Smallville Twist Home Page

Welcome to SMALLVILLE-TWIST.ORG

Byline -- Webmaster, Our Universe, November 8, 2007

For the most recent Smallville Ratings Charts you can Click Here.

Not much in the way of comments since the previous update. The show and The CW did a good job of squandering the promotional opportunity they had with Kara, but she still got enough press to put on a good ratings showing. The season 7 premiere had the first year-over-year increase in 5 seasons, and the best premiere over previous season finale in 5 seasons. That while almost everything else on all networks is down this season, and The CW in particular has been struggling.

In retrospect, the lack of promotion may have been a blessing because Kara's characterization and Krypton backstory has been awful. The best that can be said is it's demonstrated what they shouldn't be doing, if they reboot a new "Kara, Supergirl" series next season.

Oh, and the Meta-Smallville Twist is as rock-solid as ever. :-)

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Byline -- Webmaster, Our Universe, August 2, 2007

More Season 7 SPOILERS below - you've been warned!

Smallville cyberspace has been abuzzin' with news of Supergirl's arrival and the casting of Laura Vandervoort in that role. It should definitely give season 7 an initial ratings boost and we'll just have to see if they've built in enough to sustain that. This is the cousin Kara version of Supergirl first introduced almost 50 years ago, but with one great difference that allows for a full updating of the character: she was sent to protect baby Kal-El, but her ship crashed underwater and she spent 18 years in suspended animation. Her ship was dislodged from the dam bursting that we saw in the season 6 finale.

That may not sound like an important update, but it's huge. Kara remembers the last decade or more on Krypton and the events that led to its destruction. That could be an excellent backstory element, and indeed rumor has it that Helen Slater (who played Supergirl in the 1984 movie) may play Lara, Kal-El's mother and Kara's aunt. Often these appearances of Jor-El and so on are dubious, but in this case we could see both Kara and and her aunt on Krypton in accurate flashback. Vandervoort has already said that her character was close to Lara and would be telling Clark more about her. The backstory has huge potential beyond that but just so far it sounds interesting.

Also unlike the 1959 version is the dynamic between her and Clark. It's more as equals than Superman being more than a decade older. There are also coincidences in the 1959 version that are avoided with the new suspended animation update. Supergirl also knows how to fly in this one, even before Clark (as opposed to "Kal-El") has become aware of that power and learned to use it.

Dean Cain, who played Clark/Superman in the Lois & Clark TV series on ABC from 1993-97, has been officially cast and will appear in episode 4 as a doctor with a possible cure for kryptofreaks. His character's name is Curtis Knox (CK initials there), supposedly working for Lex but we've learned from the spoilers that Knox is actually a mysterious immortal character who's lived for thousands of years. That leaves lots of possibilities, but again it's interesting.

Some other interesting tidbits may be part of a future update. Meantime, the site's sticking around and we'll keep our fingers crossed.

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Byline -- Webmaster, Our Universe, May 18, 2007

We've updated the Ratings Page to reflect the final numbers through the end of season 6. Smallville average viewership was down just over 800,000 and 15% per new episode compared to last season, and season 6 surpasses season 4 as the lowest-rated of the series. Nevertheless, The CW's fortunes are such that Smallville has been officially renewed for season 7. It's scheduled to remain in its Thursday at 8 time slot. Season 7 SPOILER Warning for the following paragraph.

The CW's season 7 description confirms that Annette O'Toole as Martha Kent will no longer be in the opening credits next season. Presumably she could make guest appearances but her character has been appointed a U.S. Senator and that's in Washington. Taking her place in the credits will be Aaron Ashmore as Jimmy Olsen. Comments made by Executive Producer Alfred Gough suggest that Chloe is back, season 7 will have "new characters, new relationships and more mythology," and we'll "start to see the Lois we all know and love." Gough had previously suggested Lois would have a "major arc" in season 7, though Erica Durance has said she's again signed for only 13 episodes. Kristin Kreuk is still second in the credits and it's apparent that Lana's "death" was staged, much as Chloe's "death" was at the end of third season.

The writers returned to work last week (May 11) to begin planning and writing season 7. The actors won't report back to work until July.

Webmaster's Negative Editorial Warning!

