Mandy Kaplan
Hello everybody, and welcome to Make Me a Nerd. I’m Mandy Kaplan, nerd in training. But before I went on this journey, I was just a mainstream mom who loved all things Taylor Swift and Housewives. Now I’m trying to embrace all things nerd culture. That means comic books, TV shows, sci-fi, fantasy. I’ve got manga coming up. I’m really diving in and I’m trying to figure out what it is I’ve been missing out on and afraid of my whole life. Very high up on that list is a wildly popular show that I knew nothing about called Smallville. And here today to discuss his love of and nerdery about Smallville with me is returning guest, my friend John Mundy.
John Mundy
Hello, everyone.
Mandy Kaplan
Hello, John. Before we dive into Smallville, I have a really fun real-life update from my episode with your husband about heated rivalry.
John Mundy
Sure.
Mandy Kaplan
I sent him this article—Jesse Kortum, I might be saying his last name wrong—a real-life hockey player who walked away from the sport out of fear that he couldn’t reconcile his athletic career and sexuality, has now shared a post coming out as gay because of Heated Rivalry.
John Mundy
I’ve heard about that story as well.
Mandy Kaplan
Isn’t that great?
John Mundy
It’s really uplifting. And I actually saw, like yesterday, that there was an NBA player who had come out as well.
Mandy Kaplan
Really?
John Mundy
Yes, I don’t remember who it was, but yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay.
John Mundy
Yeah, I saw that there’s—
Mandy Kaplan
There’s just no reason. We won’t go into it because I’ll cry again. There’s no reason why you can’t just live your life, love who you love, and do the job you want to do.
John Mundy
Exactly.
Mandy Kaplan
Right?
John Mundy
Right. I mean, I know that some pro athletes are afraid that it will distract from them doing their job. But as long as nobody comes out, then it is a big deal when somebody comes out.
Mandy Kaplan
Right.
John Mundy
Eventually it’s gonna get to a point where it’s yesterday’s news and nobody really cares.
Mandy Kaplan
Right. You like chocolate ice cream, I like vanilla ice cream.
John Mundy
And—
Mandy Kaplan
Who cares? Let’s go.
John Mundy
Right.
Mandy Kaplan
I can’t wait for that day. And maybe our discussion of the important show Smallville will encourage people to come out as being superheroes and aliens.
John Mundy
Let’s hope so. Let’s hope so. Right now, being an alien could be dangerous.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. Oh, John, I—
John Mundy
Although I dare somebody to try and rendition Clark Kent. Go ahead. Give it a try.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. The gauntlet has been thrown, you heard.
John Mundy
So, yes.
Mandy Kaplan
So Smallville is a prequel, yes? Prequel to where the movie Superman from ’79 or whatever starts.
John Mundy
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
This is prequel.
John Mundy
Yes. I mean, it’s not necessarily part of the same continuity. It’s its own little universe and telling its own story in its own way.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, that was my first question. Were there comics or other IP that this was based on?
John Mundy
No. It wasn’t based on another—other than just the general Superman universe. No, there isn’t a particular story that this was based on. And they made up a lot of original content for the show. Some of it is referenced in the episodes that I gave you.
Mandy Kaplan
Great. Well, the first thing I always do is watch the pilot so I get a feel for it. So I pressed play and I saw John Schneider—Bo Duke himself—and I got very excited. And I Googled him and he’s a Trumper, so now I hate him.
John Mundy
This is true. He is. But he’s also probably the best Jonathan Kent we’ve seen in film.
Mandy Kaplan
So that character we’ve seen before?
John Mundy
Jonathan Kent?
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah.
John Mundy
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Clark’s dad. So Jonathan and Annette O’Toole—remind me her character’s name.
John Mundy
Martha.
Mandy Kaplan
Martha. Basically, a meteor crashes into this tiny town of Smallville, which is not a real town, but they said it’s very based on actual towns where it’s all about corn.
John Mundy
Yes. It’s basically somewhere in the Midwest, in Kansas.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. And they find a baby, right? And then we flash forward to high school-aged Clark.
John Mundy
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
I read somewhere that they said this series pitch was not “Clark Kent in high school.” But how is it not?
John Mundy
How else could you pitch this?
Mandy Kaplan
Right? But they said that’s not what they wanted to do.
John Mundy
So what was the pitch, if not Clark Kent in high school?
Mandy Kaplan
I mean, that’s what it feels like to me.
John Mundy
Okay, yes. So the character Chloe Sullivan, who is his best friend, buddy person—that’s an original character for this show. Pretty much everybody else is somebody who’s translated from the comics. Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, Pete Ross—those are all established comic book characters.
