Oh dear, what happened? Smallville has been so good in its first three seasons, but by comparison, season four is, honestly, a bit of an embarrassment.

There are so many fundamental problems with this season that all stem directly from the poor writing of the show, something that has always had the potential to be a problem, but up until now, has never jeopardised the integrity of what was quite an enjoyable and entertaining programme.

This season sees the fourth year of high school, something that, thankfully avoided the Buffyverse, and the format feels stale and old. The 'monster of the week' format is just a joke, and it should be left back in the mid 1990's where it rightfully belongs. The strongest aspect of Smallville has always been the relationships of the characters and their interaction, the monster of the week has been, and never will be interesting.

The show is constantly recovering old ground, something which is hideously apparent in this season, superbly demonstrated when Clark gets amnesia twice in this season alone. Sounds silly? Yes, it is.

We see very little character development in this season, which is mainly down to the fact that the fairly capable actors aren't even playing their own characters a lot of the time. Lana keeps getting possessed. Clark, when he's not suffering amnesia, is being body-swapped with just about every other character or being high on red kryptonite. Mrs. Kent, Chloe, Lionel and Lois all play host to other characters as well, with I believe, only Mr. Kent getting away unscathed by possession this year, while Lex gets split in two, poor chap. Maybe some sort of well trained priest would be a worthy addition to the cast of characters next year for regular Exorcisms, to simply cut down the volume of bad episodes. It was fun in season two, now the writers have just flogged the idea to death.

The writers have also tried to integrate Lana far more into the mythology of Superman this year, with fairly dodgy consequences. So far as being Clark's love interest, to my knowledge, the character has never had any significance in the mythology up until this point. The show has always taken big leaps with continuity to the Superman mythology, but usually the moves are justified by entertainment value, such as introducing Lois Lane to the cast this year. However, making Smallville feel like a bad Charmed/Buffy episode, by having Lana periodically possessed by a medieval Witch, is just crap. Smallville is Science-Fiction-Comic-Book, not Fantasy, and the two rarely work when mixed: arguably that is why Supergirl The Movie never worked, but that's a point for another day.

Clark is as nice as ever; boring. Lana cries in every scene; same old, same old, get over it, love. Chloe is still there, being a minger. Lex is going soft on us. Lionel is as inconsistent as anything. Martha and Jonathan Kent just about scrape through with some consistency. Lois Lane is the only half decent thing about this season, bringing some nice comic moments, but even she only features in about a third of the twenty two episodes. Strangely she adorns the new DVDs packaging, but not the opening credits.

In a world of television dominated by fabulously written shows such as Alias and Lost, Smallville is flagging behind. Even the show's writers themselves said they were fearful of sinking behind Lost.

Ultimately what makes a good show is characters and drama. You don't want to have to watch forty minutes of tripe just so Clark and Lana can share a longing glance across the room. That's just dull. The only aspects which interested me slightly were Margot Kidder guest starring, that's Lois Lane from the Superman Movies, she played her role hilariously, although I'm unsure whether that was intentional or the side-effect of too much botox (for further investigation see Family Guy Season 3 'Mr. Saturday Night'!!!). The other aspect being how the end of season four seems to directly crossover with the first forty minutes of Superman The Movie. However, we know this can't be so, because there are subsequent seasons where Clark still won't be Superman, otherwise it would turn into another Superman series, which just isn't Smallville, so who knows how the writers will flummox their way out of that.

The DVD features are short and sweet, two ten minuet features, one on writing the show, one on Lois Lane. We see the writers using an empty water cooler bottle as a baseball bat in an office game of rounders, partly explaining as to why this season is as rubbish as it is. The Lois feature is short, but interesting. The Gag Reel, which has always been fun on previous releases has gone. But there are a few more commentaries, but I can honestly say I won't be listening to them.

It's just below average really and you can blame the writers.

Smallville is back with the long awaited fourth series. The epic cliff hanger at the end of series three is finally explored providing answers to our questions and introducing new intriguing mysteries. Clark Kent (Tom Welling) returns after being "reborn" and once again attempts fight against his destiny and try to balance his school life with the superpowers - we see the first example of his latest and most exciting power to develop - flight!
The season begins with the first appearance of Lois Lane (Erica Durance) in Smallville; she throws in instant sexual chemistry to the mix and adds an extra level to Clarks and Lanas (Kristin Kreuk) relationship. Meanwhile, Lana has returned from Paris with a new boyfriend, Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) has got his hands on a kryptonian crystal in Egypt, and Lionel (John Glover) sets a Terminator-style mutant on the trail of Chloe (Allison Mack) to determine whether she is dead or not.
Fantastic - Smallville just get better and better!