The first half of season 6 was awful, the second half was at least twice as bad. There's no reason to expect season 7 will be any better. The same writers are back, with the one notable exception of Steven DeKnight. Reading the tea leaves in the cliffhanger itself as well as the casting information and comments in the last paragraph, best guess is we'll get more Chloe-Jimmy, more Clark-Lana, perhaps Lois getting a job at the Daily Planet... it sounds like they're trying to "top" season 6 with more of the same or worse.

A better idea would be to erase season 6, if not all of it then at least the half from 6-12 Labyrinth to the 6-22 finale. The story is very conducive to Clark having been struggling with the one Phantom throughout that period, effectively dreaming the last half of season 6. Don't expect it though, nor a big Death of Lois Lane ratings event for February 2008 ratings sweeps.

Season 6 was great for the Meta-Smallville Twist (MST) Interpretation of the series though. The One True Lois Lane in the top level had a field day with her parody of the idea that Clark Kent is Superman. Her technique is the incredible truth, but with a few exaggerations and changes, such as splitting her own persona into two -- Chloe Sullivan and Lois Lane. In the top level, where she's married or engaged to Clark Kent and knows he's Superman, she's having fun sticking the needle in to Clark on his first girlfriend Lana. He was never quite as pathetic as we've seen. Likewise, Lois Lane being a muffin-peddling college dropout turned political operative and then alien-story writing tabloid rag reporter when a barn door fell from the sky nearby. That's self-deprecating humor on the One True Lois Lane's part. As is "Superfreak-Chloe," with her healing tear that raises Lois from the dead as her first big Freak Feat in the last episode there. Through the MST prism, it all makes perfect sense!

Alas, the MST is for the future and in the meantime we could only snicker along through some very bad television. Your webmaster will probably be stacking Smallville eps up on the DVR all next season, and then running through them next year. Barring something unforeseen this will be the last update to the site, which will probably be moving over the summer.

Email, We Get Email...

Well, some anyway, and sorry again for not responding. No, we aren't running a survey this year. We think the season 6 ratings results vindicate what the survey revealed last year (there's a link in the left border there). But for whatever reason The Powers That Be decided to not just ignore it, but pretty much do the exact opposite of what the results suggested should be done! Quite a bit of work was put into it and there's no point doing it again.

As for what we've thought of various things Smallville the last year or so, well we've kinda covered that above to some extent. No point beating a dead horse any more than we already have. :-)

The Zodana blog section was infected with a Clana virus, or overrun by Clana demons, or short-circuited by Clana overload or somethin'. We think the same thing must have fried Lex Luthor's brains in Smallville Season 6..

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Byline -- Webmaster, Our Universe, May 5, 2007

Another two months since our last update (see below for those), and nothing much to report but more bad Smallville unfortunately. We've updated the Ratings Page and it isn't pretty, with the latest episode reaching a new all-time low.

The "good" news, if you really, really, really want more Smallville as we've been getting it, is that The CW network is pretty much a basket case. So despite its woes Smallville is still expected to be renewed at The CW upfront presentation on May 17. We're not as sure of that as others seem to be, so we'll wait

Apologies for not getting around to answering a number of emails. We'll try to answer a few common questions next update.

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Byline -- Webmaster, Our Universe, March 5, 2007

Sorry about the lack of updates, but our comments at the end of December (see that last update below) basically still apply. If anything the show has taken a turn for the worse in its recent episodes, and the spoilers for the end of the season don't look much better.

Hope for the best, expect the worst, and see if Heroes can do better in the meantime. :-)

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Byline -- Webmaster, Our Universe, December 24, 2006

It's been a couple of months since our last update (the previous main page is here), mainly because of the state of the show this season. The Smallville Twist has been looking less likely and it may be for the best considering the record low ratings. It's arguably better to leave the series epitaph as "Great Potential, Never Realized" than to start talking up and then execute the twist on the story when (i) it's too late to make much difference and (ii) it might well be written as poorly as Smallville has been when at its worst. Leave it at what might have been. For whatever reason -- maybe too many corporate cooks spoiling the broth -- Smallville just refused to ever seize the great opportunity that was staring it in the face from the get-go.

And so this site would become what we alluded to as its worst case scenario: an Internet Time Capsule of sorts to a great opportunity lost. We planned to fold Smallville-Twist.org into another site, make a few edits to the material after the series ended this season or next, and then that'd be it. But then...

Eureka! :-)

On November 28, a poster with the handle "Khyla" started a thread over in the speculation section of the Kryptonsite Message Boards. The posts from there have since been moved into a General Discussion thread and we provide a direct URL later. But after immediately realizing the one key amendment that was needed, it was a "Eureka!" moment. It put the entire series in a completely new light, and would do that REGARDLESS of what happens the rest of the way. In fact the sillier the show gets from here on in, the better the concept works.