Mandy Kaplan
And I also read that they wanted to cast somebody ethnically diverse for Chloe Sullivan, but Alison Mack—who we’ll get to—blew them away. So then they made Pete Ross ethnically diverse.
John Mundy
Right.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. I mean, at least there’s someone in there who’s not lily white.
John Mundy
You know, I hear there are people who are brown in Kansas, a few of them.
Mandy Kaplan
Have you seen this with your own eyes, John Mundy?
John Mundy
I haven’t. The times that I’ve driven through Kansas, I’d be hard pressed to find anybody. But I suppose if you go to the cities, they’re probably there.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, probably not in Smallville per se. Now, did you see the musical Shucked?
John Mundy
I did not.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, but it’s actually a musical about corn. They’re in Cobb County and they sing about corn, they live off the corn, it’s all about corn.
John Mundy
Okay.
Mandy Kaplan
And I was thinking this is similar in the way they set up these small towns, you know, where nothing’s going on and everyone knows everyone. But they didn’t do a musical episode of Smallville, did they?
John Mundy
I do not believe they ever did a musical episode.
Mandy Kaplan
Because it would marry very well with Shucked.
John Mundy
Right.
Mandy Kaplan
If we could go back in time.
John Mundy
If they had, I would have recommended it for you.
Mandy Kaplan
Right. Yes. To all future guests, always think about if there’s a musical episode, pick it for me. Thank you.
John Mundy
Now, Supergirl gets a musical episode, but Melissa Benoist and Grant Gustin are actual people who do musical theater.
Mandy Kaplan
Right, she’s from Glee, right? Yeah. Oh, I don’t know him. I thought Melissa Benoist was from Glee.
John Mundy
I could be wrong.
Mandy Kaplan
I could be wrong.
John Mundy
They could both be from Glee.
Pete Wright
Well, you guys are officially killing me. Hi, it’s Pete, the producer, and I just have to jump in and say they were both from Glee. Melissa Benoist was in the New Directions, and Grant Gustin was a Warbler. Back to the show.
Mandy Kaplan
I didn’t even know there was a Supergirl.
John Mundy
You didn’t know there was a Supergirl?
Mandy Kaplan
I mean, I’ve heard the character.
John Mundy
Oh, well. Yeah. But no, there was a show of like a decade after Smallville, or a decade and a half. There was another sort of buildup of TV shows that were based in the DC Comics universe. They started with Green Arrow, a show called Arrow. And then there was a spin-off, The Flash. And then from there there’s a spin-off—Supergirl. And so they all ended up being in the same universe and there were crossovers between the different shows. But that’s a whole other watch-through that we can do the next time I come on your show.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, you got a deal. I just looked at the IMDb. There are a lot of musical people from Supergirl, and she is from Glee. Point Mandy.
John Mundy
Point Mandy.
Mandy Kaplan
She played a character called Marley for 42 episodes. Okay. Back to Smallville.
John Mundy
Back to Smallville.
Mandy Kaplan
We meet Lana, who’s so pretty it’s painful. And her boyfriend comes up—her boyfriend Whitney—and he’s like, “Hey babe, I need help with my paper.” And I wrote down: he probably needs help because his bursitis and cataracts are flaring up. Why is this forty-five-year-old trying to play a teenager? And then I looked it up, and he is a teenager at the time. Eric Johnson was up for Lex and for Clark.
John Mundy
Uh-huh. Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
But he looks so much older than the rest of them.
John Mundy
I don’t think he looks that old.
Mandy Kaplan
No. Meanwhile, I just made forty-five old and I’m way past it, so I don’t know what I was thinking there.
John Mundy
Yeah, exactly. But I went to a high school that had a lot of small people. There were no six-foot-tall jocks in my high school, so I’m used to people of various body types. Even though they are a certain age, they may look older or younger because of their body type. I went to school with a bunch of people who, no matter how old they are, they were going to look like kids because the tallest of them was like five-ten.
Mandy Kaplan
Five-ten is a giant to me.
John Mundy
And they were all skinny.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, there’s a plot line where the meanies, the bullies, kidnap an unsuspecting freshman or something and they string him up like a scarecrow, stripped down to his boxers.
John Mundy
Right.
Mandy Kaplan
And it’s really heartbreaking. A common theme in all high school stories is the bullies versus—it’s very disturbing. Except when they went for Clark, my first thought was, “Oh yes, we get to see him without his shirt on.” They’re gonna strip him and put him on a pole, and that’s the reward we get.
