Smallville: The Complete Eighth Season

Continuing the adventures of Superman before he became Superman, Smallville has reached its eighth season. The previous season was the last for Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) and Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang) Lex Luthor as they decided not to renew their contracts as well as series creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar who decided to leave the show.

This season introduced Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) who took over LexCorp since Lex is missing. Saw The Legion of Super-Heroes make an appearance which really kicked things into high gear for the series and this season's big-bad was Doomsday who in 1993 killed Superman in the comics.

But Doomsday in the comic was just a big hulking mass of destruction with no character, he was just an unstoppable killing machine. So the producers put their own unique twist on the character making him an experiment from Krypton who starts out human and slowly becomes this monster. The Clark/Doomsday confrontation simmered for the entire season and it worked the tension was great, however the actual fight in the final episode was a little weak. Budgetary restrictions hampered what they could do and so the battle was blink and you miss it quick. However it does set things up for season nine so it wasn't a total disappointment.

The extras on Smallville are commentaries on two episodes including Legion with episode writer Geoff Johns, who is a writer for DC Comics and has written the Legion of Super-Heroes and Superman many times he was very excited to do the episode, and it's one of the best episodes of the season. There's deleted scenes for a number of the episodes which should have been kept in. A featurette on Doomsday which talks about how they started with the character from the comic and put their own unique twist on him for the series. Finally Allison Mack is spotlighted with her first time directing an episode of Smallville.

Smallville: The Complete Eighth Season is a worthy addition to the Superman mythos and season nine promises to be one of the best seasons ever.