it's nearing the end of smallville and i am extremely sad, especially after having read interviews from kelly souders and brian petersen about the finale. being emotional about a tv show is dumb for some people but i found out that i am not alone in feeling morose about all this. there are 6 million people, give or take, who watched the show and loved it and are probably also saying their goodbyes in their own ways, bidding adieu to a tv show that was more than a tv show. this is my goodbye.looking through different sites and blogs and social networking webbies, i'm struck that fans are quick to thank supporting cast members first and not the main star of the show. we all have our "ships", but i am respectful enough to acknowledge the one person who deserves the most thanks: tom welling. from the very beginning,
he had made it clear that he didn't want anything to do with smallville, citing that producers were not giving enough details about the plot and theme of the show. totally understandable, given that during that time, he was known as ashton kutcher's model friend who had bit parts in sometimes forgettable and uninspired shows. he was a nobody, by industry standards. but thanks to the wb's persistence, and tom's inevitable acceptance of the iconic role, the new pilot now had a young clark kent.i remember seeing promos, reading articles and hearing from my classmates in college about smallville back in 2001. september 11th hadn't happened yet and everything was easier, calmer, a better place. i was getting excited for this,
preparing my vcr to tape my shows and adding this to a long list of things to watch. as a girl who only had homework, thesis papers and projects to worry about at the time, i was content with watching my shows and expounding on them, giving my opinions and complaints to my journal - eventually discovering blogging and continuing my uninhibited criticism of them there.when the twin towers were bombed and america was attacked, i remembered feeling desolate, lost and depressed. even though i didn't lose anybody in the tragedy, i was still empathetic. i was still grieving. i was still crying for people i never knew and yet hearing about things they did before they died made me ache. i needed a distraction, some sort of solace.
i remember mayor giuliani giving this speech at one of the countless events he was invited to to commemorate september 11th victims. he said continue with your lives. reopen broadway, we NEED normalcy, we NEED entertainment. we NEED our lives back. and so it did. broadway would eventually turn its lights back on, new yorkers would return to work and the everyday hustle and bustle would come back, albeit slowly. and that's where i found my solace. my savior. my superman.
having rewatched the pilot episode last friday, i was awash with emotions as i mentally time-traveled back to that moment when i first turned on my tv and saw little lana lang granting martha kent a wish. i cried. i cried so much, my body was shaking, my tears were flowing non-stop and i may have felt my heart ache for a second. i cried because i was so grateful that at a time when we needed heroes, there was this show reintroducing us to one, making us forget that there was a world in chaos and in mourning. i was so overwhelmed that i doubled over and sobbed my heart out, i couldn't watch the first half of the show.
when i calmed down, i mentally thanked jerry siegel for creating this character; this lovable, respectable, inspiring character who is now, more than ever, a great symbol of hope. then i thanked him for creating the kents. as much as i watched the show for welling, i also watched the show for john and martha. like any other child who loves her parents, these two endeared themselves to me. i wanted to be like them when i became a parent myself. there's something admirable about raising a child right, and a superhero at that! i respected the fact that they didn't cut clark any slack, even though he could (if he wanted to) disobey them and just do anything he wanted, regardless of the consequences.
after the characters, the actors got my attention. jonathan scheneider and annette o'toole gave john and martha kent such souls and hearts that it was difficult to identify them as individuals portraying characters onscreen. i loved and adored them as clark's surrogate parents. i missed them terribly when they were written off the show, paving way for the other half of clark's journey to being superman. but the foundation they built will never be diminished: it lives in clark.
thanking tom for accepting this once-in-a-lifetime role is proving to be a difficult task to complete. i don't even know where to begin! let me start with the first image that popped into my head just now: an older, wiser clark kent walking towards a seemingly just-ended funeral for a friend, a fresh grave was dug and a lone man was standing beside it, possibly paying his last respects. fans know that this is a pivotal moment in smallville: clark kent going to a closed off funeral for the murdered lionel luthor, who died at the hands of his own son - the same man standing, possibly gloating, over his father's grave. the fact that this scene was shot with no dialogue only made it even more compelling. at this time, clark and lex have already drifted apart as brothers/friends. they are now truly arch enemies facing off and throwing invisible gauntlets at each other. it worked because michael rosenbaum threw in a smirk, as if to say, "i dare ya. kill me." it worked because tom welling faced him dead on, angry and formidable. they were truly superman and lex luthor in that moment.
