Smallville Season 8

Smallville Season 8 is currently streaming on and , and it earns its premise rather than just borrowing genre trappings. A single, tightly-focused season means there is plenty to get through without ever feeling padded. With 4,515 viewer ratings on TMDB, this is not a title flying under the radar. Watch it for Tom Welling — the performance elevates material that could easily tip into self-seriousness. There is no real reason to keep putting it off.

Part of the current wave of titles people are actually watching, Smallville Season 8 earns its spot. What makes Smallville Season 8 work is that the ideas never crowd out the people having them. Last season, Clark Kent and Lex Luthor became sworn enemies and Clark discovered more about his home planet, who his parents were, what his future holds and why he was sent to Earth. In season eight, Clark Kent is now reporter at the Daily Planet who shares a workspace with Lois Lane. And there's a new hero in Metropolis - a hero everyone now calls the Red-Blue Blur. Tom Welling and Erica Durance lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was aired in 2008. What separates Smallville Season 8 from lesser genre entertainment is a willingness to let the concept cost the characters something. It rarely drops the ball, and when it does, it recovers fast.

Sci-fi fans who want ideas alongside the spectacle will find Smallville Season 8 genuinely rewarding. It rewards viewers regardless of what else is in their watch history. A contained run means every episode is doing real work. Watch for Tom Welling in particular — the performance elevates the material. Satisfying on multiple levels.