Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie Review

A highpoint in the popular series...

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the now eight-year old WB series, Smallville earned a respectable audience by slapping together a cast of doe-eyed Dawson’s Creek clones, blessing their characters' teenage frames with superpowers, and turning them loose in a fictionalized Midwestern town that's host to more meteorites and interplanetary visitors than our smoldering adolescents know what to do with. The story focuses on Clark Kent (Tom Welling), a mild-mannered boyscout who, of course, we all know is destined to become one of the most iconic superheroes in comicbook lore: Superman.

Over the course of its first five seasons, Smallville traced Clark’s reluctant acceptance of his destiny, his steady development of powers, and his deteriorating relationship with boyhood friend Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum). For its sixth outing, the show tones down the sappy teen drama that plagued its earlier seasons and begins eliminating the villain-of-the-week schtick that made the series feel so repetitive. In their place, the writers finally give fans what they want: the long-awaited and inevitable clash of classic titans from the DC Comics universe.

As the season opens, Clark escapes his interdimensional imprisonment in the Phantom Zone and sets about finding the galactic criminals that escaped while he was there. But first, he has to squeeze in time to stop Lex (now possessed by a tyrannical alien entity named Zod) from mounting an army of deadly super-soldiers. Complicating matters is Lex and Lana’s marriage, which doesn’t leave Clark feeling very super about the current state of affairs in Smallville. Before long, we’re also introduced to a wealth of characters that reinvigorate the series and give it new purpose -- Oliver Queen aka The Green Arrow (Justin Hardley), John Jones aka The Martian Manhunter (Phil Morris), and Jimmy Olson (Aaron Ashmore). The carefully plotted emergence of the JLA slowly starts to take shape as Clark learns to work with other superheroes to combat impossibly powerful foes.

I’ve been an on-again off-again fan of Smallville since the beginning, but I soon began to feel the show was becoming stuck in a rut. Clark moped around Smallville, developed a new power, and fought off anyone who couldn’t handle exposure to whatever alien elements the writers decided to rain down on the Midwest that week. Lather, rinse, repeat. While its characters were relatively well crafted and its dialogue was suitably convincing, it suffered from a been-there-done-that familiarity that nearly caused me to abandon the series for better shows in the same time slot. Thankfully, season six brings it all back on track. Leaner, darker, and more intense, it was strong enough to refresh my interest when it first aired and stoke my excitement for a seventh season. The episodes were particularly inspiring, returning to the clever tie-ins and comicbook nods that attracted me to the show in the first place.

Granted, Smallville’s sixth season still suffers from several issues those who follow the series have so graciously decided to overlook -- yawn-inducing stretches of exposition, notoriously dense subplots, and more than a few convenient plot developments -- but the writers keep their heads above water and manage to deliver the goods from episode to episode. The sheer volume of characters and plotlines will prevent newcomers from easily jumping on board, but longtime fans will find a lot to love in season six and plenty to look forward to with season seven.

Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season features a decent 1080p/VC-1 transfer that made a solid splash in 2007, but has since lost some of its luster in light of more recent, technically proficient BD television releases. Luckily, the picture isn't a complete bust. A consistent parade of vibrant colors populate a primary-splashed palette, immediately recalling the bold reds and blues of the series' comicbook roots. Contrast is comfortable, stable, and bright, resulting in inky blacks and believable image depth. Saturation is spot on as well with skintones that are far more natural than they appear on the DVD edition. Detail is also fairly impressive -- fine textures are often crisp and realistic, object edges are generally well defined, and on-screen text is sharp and legible. Several hazy shots and soft close-ups manage to muck up the proceedings, but most of the clarity issues seem to be the product of the series' source rather than a faulty technical transfer.

That doesn't mean the transfer is without serious flaws. Heavy digital noise, distracting clusters of artifacts, errant crushing, and faint banding appear several times in every episode. While I wouldn't go so far as to say it ruins the entire presentation, such disruptions left me feeling as if I was watching an HD broadcast signal. All things considered, Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season delivers a passable rendition of the series and looks substantially better than its standard DVD counterpart, but its visuals simply don't compete with current BD releases.

Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Released long before lossless audio became a Blu-ray staple, Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season doesn't include anything more than a standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track (encoded at 640kbps). It gets the job done and handles the series' limited soundscape with ease, but lacks the punch and fidelity of a TrueHD or DTS HD MA mix. For the most part, dialogue is clean and intelligible, the rear speakers enhance the soundfield with a decent array of ambient effects, and pans are relatively swift and transparent (at least for a television show). The experience is certainly front-heavy, but the action scenes are more immersive and effectively draw viewers into the chaos. Likewise, low-end extension is surprisingly underwhelming at times and occasionally non-existent at others, but still delivers a fair share of satisfying thooms and booms when Clark takes on his latest superfreak foe of the week.

Unfortunately, directionality is imprecise, voices sometimes get lost beneath the on-screen destruction, and dynamics are frequently weaker than I expected (particularly compared to the Blu-ray edition of The Complete Seventh Season). In the end, diehard fans will shrug their shoulders and accept the track for what it is, but everyone else will wish each episode had more polish and power.

Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Blu-ray edition of Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season includes the same special features as the DVD version. However, without any compelling behind-the-scenes documentaries or audio commentaries to speak of, series junkies will probably find the supplemental package to be as grossly inadequate as I did. It doesn't help that all of the video content is presented in fugly standard definition.

• Big Fans (SD, 31 minutes): An over-exuberant visit with Smallville fans at the San Diego Comic Con that proves to be too gushing for its own good. It pulls together interviews with a variety of folks (fans, series writers, and industry pros), but never escapes the bizarre behavior of its own following. Ah well, I suppose it's an amusing nod to the fanbase that has helped keep the show on the air all these years.
• Green Arrow: The Legend of the Emerald Archer (SD, 26 minutes): The best featurette to be found doesn't focus on the series at all, but on the print history of Green Arrow. I was never a huge fan of Ollie, but I still found this romp through his closet to be both informative and entertaining. Writer/director Kevin Smith and Luke Skywalker himself join heavy hitters in the comic industry like Mark Waid to detail their essential love of the character. Good stuff.
• The Oliver Queen Chronicles Episodes and Making-Of Featurette (SD, 31 minutes): A ridiculous, amateur-hour collection of poorly animated shorts that document the origin story of Green Arrow's alter ego. As if twenty-two minutes of painful animation wasn't enough, we also get a slap-happy behind-the-scenes featurette detailing the production. Run away… far, far away.
• Justice and Doom (SD, 9 minutes): This oddly-executed, non-interactive comicbook skipped from panel to panel before I had the chance to read the word bubbles and take in the artwork. I don't know about you, but I don't like to feel rushed when reading.
• Deleted Scenes (SD, 21 minutes): More a collection of brief extensions than compelling deleted scenes, the cuts found on each disc are (in this fan's opinion) a waste of time. Completists will probably find something to enjoy, but I could have done without them.

Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Smallville: The Complete Sixth Season revitalizes the series with fresh blood, more menacing villains, and richer storylines. It didn't hurt that the writers finally started to give Clark something to do and gave him some super-friends to do it with. Sadly, the Blu-ray edition is starting to show its age. It features a problematic video transfer (rife with noise and artifacts), an uneven Dolby Digital surround track, and a rather pathetic supplemental package that doesn't include any cast or crew commentaries. If you're trying to round out your collection, it's a passable purchase... but if you're simply sampling the series, give it a rent before you throw down any more cash than you have to.