[Note / Update: The Meta-Smallville-Twist site has the URL referred to above. In fact Khyla's original, brief "fanfic" post was made on November 20, but I didn't see it until I read the November 28 post.]

Surprising "Eureka!" moments, especially when it comes to things Superman, are rare for me. In fact I can't think of one offhand, and I've been online in Superman cyberspace for 10+ years. I've had Superman material read by Warner Bros. a couple of times: a spec script called Brainiac's Revenge that was well received back in the 80s, and then an early version of what I titled a Superman Framework in the mid-90s (read by the Powers That Be on the Lois & Clark TV series). A decade later, I was watching Smallville from day 1 and under my online handle KalElFan posted this on the night of the Smallville premiere:

After seeing Smallville tonight... I'll go out on a limb, just based on this, that the series can run 5-to-7 years and even has the potential to evolve into a Superman movie series... I'm quite certain this show will be around for a long time.

-- KalElFan, in a post to rec.arts.sf.superman on October 16, 2001

In fact I'd been involved in considerable online discussion about the show going back OVER A YEAR prior to that, and I predicted the initial ratings success (it drew WB record premiere viewership of 8.4 million). Only two weeks after the Smallville premiere, in the wee hours after the third episode "Hothead" had aired, I wrote this:

Speaking of Chloe, if the established mythology were different and Lois Lane grew up in Smallville too, one could imagine her as a young Lois Lane. Right down to screaming out that window and getting saved by Clark...
... One can imagine so many different ways it could evolve. In this genre especially, there's literally nothing you couldn't do, and no direction you couldn't take this in. I won't say anything more specific than that, but just the show having such possibilities come to mind is evidence, to me, of how well this is set up. Hopefully the great potential here will be fully realized....

-- KalElFan, in a post to rec.arts.tv on October 31, 2001

I was SPECIFICALLY thinking in terms of the twist possibility there -- of Chloe not just being similar to Lois or Lois Lane-like, but of eventually emerging as Lois Lane. At that point it could have happened in any number of ways. There were open discussions of the idea and various possibilities within a couple of weeks after that.

Skipping pages of more evidence illustrating good (if not humble! :-)) Superman insight, I've been way ahead of the curve on this whole Chloe=Lois or Chlois or Smallville Twist thing. Most of the more recent "Chlois Theory," and especially some of the online discussion of it on a few web boards, has been pointless and obsolete in my opinion. But I do surf a few boards and I happened to run across Khyla's thread. I don't read fanfiction and don't dig deeply into the threads over there, so if it hadn't been posted in that way and in that area I probably never would have seen it. As I clicked to read the first post I wasn't expecting much. After 5+ years, we'd seen it all in Smallville cyberspace, right? The fate of the series seemed just about sealed and realistically nothing would change that. Right?

Wrong, and I'll make a prediction...

Khyla's genius premise is the basis for what WILL -- not "may" or "should" but WILL -- come to be viewed as the definitive, Ultimate Smallville Ending. It's that's good, and again it works REGARDLESS of what happens in the series between now and its finale. It's just a question of when we'll get to see this definitive ending. It'd be nice to have these Powers That Be offer it as at least one version of, or add-on to, whatever series ending they offer up. In fact that may even be something worth starting a campaign over. But failing that it'll fall to some later version or "Khyla Smallville Cut" that gets authorized by some new Powers That Be. :-) In the end it's all public domain and anyone will be able to "restore" the series to the level of greatness that this ending makes accessible. No doubt digital actor technology will have sufficiently advanced by then. :-) It'll be generations of future Superman fans that will decide, but hopefully the genius of this ending, and its potential market appeal especially as an option, will be apparent to the current Powers That Be. In the meantime though, just thinking of the Smallville series in the context of this Ultimate Ending can make the rest of the way more enjoyable.

Intrigued? If you've ever recognized even a glimmer of Smallville's great potential, you should be. The appeal of this ending wouldn't be there if Smallville wasn't worth it to at least that extent. If the show had sucked from the start or soon thereafter few would care. It wouldn't have received such great buzz back in season 1, and soared in the ratings into season 2 as it did.

For a Synopsis of this magic solution, check out our Meta-Smallville-Twist site.

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