John Mundy
Uh-huh.
Mandy Kaplan
And that happens.
John Mundy
And that’s the iconic art on the DVD and the Blu-ray box.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh really? Because they put an S on the person.
John Mundy
On Clark.
Mandy Kaplan
What does the S mean? I forget.
John Mundy
In that context, they’re putting it on as Smallville. But it’s of course referencing the fact that he’s gonna be Superman with an S on his chest.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. And I read somewhere that Clark is always wearing red, yellow, or blue as a nod to his Superman colors.
John Mundy
Yes. They love their primary colors in the show. He’s always got red plaid or blue plaid on. That’s all this boy knows how to wear—red plaid, blue plaid. You’ll notice later, after he’s gotten out of the water from rescuing Lex, they’ve got these red blankets they’re putting on them. And he’s walking away with this red blanket wrapped around him that looks like a red cape.
Mandy Kaplan
Clever. That’s not something I picked up on.
John Mundy
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
But I noticed that Lex Luthor wears a lot of purple.
John Mundy
Lex’s colors are purple and green.
Mandy Kaplan
And what is the significance of that?
John Mundy
That’s just the colors he’s been assigned in the comic books. His outfits are usually purple and black or purple and green. He’s got a classic set of body armor that are purple and green.
Mandy Kaplan
That’s like the Joker and the Riddler.
John Mundy
Exactly.
Mandy Kaplan
Boom.
John Mundy
So—
Mandy Kaplan
So Jeremy Creek is the kid they torment before Clark.
John Mundy
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
And then he comes back and I was so confused. Is he a ghost? Is he superhuman? Did the meteor get him? What is he? Is Jeremy Creek alive? He is alive.
John Mundy
Yes. They mention that this guy just went missing from this sanitarium, and he’s been in a coma since the meteor shower.
Mandy Kaplan
And that was Jeremy Creek. Doesn’t he have superhuman powers?
John Mundy
He does, yes. And that’s an ongoing plot of the show—after the meteor shower, all these people ended up getting these special abilities. So a lot of the show is your monster of the week, and Clark dealing with this person who got some ability from the meteor showers.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. But do they all stem back to the meteor showers? They don’t.
John Mundy
They pretty much all stem back to the meteor shower.
Mandy Kaplan
Right? Really? Did you just correct me on my own podcast, John Mundy?
John Mundy
Yeah. You asked me a question.
Mandy Kaplan
I asked it with an incorrect supposition, so you’re in the clear.
John Mundy
Now, absolutely: not everything always stems back to the meteor showers. I don’t want to spoil things, but there are things that come up that don’t stem from the meteor showers. They stem from magic.
Mandy Kaplan
Magic, or later on I feel corporate greed or other things that are evils Clark can stand up to.
John Mundy
Yes, but the corporate greed and things are trying to exploit the effects of the meteor showers. So they’re tied together.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, I hear ya. Let’s talk Tom Welling.
John Mundy
Let’s talk about Tom Welling, yes.
Mandy Kaplan
The actor who plays Clark Kent. What are your thoughts about him?
John Mundy
He really grows a lot during the show.
Mandy Kaplan
I would hope so, because in this pilot, he was awful. Very handsome. Those eyes, that jawline.
John Mundy
He’s very handsome. And he grows a lot during the show. John and I were talking about: is the problem with this pilot the acting or is it the writing? Some of the actors are more able to elevate the writing than others.
Mandy Kaplan
Who, in your opinion? He was the one that jumped out at me.
John Mundy
Michael Rosenbaum is better at elevating the writing.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, I liked him.
John Mundy
Kristin Kreuk is better at elevating the writing.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, I might fight you on that.
John Mundy
Not always, but she also grows as an actor in the show.
Mandy Kaplan
She definitely did. When I watched later episodes, I was pleased to see all of their growth. But Tom Welling does this thing a couple times—and I only watched the four—but he puts weird emphasis on the wrong words. In one of them, I wrote down: he said he wants to win friends and influence people. Not influence people, but influence people. You would think the director would say, “One more time. You’re putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong words.”
John Mundy
I feel that’s true, but that also indicates the character’s immaturity. He’s a teenager and doesn’t get things sometimes. I’ve had conversations with teenagers where they don’t emphasize things the right way. But maybe that’s just the teenagers I’ve talked to.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, that’s so interesting. One of the things I love about doing this and talking to people who really love something and know something is getting the other opinion about it. Immediately something clicks for me and I think, “Oh my God, yeah.” I hadn’t thought of it that way at all. That could be just wanting to show he’s not a fully developed adult in the world.
