think the relationship between Clark and Lana was dragged out too long and it would have benefited both characters more if they had Clark with Alica and Lana with Jason for a few more seasons but the actor who played Jason left to do 'Supernatural' so they had to cut him out of the following season and end his story early.
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Make Same Sex Marriages Legal In Australia 'cause we deserve to have the same rights as everybody else and shouldn't be controlled by backwards people with outdated views.
They could've easily let Lana in on Clark's secret a lot sooner, the reasons for not doing so became nonsensical after season 3. It was evident that they didn't want her to find out and end their love story until at least the very end but when the show went on for four more seasons and when she left after the 7th season it took a different direction.
shareafter rewatching 3x14 obssession i just don't see how you can tell a total stranger that you have known for 2 days but someone you know what 2.5 years you can't tell please sorry i don't buy it
shareActually i kind of liked the reason he chose not to tell her, insecurity, something everyone can relate to in some form. He knows Lana's life changed forever the day of the meteor shower, and he doesn't want to connect himself to that event in her eyes. I think it's a season 5 episode it shows Clark's biggest fear is Lana rejecting his secret and blaming him for her parents.
Also, the fact that Lana had to force his secret out vs him telling Lois, kind of shows you who he's meant to be with. Same thing with the power swap episodes... Lana gets the powers and uses them like the freak of the week from S1, Lois used them in a way to honor Clark.
funny thing is i actually dislike both of those episodes where they gave power swaps and i never could get very interested in the Lois Lane character either also might be why i dislike seasons 7-10 so much although my big issue with season 7 is supergirl
shareThe most used and abused character on this crap show. And for that she gets the blame? Everyone (Martha, Jonathon, Chloe) thinks Lana is trash not worthy to know super duper douche's secret. And super douche is nothing but abusive to her but somehow it's because there is something wrong with her. Victim blaming at it's finest.
shareI liked her okay at first. But I'm rounding season 5 and she is downright INSUFFERABLE and ignorant beyond belief. Not to mention naive and stupid.
Give me a Pepsi Free.
Honesty, I always felt people were way too harsh towards Lana. All she wanted was for Clark to be honest with her and he just kept leading her on and keeping everything from her and lying. It's no wonder she was always so dissapointed in him lol.
shareclark was actually two face a few times to lana i think it was 4x02 when you think you know everything about someone hello look at yourself for a moment about what you have not told her i actually really like lana and i don't she deserves what she gets from the fans i actually think she is better than lois lane a lot of stuff about lois lane i can't stand Lana lang was one of my favorite character and don't get me started on Jonathan Kent
funny thing is you take a close hard look at chloe, jonathon, martha, clark you can find flaws in them to so no way Lana deserves the treatment she gets from the fan chlose is two face she is complaining to lana about how she would do this for clark but in season 8 she does the thing that chloe accues lana up double standard at its finest
They could've easily let her in on his secret a lot sooner than they should've done. Him constantly lying to her and her berating him about it went on for like six seasons.
sharetotally agree 6 seasons was way to long and the whole plot for why he couldn't tell her was hard to believe also
shareIt's a bit time worn and too much of a stretch to keep the love interest in the dark about the hero secret identity for so long, to why he couldn't tell her was because they thought once she knew the show was gonna take a turn for the worst but it ultimately ruined the characters in peoples minds, after it subsequent superhero shows Arrow, Flash and Supergirl have had love interests and sidekicks being let in on the hero's secret a lot quicker than SV did.
shareI think the worst part is how he pushed Lana into lex arm and to be honest was a complete ass for pushing her away the way he did i always thought learning more about pete ross nad Lana lang was more interesting than lois lane and his parents
also i do understand how its easier to tell a friend something like this vs. someone your in love with romantically
Think it's hard to have a love interest not know the hero's identity to be effective at all now when it's pop cultural commonsense.
If the show goes on for more than three or four seasons you have to change the status quo up otherwise audiences will think "Been there done that".
The actress is fine, but the character really sucks.
Lana really reminds me of season one Iris on current show, The Flash. She basically did nothing but exist to create sexual tension, make the protagonist angsty and show the unfairness of him longing for her while she went off and lived life as a damsel, constantly getting rescued, but never showing thanks by simply giving in and loving the protagonist back.
However, while The Flash eventually showed Iris as having more to her character, being a reporter and going after her stories instead of waiting around and getting them handed to her by the Flash, Lana never experienced this change as a character. For the most part, her only job is to make us feel sorry for Clark and to be mad at her, but then to forgive her because...she's beautiful? It sounds dumb, but that's how it seems to play out.
