BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

By Truth or Derrick

 

When it started, I was silly to think it would last forever.  These things never last, although we teenagers like to think they will never end.  There was just so much emotion built up in it all — I had put so much of myself in the relationship, so much time, so much thought…and now it’s gone.

 

I am speaking, of course, of my recent break-up with the WB’s “Smallville.”

 

And in this case, the relationship’s crumbling is all their fault.

 

But before I jump right into hateful criticisms, let me explain.  This story is one that goes way back.  I was a young, naive freshman who had a dream.

Everybody had a favorite show.  All my friends all had favorite shows.  I wanted one, too.  But it couldn’t just be any show, I reasoned.  My favorite show had to have a few certain qualities.

 

First of all, I needed to have never missed an episode.  That, to my regret, ruled out “Pokemon” and “The 6:00 News.”

 

So I continued my search, until that fateful day when I was carelessly flipping through the channels and I saw a certain advertisement for an upcoming show.

 

“Before the legend, there was Smallville,” the luscious-sounding man’s voice said.

My heart raced.  What was the legend?  Where was Smallville?  But the fact that it was a city intrigued me. Also appealing were the cornfields.

 

So I made sure I taped the pilot.  And watching it, I discovered I loved it even more than I thought I did!  It was about a teenage Superman, my idol, the one whose “S” I have imprinted on my favorite tie, the one whom I revered and looked up to…the man of steel.

 

It wasn’t long before I developed other reasons for the show.  I realized that the main female character, Lana, was … a great actress!  So after posting my comments of love on the WB website, I came across a life-size poster of her, and immediately printed it out and assembled the 21 pieces, (7 x 3), and taped them together.

 

As time went on, and more and more powers were introduced, my love for the show grew.  It also had some good writing, but it never strayed from what I wanted: classic superman action scenes, bizarre kryptonite-enhanced bad guys that ate people, and of course Lana.

 

I went through the first two seasons, from beginning to end, intrigued by the plot of Lex Luthor being a good friend to the young Clark, never missing an episode.

 

By now, most of the community knew all about me and “Smallville.”   It was I whom people turned to looking for a tape of a missed episode.  My parents came to accept my routine “Smallville” parties, and often made cookies or pizza for my friends and me.

 

But finally, it hit me.

 

“Next week, don’t miss an all-new ‘Smallvlle’” the luscious man on the commercial, whose voice had by now gotten exceedingly deeper and scarier, would say on top of images of Clark putting on red kryptonite to release all his inhibitions, which always involved yelling, punching and making out.

 

Soon also, the show stopped using its ability to intrigue its viewers, and resorted to ways in which it could titillate them.  Trailers like this put me off, but I soon discovered that the trailers typically had nothing to do with the actual occurrences of the episode.

 

Before long, though, it got so extreme, Lana was taking off her clothes and Chloe was using the dark side of her inhuman journalistic powers to work for utter evil.  Pete had found out all about Clark’s powers, Clark had been seduced by his teacher and his mom cried a lot and made cookies.

 

“Why do I even watch this show?” I found myself asking on an uncomfortably regular basis.  It was no longer for the intrigue; no one except Lex could really act and the writers consistently replaced quality writing with sex appeal.

 

So I took down my poster and put up one of Hilary Duff.

 

But that’s a completely other story.