John Mundy
Teenagers can be overly earnest. It’s not like we were ever like that.
Mandy Kaplan
No. I’m the mom to the most perfect teenager in the world, so I can’t say I understand. Overall, this pilot—you seem to have some negative thoughts about it. I thought it was fantastic and clear and fun. I just think Tom Welling wasn’t very good.
John Mundy
I think some of the acting or writing wasn’t quite there yet. It just seemed a little wooden. I don’t know if wooden would be the right word, but it could have been better.
Mandy Kaplan
So when you saw this, did you see it in its first run when it came on the air? Because you’re a comic book superhero guy, so you thought—
John Mundy
This was appointment watching.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, great. What made you keep going if the pilot was like, “Ugh, that could have been better”? You just don’t miss stuff like this?
John Mundy
Exactly.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay.
John Mundy
We had waited years to see something like this. There hadn’t been any Superman on television since the early nineties with Lois and Clark. And part of what you’re doing as a nerd, when you get multiple different versions of your fandom, is you get to compare them. See how are they spinning this? Which portrayal of this character do I like? What parts do they bring out? Like I was saying: John Schneider is the best Jonathan Kent we’ve had. Annette O’Toole is really good, but she’s not the best Martha Kent we’ve had.
Mandy Kaplan
Who is?
John Mundy
I would put that on K Callan from Lois and Clark, because she’s delightful. She’s bubbly and you can’t stop watching her every time she’s on the screen. But she’s playing an older character, versus here we have a younger Clark and a younger Martha Kent. We haven’t seen a Martha Kent who’s like this before. We haven’t seen this much of Martha Kent ever.
Mandy Kaplan
Right.
John Mundy
So—
Mandy Kaplan
I can totally relate to wanting to just take it all in. There are musicals I’ve seen a dozen times—any time it’s available to me, I’m going to see whatever version—for all of the things you just laid out.
John Mundy
Yeah. Of course I’m gonna keep watching. The first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation had some real dogs. The second episode is probably the worst episode of Trek ever. It’s got some really offensive representations—gender-wise and racially.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, wow.
John Mundy
We keep going. There’s another episode next week. We’ll see how it is.
Mandy Kaplan
Wow. So even if they offend you with bigotry, you’re willing to say, “Okay”? I understand if as a viewer now you go back and watch things, we all do, and we think, “Oh God, that was tone deaf. You can’t say that anymore.” But in the moment, if it offended you, you’re still willing to forgive it?
John Mundy
Depends on how bad it is. But Star Trek is a different property. It’s something we have a lot of faith in. Even though that representation was offensive, they were not trying to be offensive. They were trying to tell a story, and some of the people in it were offensive people. But that’s a whole other thing.
Mandy Kaplan
It is a whole other thing. But I already did Star Trek: The Next Generation, I think. I did, in one of my very first episodes.
John Mundy
Uh-huh.
Mandy Kaplan
But you didn’t—yes, but you didn’t watch episode two because it’s probably one of the worst episodes ever, and nobody would ever recommend you watch it.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, we moved on to season one, episode eight, “Jitters.”
John Mundy
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
And I immediately thought I conflated Smallville and Supernatural before I went—like at the beginning of my podcast, I did Supernatural.
John Mundy
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
And I conflated the two. And you can see why, right?
John Mundy
Yes. They’ve totally got this monster-of-the-week thing.
Mandy Kaplan
They’re very similar in tone and color. And then I found online there was a crossover episode planned that never actually happened.
John Mundy
I didn’t know about that. Wow.
Mandy Kaplan
Let me make you a nerd: Jensen Ackles was very close to getting Clark Kent, and then he ended up doing Supernatural.
John Mundy
Uh-huh.
Mandy Kaplan
And I think he probably ended up in the right place because Tom Welling—yeah, and he just looks Clark Kenty.
John Mundy
Tom Welling is a really good Clark Kent. He looks Clark Kenty.
Mandy Kaplan
Other contenders were Zachary Levi, Eric Johnson, and Anson Mount, and they were all up for both Lex and Clark.
John Mundy
Yeah, I can’t see any of those people doing it. Zachary Levi—the guy who plays Shazam? Yeah, no.
Mandy Kaplan
He would have been—I could see him as Lex. He has a darker, snarky energy.
John Mundy
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Clark can’t have snark. Oh God, I love the rhyming.
