Smallville: The Complete Fourth Season DVD Review:

Although the die hard fans may have understood exactly what was going on, I was somewhat confused when Smallville first aired. It is a show about Superman's teenage years, and yet there was a female character with the name of Lana Lang. At first I thought that it was supposed to be Lois Lane , because the name was so similar. Of course, I was wrong, and my assumption would probably make any regular viewer laugh. Season four, however, cleared this confusion up easily as it is the season in which Lois Lane is introduced to the show. There are also a few other changes in this season, some of which may be very upsetting to fans, but the quality of the DVD package could not get much better.

Season four begins three months after the finale of season three, with Jonathan Kent in a coma, Lana in a new relationship in Paris, and Clark as his alter ego, Kal-El. This first episode also has Clark flying for the first time, something the creators of the show said they would never do. Lois is a cousin of Chloe and she comes to Smallville to find out what happened, beginning the love/hate relationship between her and Clark which gets somewhat tired by the end of the season.

Although Clark always seems to be saving the day, he also has a chance to enjoy his senior year of high school in season four. Despite skepticism from his father, Clark decides to play football, trying not to use his powers as he plays. There are a few episodes which use this new development to further the plot. Since this is their senior year, season four also ends with graduation and a rather explosive final episode which leaves a lot of questions as to the direction season five will take.

The first couple seasons of Smallville had a “freak of the week” routine, and it seemed like there were all strange and supernatural occurances in this one small town. Season four takes a different approach, and although about half of the episodes still employ the same methods, the other half of the episodes use mood changing or personality switching. Whether it is a love potion, alter ego, or witches taking over bodies, it seems that even the regular characters cannot be trusted.

Although I have never been a huge fan of Smallville, I had a great deal more respect for it until I watched the first half of season four, which is obsessed with showing characters in nude or sexual situation. As much talk as there has been about the sexuality in shows like The O.C. it amazes me that Smallville has a considerable amount more, and furthermore it doesn't ever seem to advance the story at all.

The twenty-two episodes of season four are fit onto six discs and look absolutely impeccable in their letterbox format. The picture quality is clear and it shows how amazing the photography is on the show, something which has definitely improved over the years. Each disc has an elaborate menu which plays more like the intro to the show than it does a menu. It looks good but is a bit lengthy.

There are a few great special features, including commentary on three of the episodes by key cast and crew members. There is also a great feature on Lois Lane with interviews from many of the actresses that have played her, although Teri Hatcher is missing from the group, no doubt due to her recent success on Desperate Housewives. There is also a great featurette about the process the writers go through to create an episode and a few deleted scenes which were removed because of time issues. Inside the package is a great booklet with photos and great descriptions of each episode. The booklet looks like a football with the school's logo on it.

As a whole fans may be upset with the quality of the episodes of this season, and there were more than a few complaints with the fact that Lois has replaced Lana on the cover of the DVD package, but other than that this season looks as great if not better than the first three.

Ryan Izay