I could never understand when watching it the first time around, why she turns on Clark at the drop of a damn hat no matter what he does for her. But now I do - so we feel sorry for him, and who cares about her?
It's sad because there was potential there for her to be a fully realized character, but by the time the writers got around to it, we all hated her and it was pretty much too late.
The whole love interest not knowing the hero's secret identity was something that had it's day by then but they dragged it out for six seasons because they were afraid once she knew his secret the show would go downhill.
shareAgreed - and I think it was set as a doomed love from the beginning, so I don't know why the writers continued with it when they wrote it like this. Guess coz they loved the actress?
shareThere's the theory they didn't want to end their love story until the very end but when the show kept getting renewed and when she left it took a different direction.
Did seem the writers were obsessed with KK at the time kinda shows through with everybody looking at Lana as the perfect ideal girlfriend.
After SV ended Gough & Millar expressed regrets about Lana's character arc, saying it was a three season love story that lasted seven seasons and her attitude towards Clark for refusing to tell her his secret made her come off as cold and unsympathetic.
Think the real reason why Clana didn't end sooner or have Lana learn Clark's secret sooner because the format of the show demands that he be obsessing over the same girl for the entire run of the show and also doing the same things and stay in the same place for the entire run.
shareThe thing is, he didn't need to be obsessed with her - I feel that was the biggest flaw of this format and a hugely unnecessary one. He would've stayed in the same place regardless because he went to high school in Smallville and because there were mysteries for him to uncover and answers there for him to discover. Answers about his past, as well as answers about the effects of Kryptonite on human beings. Also, his friendship with Lex was what kept him in Smallville.
shareIt's a cliche that a guy has to be obsessing over the same girl for the entire show like Ross and Rachel. They should've had a better post high school plan thought out for them.
This obsession with Lana did cause him to screw things up like going back in time to save Lana only for his dad to die.
It was already a tired trope before this show started, but the reason it didn't work in Smallville is because his obsession with Lana clashed not only with the monster-of-the-week format, but with who Clark is as a person - self-sacrificing.
When almost every corner of the school is being overtaken by kids with powers, why is Lana somehow always at the heart of everything? It was ridiculous how often that was the case and it really took away from a larger story forming - the story of how Kryptonite infected a small town, and kept the focus on the romance more than necessary. And when Lana wasn't at the heart of whatever attack came next, that's still where Clark's focus was, often away from every other person in danger.
Not to mention that by making almost every single act of heroism about saving a girl he was obsessed with, it diminished his selflessness by actually making it self-serving.
But like I said, the real reason it doesn't work for me is because the characters both worked better as friends. It's why the romance in The Flash works for me - Iris and Barry are best friends who grew up under the same roof. Them becoming more makes sense - Iris is Barry's Chloe.
Clark was the most stagnant character on the show which was problematic especially when he's suppose to become Superman.
The whole love interest can't know the hero's identity has become time worn and a bit too much of a scratch for Clark's friends to not know his secret. All post Smallville shows have friends knowing the secret from the get go which brought in better stronger dramatic possibilities.
I agree, and I think Smallville really helped other shows work out this particular kink, among others.
sharePerhaps having his friends and enemies know his secret sooner may have lead to better stronger reasons for him to put on the suit later in life but they never touched up on that until season 8.
Think the writer were adamant that his friends can not know because Lois & Clark jumped the shark when Lois found out Clark was Superman and got married.
shareThe writers and Tom Welling himself were pretty set on the show being pre-Superman, hence the title of Smallville. They had established that knowing his secret was high stakes danger, sho how could they let people know and not killing them off? In other words, they wrote themselves into a corner this way.
The Flash has done a lot better with the whole not knowing thing. They've really taken a leaf out of Smallville's past and I think the Raimi Spider-Man films as well, in demonstrating that people knowing is actually better for the hero, who can't always fight alone.
Smallville did jump shark, but at the same time, it was the end of the show so a marriage wasn't that big a deal. We didn't get seasons upon seasons of that so it didn't ruin the show for me.
It's a rock and a hard place, how long can you have the not knowing thing without losing the interest of the audience.
Looking back it did seem too much of a stretch of credibility for people to not found out about a pre Superman Clark's secret, it would've made better stronger indications on why he puts on the suit later on in life.
The show was like a five year plan that went on for ten seasons.
I completely agree - this show definitely had a much shorter plan than its actual run. But I don't think it overstayed its welcome. Much like Supernatural, another show that went on for far longer than intended due to popularity, once I fall in love with characters, as long as they continue to exist in an entertaining world, I can overlook the loosening of credibility that happens over time.
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