John Mundy
No, no. Clark is earnest and hopeful.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. And Michael Rosenbaum is fantastic. He’s very charming and he makes you lean in. We were rooting for Lex in this first season. It’s like, when is he gonna turn and become the Lex Luthor we know—the evil genius?
John Mundy
One of the main storylines of the show, the through-line, is looking at the potential friendship that could have been between Clark and Lex. And queer boy that I am, I was like half the time, “Kiss him. Just kiss him. Just tell him the truth and kiss him.” And we get to see how the inability of the two of them to connect as friends ends up creating the evil Lex eventually.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. In that way I equated it to Wicked—seeing the origin story of this friendship, and then circumstances break up this friendship.
John Mundy
And it’s really tragic because they come so close so many times to being good for each other. And there are parallel universes in the comics where Lex is not evil and Superman, Clark, and “Super Lex” work together and make the world a better place.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh. In the pilot, Clark Kent saves Lex, and in the last one you had me watch, “Nemesis,” Lex saves Clark.
John Mundy
The episodes I picked out were ones that I thought really develop their friendship—the story of their relationship. Season seven: Lex really takes a turn for being evil.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, he was getting there in that last one we watched.
John Mundy
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Can we talk about Alison Mack?
John Mundy
Yes, we can talk about Alison Mack. I know you’re chomping at the bit to talk about Alison Mack.
Mandy Kaplan
Is it strange watching her now, knowing what you know?
John Mundy
Yes, it is. And what kind of makes me feel like it’s strange is I wonder how much playing this character—who’s obsessed with conspiracy theories and weird stuff happening—affected the actual person. Would she have ended up where she did if she hadn’t been playing this role?
Mandy Kaplan
If anyone doesn’t know, Alison Mack was jailed for sex trafficking and recruiting women into the cult NXIVM. And she is out of jail now and is starting a new life. But I had never laid eyes on her other than in context of NXIVM. So here she is with her pixie hair and all her energy, and it was hard to separate.
John Mundy
See, it’s not for me, because I had the pixie hair, spunky journalist first—not the weird conspiracy theorist cult member. It makes me sad because she’s talented. Why did she go down this path? She’s really good in this character, and in a character who was created out of whole cloth. It’s not somebody who’s in the comic books.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, it’s nice that Clark has a female friend here and that she—in the four episodes I watched—she’s take charge. She gets shit done. She’s not helpless and “Oh Clark, I got in trouble again, come save me.” She’s telling Clark, “Look what I found out. This could help fix this problem.” She’s got it going on, and I like that.
John Mundy
She remains that way for the entirety of the show. And that’s part of the reason, when they made this character, they wanted somebody who was not a love interest, but was a good strong female character. So it’s like you start off with Lana Lang, who’s a love interest, and then you have the reporter girlfriend who’s a friend.
Mandy Kaplan
Gal pal.
John Mundy
Gal pal. And then you squish them together and you get Lois Lane eventually.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, and how does that work? Because I didn’t see any episodes with Lois Lane.
John Mundy
I didn’t pick one of those, but she gets introduced in season four, I think. Erica Durance plays Lois Lane.
Mandy Kaplan
And that’s—and I think I know this from past episodes—but it’s okay that they rewrote lore, because in the original movie, doesn’t he meet Lois? We see him meet Lois.
John Mundy
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
There’s no “Oh, I remember you from high school.” But it’s okay to rewrite the lore.
John Mundy
Sometimes they do reiterate the lore, but I don’t think in this case it was a case of retconning anything. I think at the point where he meets Lois is where he would historically have met Lois.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh okay, so it’s not in the high school hallway.
John Mundy
Right. No.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay.
John Mundy
He meets Lois as an adult.
Mandy Kaplan
All right, duly noted.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, this show made me really glad I’m through high school because there is a big party in this episode “Jitters” and it looked awful.
John Mundy
Yes. It looked awful.
Mandy Kaplan
Just kids leaning against the wall, sloppy, drinking out of their solo cups, loud music—ugh. And why would the elevator—oh, so they’ve discovered that there’s a secret part of—is it LuthorCorp or the plant?
John Mundy
The plant.
Mandy Kaplan
And it’s been shut down and there’s a wall where an old employee—who’s got the jitters from being exposed to terrible things in the plant—he says, “There was an elevator there.” But they clearly built a wall to cover this secret elevator. When Clark breaks through the wall, the elevator functions beautifully. Why would they keep the elevator functioning if they were trying to hide this access?
John Mundy
I’m not sure. Just because you close it off, can you necessarily turn it off? I don’t know.
