So, I did a very stupid and time-consuming thing: I rewatched Smallville. Yes, Smallville. The early 2000s WB show where Tom Welling’s Clark Kent spends ten (!) whole seasons not wearing the Superman costume. It’s a mix of teen soap, comic book melodrama, and weekly meteor-freak shenanigans. Hardly “peak TV.” And yet, watching it again, I realized something: I kind of miss the 22-episode season.
Let’s be real: Not every episode is a gem and some episodes are straight-up ridiculous. We got Bug Boy, the cheerleader with kryptonite lipstick, the guy who absorbed people through his hands, villains that would barely pass muster in a Silver Age comic. But here’s the thing: some of those “meteor freaks” were played by actors who went on to bigger things. Smallville gave early breaks to people like Amy Adams, who popped up in Season 1 as a literal fat-sucking kryptonite mutant before becoming, well, Lois Lane in the DCEU (That’s the official name?). Jensen Ackles, who later became a household name on Supernatural and The Boys, also passed through Smallville as Jason Teague, a love interest turned antagonist. The show doubled as a talent incubator in a way modern six-episode prestige dramas simply don’t. Shorter seasons mean fewer guest spots, fewer oddball roles, and fewer chances for actors to cut their teeth before they become stars. Even Evangeline Lilly appeared briefly as an extra before finding fame on Lost. The sheer volume of episodes meant there were endless opportunities for actors to pop in, experiment, and sometimes launch whole careers.
The WB’s creative team leaned hard into this format. Series creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar knew they were making a show that was equal parts teen melodrama and superhero origin story. The early seasons had a kind of earnestness that matched the WB’s lineup (I really miss Buffy the Vampire Slayer), while the later seasons brought in more DC Comics mythology under the pens of writers who clearly loved the source material. Sometimes that love translated beautifully; sometimes it gave us Bug Boy.
And while we’re talking cast: Michael Rosenbaum deserves credit for being a genuinely good Lex Luthor. He nailed that mix of charming best friend and brooding, inevitable villain. Erika Durance, when she finally arrived in Season 4 as Lois Lane, was also a revelation. She was funny, tough, and a nice counterbalance to Clark’s brooding. Kristen Kreuk’s Lana Lang did her job well as the doomed central love interest in the early seasons, but by the time she left, it was overdue. The writers had clearly run out of ideas for her, and everyone watching knew this was always going to be Lois and Clark, not Lana and Clark.
Modern shows don’t work the way Smallville did. With six or eight episodes a season, every moment has to be a turning point, every scene is cranked up to eleven. It’s like reading a comic where every issue is a “major crossover event.” Sounds exciting, but without the quieter in-between issues, the big ones lose their impact. Smallville, goofy as it was, understood the rhythm: you need the monster-of-the-week to make the season finale matter. And even though it took ten years for Clark to officially put on the cape, you never had to wait to see him do something super. Every week had its payoff, however silly the setup.
Of course, not everything was perfect. For a show that spent ten years building toward Clark becoming Superman, the actual payoff in the last episode felt underwhelming. The writing set it up, the performances delivered, but the WB budget didn’t. We got a lot of reaction shots, some CGI cape flapping, and not nearly enough of Tom Welling in full Superman glory. It was a finale that proved how much heart the show had, but also how frustrating its limitations could be.
Look, I know it’s a little silly to be pulling life lessons about TV from a WB show where Clark Kent fought Bug Boy. But maybe Bug Boy is the perfect symbol of what I’m talking about: silly, forgettable, kind of embarrassing—and yet essential. Without Bug Boy, the show doesn’t work the same way. He even pops back up briefly in the final season’s “Homecoming” episode, this time cured of his freak-of-the-week villain status. That moment helps Clark recognize the positive impact he’s had on the people he meets along the way. Even the silliest one-off character ends up reinforcing the bigger theme: Clark makes lives better just by being who he is. That tiny callback shows that even the most disposable-seeming characters had a place in the larger journey, and that’s the kind of breathing space television often misses today. Bug Boy is the reminder that not every episode has to be brilliant to matter. The Bug Boys of the world are what make the big moments shine. But that’s exactly why I loved revisiting it. Those sprawling, uneven 22-episode seasons weren’t perfect, but they gave characters room to breathe, they gave actors a platform to grow, and they gave us that weekly rhythm comics readers know so well: sometimes silly, sometimes epic, but always moving the larger myth forward. And honestly? That’s the lesson here for modern TV. Not that every show needs Bug Boys or kryptonite lipstick cheerleaders, but that giving characters room to stumble, breathe, and even fail in silly episodes makes the big arcs more meaningful. It’s a reminder that sometimes the imperfections of a long season create the space for genuine surprises andI strongly believe that’s what TV is missing today.
Or to put it in Smallville terms: without a few Bug Boys, you never really earn the moments that actually land. Even the clunkiest filler can make the stronger arcs resonate more. Your move Stranger Things.