Smallville: Every Season Ranked and Explained

Season 1 (2001–02)

Smallville's pilot broke The WB's record for the highest-rated series debut in the network's history, and it did it by committing hard to a simple creative rule: "no flights, no tights." Clark Kent would not wear the suit and would not fly, and the show spent its first season instead building out his friendships with Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan, Pete Ross, and, most importantly, Lex Luthor.

Much of the first season leaned on a "villain of the week" formula, with meteor-rock-infected classmates and townspeople giving Clark someone new to quietly stop every episode. Critics found this format repetitive by the season's midpoint, but the producers used the criticism to plan a shift toward longer, more serialized storytelling for season two.

What held the season together, even during its weaker stretches, was the central friendship between Clark and Lex, built on the show's founding incident: Clark saving Lex's life after a car accident sends Lex's Porsche off a bridge. That single rescue set up the emotional core the entire series would return to again and again.

Season 2 (2002–03)

Season two brought in a full writers' room for the first time, letting series creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar step back from writing nearly every episode themselves. It also introduced red kryptonite, giving the show a recurring way to strip away Clark's inhibitions and let Welling play a darker, more reckless version of the character without breaking the show's central premise.

The season's biggest coup was casting Christopher Reeve, the definitive film Superman, as Dr. Virgil Swann, the scientist who first explains Krypton to Clark. Terence Stamp, who played General Zod opposite Reeve in the Superman films, was brought on as the voice of Jor-El, turning the season into a direct, affectionate handoff between two eras of Superman on screen.

Season 3 (2003–04)

Season three opened directly out of Clark's red-kryptonite bender from the previous finale, picking up with him living a reckless double life in Metropolis before Jonathan and Martha bring him home. The season moved the show's schedule to Wednesday nights and continued deepening Lex's slow drift toward the man he's destined to become.

The season also delivered one of the show's boldest twists, appearing to kill off Chloe Sullivan in an explosion, only for later episodes to reveal she survived and was placed into witness protection. That deception extended even to the opening credits, which quietly dropped Allison Mack's name to sell the fake-out to viewers watching week to week.

By the finale, "Covenant," Jonathan Kent had struck a fateful deal with Jor-El to save Clark's life, a decision whose consequences the show would keep returning to for years. The episode set up "Crusade," the fourth-season premiere that would finally let Clark fly.

Season 4 (2004–05)

Season four is often singled out as the strangest stretch of the entire series, mixing genuinely major mythology moments with some of the show's weirder standalone episodes. It's also the season that introduces Lois Lane, played by Erica Durance, who arrives investigating her cousin Chloe's apparent death and stays in Smallville far longer than she originally planned.

Clark flies for the first time in the season's opening minutes, though notably while under the influence of red kryptonite rather than as a triumphant, fully in-control moment, a choice that let the show finally use one of Superman's signature abilities without abandoning its founding "no flights" restraint entirely.

Season 5 (2005–06)

With Greg Beeman stepping back from directing high-profile episodes, director James Marshall took over the season premiere for the first time, a role he'd return to for the season six opener as well. The fifth season also started folding in more of the wider DC Comics universe, giving guest spots to early versions of Aquaman, Cyborg, and the villain Brainiac.

"Reckoning," the season's twelfth episode, marked the show's 100th episode overall and delivered major consequences for Jonathan Kent, whose storyline the show had been building toward since the season three finale's deal with Jor-El.

Season five turned out to be the last season to air on The WB. Midway through its production, The WB announced its merger with UPN to form The CW, and Smallville would carry over as one of the new network's flagship shows starting the following fall.

Season 6 (2006–07)

Smallville's move to The CW opened with James Marshall directing "Zod," an episode dealing directly with the aftermath of Lex's possession by General Zod at the end of season five. The season also formally introduces Jimmy Olsen and Oliver Queen, aka Green Arrow, expanding the show's corner of the DC universe well beyond Smallville and Metropolis.

This was also John Schneider's final season as a regularly featured cast member, closing out Jonathan Kent's arc after six years as one of the show's emotional anchors and Clark's primary moral compass.

Season 7 (2007–08)

The 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike cut season seven short, trimming it to 20 episodes and forcing The CW to push back several air dates. Despite the disruption, the season delivered "Bizarro," a premiere built around Clark's twisted double, and is remembered by many fans as one of the show's strongest openers.

Kara, played by Laura Vandervoort, departed the series this season, while Lana Lang's exit storyline began winding toward its own conclusion after seven years as Clark's central love interest, one of the longest romantic arcs in the show's history.

The season built toward a direct confrontation between Lex and Clark at the Fortress of Solitude, ending with the Fortress destroyed and setting up a very different status quo, minus Lex as a series regular, for the seasons that followed.

Season 8 (2008–09)

With Michael Rosenbaum's Lex written out as a series regular, season eight opens with "Odyssey," directed by Kevin Fair, and pushes Clark into his first steps toward journalism, taking an internship at the Daily Planet under Perry White. Tom Welling also stepped behind the camera this season, directing "Odyssey"'s follow-up "Instinct" as his own directorial debut.

The season built the Doomsday storyline through Davis Bloome, played by Sam Witwer, giving the show one of its most physically formidable villains and pushing Clark toward genuinely difficult, morally complicated choices about what he was willing to do to protect the people around him.

Season 9 (2009–10)

Moved to Friday nights to make room for The Vampire Diaries, season nine still opened strong, with "Savior" outperforming every other show in its timeslot for the first time in over a year. The season centered on General Zod and a group of escaped Kryptonians known as the Kandorians, giving Clark his most direct Kryptonian antagonist since the Zod possession arc.

"Absolute Justice," a double-length episode built around the Justice Society of America, aired in February 2010 and became one of the most talked-about episodes of the show's later years, bringing in classic DC characters like Hawkman, Stargirl, and Dr. Fate.

The truth is, I'm just a guy who tried to do the right thing.— Jonathan Kent

Despite strong creative moments, season nine averaged its lowest viewership of the series to that point, a reflection of the tougher Friday night slot more than a drop in the writing, which continued building toward Clark's eventual acceptance of his destiny.

Season 10 (2010–11)

Smallville's final season opened with "Lazarus" and closed with the two-part "Finale" on May 13, 2011, giving Tom Welling's Clark Kent his first on-screen appearance in the full Superman suit after ten years of the show carefully avoiding it. By the time the finale aired, Smallville had become the longest-running science-fiction series in North American television history.

The finale brought back John Schneider as Jonathan Kent and reunited Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor with Tom Welling's Clark one last time, closing the loop on the friendship-turned-rivalry that had anchored the series since its very first episode, and finally sending Clark into the sky as the hero the whole show had been building toward.