Mandy Kaplan
And then there’s electricity blazing through this secret part of the plant. It just seemed funny to me that it’s all up and running, but it’s been abandoned and they were trying to hide it.
John Mundy
There were a few things like that I found on rewatching. But those are things that will pop up in any show. You overlook them because we have to get the plot to move along.
Mandy Kaplan
Agreed. This one was the one I said felt Erin Brockovich-y. Because people are suffering from the things they’re doing in this plant, and so it felt political.
John Mundy
Yes, and we’re beginning to see the evil that the Luthors do. And at the end we get to see the comparison between how the Luthors respond to Lex being out of danger, compared to how the Kents respond to Clark being out of danger. You get to see Lex looking over at how loving the Kent family relationship is versus this transactional relationship he has with his father.
Mandy Kaplan
The next one was “Rosetta.”
John Mundy
This is where I thought I maybe threw you in a little too deep.
Mandy Kaplan
It does start with a very loud, screechy sound effect.
John Mundy
Mm-hmm.
Mandy Kaplan
And I just thought, come on, producers. There had to be a better way to show us that he was struggling with the sound without making us struggle with the sound.
John Mundy
Right.
Mandy Kaplan
I definitely felt a leap in story. Lex was drinking. I asked, how much older is he than the rest of the gang? He’s not in high school when the show starts. He’s already working at LuthorCorp.
John Mundy
If you remember in the pilot, they tell us that he was an adolescent kid and Lana’s like two or three. And then Clark—when he lands in the ship—he’s probably like six. Later on they tell us that at the meteor shower Lex was nine years old. So he’s about six or seven years older than everybody else.
Mandy Kaplan
Gotcha. That makes sense, so I’ll allow him to drink. I read something that Tom Welling was not so into this—particularly the idea of Superman in high school. Or he didn’t want to become Superman. It was only about Clark for him.
John Mundy
Exactly.
Mandy Kaplan
Can you tell me about that? And he has a podcast called Talkville, so I’m assuming he’s gotten over whatever his hang-up was. But what was his relationship to being Clark Kent and the show?
John Mundy
As I remember it, the whole intent of the show was for this to be pre-him becoming a superhero—pre-Superman—and looking at how he develops as a teenager and his awkward phases. One of the things that’s often cited about Superman being problematic is: what kind of challenges do you put up for him? He’s invulnerable, he’s all powerful. Stories don’t necessarily have a challenge for him. But this is a person who doesn’t know what the right thing to do is all the time, and is confused. We get to see him struggling with not knowing what his life is supposed to be about, whereas Superman always knows the right thing to do.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah.
John Mundy
Clark, not so much. Clark is confused.
Mandy Kaplan
And do you listen to Talkville?
John Mundy
I don’t listen to Talkville. I should listen to Talkville, but there’s only so many hours in the day. I have to get all of Make Me a Nerd in.
Mandy Kaplan
Thank you for prioritizing. Hearing you talk about Clark as a character—vulnerability and fallibility—he’s just not perfect, or close to it. Is that what you love about the show? What makes you love Smallville?
John Mundy
That’s part of it. We get to see his development into being who he is. And all of these characters, we get to see them becoming who we know them to be—especially Lex. We see that Lex is a good person, good-hearted, but he isn’t necessarily in the right environment for that to thrive.
Mandy Kaplan
His dad is evil. Although, doesn’t his dad have a relationship with the Kents? Like he wasn’t always evil, or they—
John Mundy
Some things happen to him and he has a spiritual awakening during the show. Lionel Luthor does. He finds out more about Clark and then starts protecting him.
Mandy Kaplan
I thought that was a lie. Okay, let’s get to it: “Nemesis,” season six, episode nineteen.
John Mundy
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
That’s what John Glover claimed to Lana, and I was like, “Oh, that’s BS.” But we cut to season six and Lana’s married to Lex.
John Mundy
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
What?
John Mundy
She eventually gets manipulated into being in a relationship with Lex. Before we jump ahead, we should talk about “Rosetta.”
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, yeah. Okay.
John Mundy
We have to talk about Christopher Reeve showing up.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. Oh, beautiful.
John Mundy
Which is great. He can’t move. He can still act. He just needs his face and his voice. He can still act.
Mandy Kaplan
And he was always underrated because he was a fine actor. Poor guy was too good-looking for people to really take notice of his talent, but he was a fine actor.
John Mundy
Yeah. I loved him in Somewhere in Time.
Mandy Kaplan
I’ve never seen that one.
John Mundy
Oh my God, you are going to love Somewhere in Time.
