Cheap Smallville - The Complete Seasons 1-3 (DVD) (Tom Welling) Price

The venerable Superman mythos gets a 21st-century updating in this imaginative and engaging television series from the WB Network, and series fans can celebrate the ratings success of Smallville with a DVD set that offers a chance to revisit the origins of the characters and their numerous plotlines, as well as view deleted scenes and other bonus features. The premise of Smallville--Superman as a teenager--takes up just a few pages in Superman's very first comic book appearance, but series producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar flesh out that period by portraying young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) not as the noble Superman-in-waiting, but as an average teen with some not-so-ordinary supernatural powers, including incredible strength and heat vision. Clark's desire to fit in with his peers and make sense of his extraordinary abilities ground him in very realistic and identifiable terms for the series' primarily under-25 audience, as does his appealing and tentative romance with Kristen Kreuk as Clark's dreamgirl Lana Lang. But Smallville also strikes gold when it takes a turn towards more comic book territory, as evidenced by the parade of shape-shifting killers and other outlandish antagonists (many generated, in one of the series' most ingenious notions, by the same devastating meteor shower that brought the infant Clark to Earth) that Clark must harness his powers to face and defeat. Gough and Millar, along with their capable cast (which includes Michael Rosenbaum as a young and already bald-pated Lex Luthor, and Annette O'Toole and John Schneider as the Kents) manage to pull off the precarious high-wire act of combining science fiction with coming-of-age drama to create this highly watchable program. Smallville: The Complete First Season offers a very complete and attractive DVD package that is rounded out by some highly desirable extras for longtime series fans.

For many fans, the series truly hit its stride in its second season, when it shifted focus from traditional comic book conflicts to one of self-discovery for its hero, a teenage Clark Kent (Tom Welling). Whereas season 1 focused on Clark using his powers to combat a host of menaces, season 2 delved into Clark's past and the extent of his super powers, most notably in the back-to-back "Heat," in which he discovers his heat vision, and "Red," in which red kryptonite in the high school class rings uncorks Clark's less-than-upstanding side. Other plot developments from the season that pull the series in interesting directions include the arrival of Dr. Helen Bryce (Emanuelle Vaugier), who becomes involved with Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), but the season's most significant moment comes during episode 17, "Rosetta," in which Clark learns of his Kryptonian origins courtesy of a scientist, who, in an effective bit of casting, is played by Superman film star Christopher Reeve. The complexity of the writing and issues dealt with in season 2 marked Smallville as a series with depth and drama worthy of its considerable fan following as well as a second boxed set; fittingly, the supplements in this set are more expansive than on the first one.

Truth, identity, and responsibility are the cornerstones of the exceptional third season. Clark must return to Smallville to not only help his parents save their farm, but seek some resolution in his relationships with Lana and Lex, who's returned from his abandonment at the conclusion of the previous season. Lex himself must deal with some shocking revelations regarding his relationship with his sinister father Lionel (John Glover, magnetic as always), and Lana becomes involved with a new figure in town, the mysterious Adam Knight (Lost's Ian Somerholder), who may or may not be a certain caped crusader. And speaking of heroes in disguise, the season's finale introduces Kara, a young woman with powers similar to Clark's--could she in fact be his sister, known best to comic book fans as Supergirl? Season 3 is chock full of such intriguing moments, including an appearance by future Daily Planet editor Perry White (Michael McKean, the real-life husband of Annette O'Toole) in "Perry," helmed by Supergirl film director Jeannot Szwarc; the return of villains Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Shawn Ashmore, and Jesse Metcalfe from seasons 1 and 2 (in "Asylum"); the departure of series regular Samuel L. Jones; and a intrigue-fraught final turn by Christopher Reeve as Dr. Swann ("Legacy"). The boxed set matches the high quality of the season with some terrific extras, including commentary on three episodes. --Paul Gaita

ACTORS:	Tom Welling
CATEGORY:	DVD
MANUFACTURER:	Warner Home Video
MPAA RATING:	NR (Not Rated)
FEATURES:	Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen
TYPE:	Television
MEDIA:	DVD
# OF MEDIA:	18
UPC:	012569591134