I didn't watch Smallville in the beginning. Back then I had a job where I worked nights, and I only watched TV on DVD, so I never even saw a commercial for the show. When I checked out the DVDs I was skeptical, afraid they had turned my beloved Superman into an angsty teen a la Dawson Leery, and there were as many bad reviews as good ones on Amazon. But during the summer after S4, I was desperate for something new to watch, so I decided to order S1.
By the end of the first episode I was hooked, utterly captivated by Tom Welling, and fascinated by the relationship between Clark and Lex. I ordered S2 and S3, and blew through them in a matter of days. Then I started over, watching every episode again while I counted the days until the release of S4. And thus an obsession was born.
I wasn't around in the early days of fandom, and missed a lot of the media coverage of the show. Recently I bought the November 23, 2001 issue of Entertainment Weekly (#627), which must have been one of Tom's first magazine covers. It's interesting to read the article inside, an interview with the show's creators (there's a single quote from Tom), and see the road the series has traveled as compared to their original vision for Clark's story. I still can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that Smallville will have been on the air for a decade by the time it's done. I feel like Jeremy Piven's character in Gross Pointe Blank; I have this irresistible urge to yell out, "Ten years! Ten years!!"
Here are my scans of EW. Click for BIGGER.
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