Mandy Kaplan
I know. That’s one that I—again, it’s time travel, right? So I was like, meh, but now I’m on the journey.
John Mundy
It’s not about how the time travel happens. It’s not nerdy in that way at all. It’s really a romance novel. It’s a great story. Check it out.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. It’s on the list.
John Mundy
But Christopher Reeve is great. What’s original and important for you to know: there’s this cave near Smallville that has all these Native American cave paintings. This show is the first time we see the idea that Kryptonians came to Earth before. They created that kind of backstory for this show. There’s this message on the wall in the cave that’s for Clark, and he’s gradually figuring it out. Then we get Christopher Reeve as this character who’s like a Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking kind of figure, who figures out the messages that have been coming from space—or came from space thirteen years ago when the meteor shower happened—and helps him figure out who he is.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes.
John Mundy
I couldn’t resist having you see this episode with Christopher Reeve in it.
Mandy Kaplan
Chills. I mean, I saw that he was gonna be in it, but it still gave me chills. Was he in any others?
John Mundy
I don’t think so. There might be one other episode, but I think this is it.
Mandy Kaplan
And what about Margot Kidder? Did she ever make it to Smallville?
John Mundy
She appears in an episode as somebody who is Virgil Swann’s assistant. I know she appeared in one episode. I understand she wanted too much money to reappear ongoing, and they wrote her off. They had her shoes appear underneath a pile of dirt, indicating that she was gone.
Mandy Kaplan
Also similar to the Wicked Witch. They’re all connected, John.
John Mundy
Yes. They’re all connected.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, I certainly didn’t mean to breeze over Christopher Reeve, because it was so wonderful and I can’t imagine what it was like for them on set to have him there. It must have been monumental. But I was so thrown when we got to episode nineteen of season six and saw that Lana was married to Lex, and she also seems like she’s turned to a bad guy.
John Mundy
Kind of. Not necessarily bad, but somebody who knows she has to be more astute about protecting herself, and that she doesn’t necessarily trust everybody around her. Some things have happened to Lana in the interim time because she has backstory that involves things that happened to her mother. It develops her character. And if you notice visually, Lana started wearing purple and black because she’s a Luthor now.
Mandy Kaplan
Nice. Would she wear red, yellow, and blue in the beginning?
John Mundy
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, she definitely had depth. It felt like it was a more balanced show in season six, where it wasn’t just about Clark and a monster, but now we’re in the heads of all the characters and we’re following what’s going on.
John Mundy
Yeah. And in the interim—because we were talking about why Lionel Luthor, Lex’s father, is now protecting Clark—he had some sort of encounter with the energy in the caves that enlightened him about Clark. So he’s had a spiritual awakening and that’s why he’s protecting Clark. He’s still manipulative and evil, but now he’s manipulative and evil and trying to protect Clark.
Mandy Kaplan
Lionel was not in the movies or anything. Was he in the comics?
John Mundy
No, he is an original character for the show.
Mandy Kaplan
Do we ever learn what his grand scheme is? Is it as simple as world domination? Why is Lionel so manipulative and Machiavellian?
John Mundy
Because he wants more power.
Mandy Kaplan
More power, more money.
John Mundy
More power, more money. He wants to be able to protect the people that he cares about, not be subject to the whims of those who have more power than him.
Mandy Kaplan
Wait, you say people he cares about? He’s so awful to Lex. Shouldn’t that be the number one person he cares about?
John Mundy
That’s his way of making Lex a stronger man.
Mandy Kaplan
Gross. I don’t care for that as a parenting technique at all.
John Mundy
No. I don’t know why Lionel is like that, but he’s a great character, and John Glover is a great actor.
Mandy Kaplan
Love John Glover, yeah. So I want to look forward in the series. I’m gonna tell everybody my business and then I want to ask a few questions about what happens later in the series. If you have any questions for me or any fun facts or trivia, I want to get to all of it. But first, let me just say that Make Me a Nerd is a production of TruStory FM. Engineering by the Peerless Pete Wright. My theme song is “Wonderstruck” by Jane and the Boy. You can get me on Instagram at Mandy underscore Kaplan underscore Klavens, both with K’s, or on TikTok at Mandy Miscast. If you like what you’re hearing, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Hit that five-star button and write something. You can weigh in on any of the subjects we’re doing and I will see it there. And if you’re feeling really supportive, go to makemeanerd.com/join. Hitting that button will get you your episodes ad-free and early and help me stay on this journey. Okay, big question.
John Mundy
Okay.
Mandy Kaplan
So how many more seasons were there after six? There were three more? Two?