there have been many memorable moments in smallville that i can recount for you, but i would just have you buy the dvds and watch them all - as i know that they will definitely change your attitude towards life after watching. i cited the above scene because it's scenes like those that make me appreciate tom welling each and every time i rewatch an episode. yes, he's cute, undeniably so - just visit my blog! it is one of the prerequisites to being the man of steel. but aside from his looks, he brings so much more to the table.
some might say he can't act properly to save his life, but i beg to disagree. not because i'm biased, but because i've come to a realization - that his incredible acting abilities are completely eclipsed by his super handsome good looks. but once you get past that (it may take a decade!), you realize that he has perfect timing, exquisite execution and undeniable fearlessness. his ability to be puppy dog clark, sad clark, sweet clark, angry clark, stumped clark, scared clark and any other emotion tends to tug at your heart, feel his pain, melt with giddiness and just appreciate that he goes the extra mile to evoke those feelings from the audience.
then there are the costumes. the show had a "no tights, no flights" rule - which i thought was so ingenius; but they compromised by incorporating the superman colors onto clark's definitive wardrobe making his shirt collection limited as to what colors he can wear. but tom bore it all. at first, the colors (red and blue primarily) were subtly added - he wore a yellow shirt once, but as the years went by, he was recognized by a blue shirt and red jacket, with the colors interchanged sometimes. enduring that for a year would have been admirable. doing it for 10 is very much respectable. it's not that tom didn't have a say - he would become one of the executive producers of the show after a few years - but he didn't shy away from wearing the iconic (primary and boring) colors. and that's one other reason why i love him.
and then there are those scenes. you know! the scenes where he's making strange faces so that his reactions are more realistic and believable? so that we'd buy into whatever is supernaturally happening to him? those scenes. when you talk to yourself, you may think you're crazy or eccentric. when you react to nothing, you may be crazy, not even eccentric. and that's what i admire so much about tom. he makes the scene work. he makes you believe that he really is in so much pain because the green kryptonite is slowly killing him. he makes you believe that the kryptonian symbol scarred on his chest was burning and hurting him. as bizarro, he makes you believe that he's getting extremely powerful by reenergizing using kryptonite. his googly-eyed face, his crazy in love face, his confused face, his panicked face... they're all now etched in my brain's file cabinet labeled as such and is part of the reason why i adore tom so much! he makes you believe that he really can see through solid objects; that he really does have super hearing, super strength and super breath! as kal-el, he made you believe again that a man CAN fly. and i am thankful for that. because he made me believe, he also made me forget. forget about whatever was troubling me at that time, forget that i had problems for an hour. forget that i was me.
lastly, i'm thankful that he never tired. sometimes the continued success of a tv show depends on the lead star. remember when johnny depp left 21 jump street and it was never the same? if tom had left smallville early on in its inception, it would've been a goner. yes, the producers could have picked some other tall, dark and handsome guy to play ck, but no one can compare to tom's charisma and ownership of said iconic role. ten years working on a show is a feat. you can get burned out, exhausted, irritated with your co-stars, etc. but tom hung in there. and despite what others think, i say that that is tom's greatest gift to the fans, it showed he cares for us, for the character he's portrayed and for the overall well-being of the show. it's a testament to his dedication, loyalty and foresight - he knew where the show was going and he stuck with it =)
i could ramble on and on and on but bottomline is really also just the simple truth: smallville lasted 10 years because of tom welling. and now that the show is 16 episodes closer to its series finale, i am in awe and very appreciative of the time, effort and hardwork that tom put in to all of this just so we could have an hour of forgetting our own problems and living our superhero fantasies. 30 years from now, i will be proud to say that i was witness to this man giving our generation inspiration and reason to believe, once again, that a man can fly.
thank you very much, tom welling. we really do owe you.