John Mundy
I believe there were four. I think it ran for ten seasons.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh. Goodness, okay. So do Lex and Lana end up together?
John Mundy
No.
Mandy Kaplan
Do Lana and Clark end up together?
John Mundy
No.
Mandy Kaplan
I don’t know why my voice is so high. He ends up with Lois Lane.
John Mundy
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
So where do they all end up? Does Chloe ever find love?
John Mundy
I think she does. I think—when I was watching it, one of the next episodes started playing on the disc. Chloe and Jimmy Olsen got together.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, Jimmy. Because they both have that journalistic background.
John Mundy
Right. Eventually—season one they’re freshmen, season two sophomores, season three juniors, season four seniors—and then they move out, go to Metropolis, and get jobs. They meet Lois Lane.
Mandy Kaplan
Gotcha.
John Mundy
As I understand it, Michael Rosenbaum signed on for seven seasons and then he left the show.
Mandy Kaplan
Really? And I hate to do this, but it’s Rosenbaum.
John Mundy
I’m sorry.
Mandy Kaplan
Michael Rosenbaum. I’m sorry to correct you, but—
John Mundy
No, it’s correct.
Mandy Kaplan
A lot of them left. Kristin Kreuk—wasn’t a lot of them left?
John Mundy
Right. It’s Mandy’s show. Correct away. A lot of them left. Only Tom Welling and Alison Mack stuck around.
Mandy Kaplan
And—
John Mundy
And they get a whole new supporting cast that involves Oliver Queen, who’s Green Arrow.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh. And there was someone that I saw—Justin Hartley, that’s who it was.
John Mundy
Yes, who plays Oliver Queen.
Mandy Kaplan
He plays Oliver Queen. Okay.
John Mundy
Eventually they expand the world. We get cameo appearances that presage the Justice League. We get to see Alan Ritchson playing a character referred to as AC, who is Arthur Curry, Aquaman.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. I don’t know any of those words.
John Mundy
And then we get to see someone playing a Flash character. There’s like one episode where they’re all together. People really like that, but that’s fan service. I didn’t want to throw that at you because it would be too much. Do you feel like these episodes were representational? I was trying to highlight the Clark-Lex dynamic and their relationship.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. It took me on a bit of a journey and I wanted to see it through. I wanted to see the moment they turned. It was cool, and you chose ones that do stand alone very well. Sometimes when I jump into these things I’m so lost as to where we got to and how we got there. So I thought you chose good monster-of-the-week ones where I could just jump in.
John Mundy
Yeah. And with “Nemesis” we get to see them twisting and struggling with the conflict in their relationship. Could this have been different? Eventually, season seven we get to see Lex fully turn evil.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, okay.
John Mundy
And he ends up killing his father.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, and then leaving the show.
John Mundy
So the actor leaves the show. The character is still referred to in the background as doing things.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay.
John Mundy
So—
Mandy Kaplan
Well, I admire that they could keep it going after Lex left and figure out a way to pivot and embrace other cast. That’s fantastic.
John Mundy
It’s really an excellent show. It’s an excellent comic book show.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah.
John Mundy
Let me put it that way.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. It doesn’t stack up for you with something—I’m just gonna say Severance or something like that—that is a unique original entity.
John Mundy
No. Because it can’t. It’s got its walls around it that it has to work within. It’s got rules because it’s a comic book source. Just like with a romance novel, you’ve got rules for how romance novels work that you have to live within. People can’t cheat. Once they meet each other, they can’t have sex with anybody else. Blah, blah, blah. I read romance novels when I’m not watching comic books on TV. I haven’t read the Game Changer series, but I’ve read a couple of other—
Mandy Kaplan
I heard that about you. The Game Changer series, yeah. John implied that you were big into them, but maybe I’m—
John Mundy
Yeah. For some reason there’s like six or seven different MM romance hockey series.
Mandy Kaplan
What is MM? Male on male?
John Mundy
Yes. M slash M, as opposed to M slash F. I don’t know why women—because they’re all women writers—are obsessed with writing about gay hockey players, but they are. And I’m happy to read it because they write good smut.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. Well, John, thank you so much for sharing Smallville with me. This feels overdue—to say I’m becoming a nerd and not having seen this, that’s not gonna fly. So thank you for bringing it to me and for coming back and helping me on my nerdication.
John Mundy
Sure. I’m happy. I hope that you dip your toe in the Smallville again at some point.
Mandy Kaplan
I might do that. All right. Thank you for listening. Thank you, John Mundy, and until next time.

