It's hard to believe that it's been over 8 years since this amazing tale of the Man of Steel's beginnings growing up in the town of Smallville first hit the airwaves. A lot has changed over time but one thing that has remained consistent is the overall quality of the show and its ability to keep the viewer tuning back in week after week. Sure there might be one too many 'saved-in-the-nick-of-time' moments but with any Superman-esq show that's to be expected.

The true test of a show's ability to endure is a change from its initial setting. After 4 years in High School in Smallville our heroes started the slow journey to a more Metropolis based existence. They still scoot back to the Kent Farm and the Talon Coffee Shop back in Smallville every now and then but Clark Kent's feet are now firmly pressed on the concrete streets of the big city rather than the dirt roads of where he grew up.

Along with this change in venue the show had to endure the loss of two of its top three characters this year when Michael Rosenbaum and Kristin Kreuk opted not to extend their contracts to reprise their roles as Lex Luthor and Lana Lang respectively. There was speculation as to whether or not the show would be able to survive their departures but after a successful eighth season and now a ninth on the way, I'd say the answer is pretty clear. It seems that not even that Kryptonite bullet could kill this series.

The loss of Lana and Lex ended up opening the door to some new story lines that proved to be almost as interesting as the Clark, Lana, Lex triangle. They had pretty much gone as far as they could with that one. So when faced with the possibility of not having a main villain each week the writers did the smartest thing they could do. They introduced a scarier, more deadly villain in his place. Smallville"¦. Meet Doomsday!

Not to worry they didn't leave the human element out of this new triangle because they've also given us Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) the new acting head of Luthorcorp. Her journey in a single season was impressive; starting out as a clear Lex Luthor stand in but ultimately becoming a layered character all her own. I tend to think of Tess and Doomsday as the proverbial carrot and the stick. Tess will try to talk her way into and out of things whereas Doomsday is all about destruction. There's far less making out in the new Clark, Tess, Doomsday triangle but it works.

When Doomsday isn't the horrific alien monster that sometimes looks a little too much like a Jem Hadar soldier from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for my taste, he masquerades as Davis Bloom (the smoldering hot Sam Witwer) an E.M.T. working

in Metropolis. Always the first guy on the scene of terrible murders and disasters, Davis initially appears to be one of the good guys, but we all know how that turns out. For once Clark has a real reason besides being threatened by a new cock of the walk showing up to be put off by Davis. Meeting the man who was created to kill you can't be a fun time for anyone, even Supes himself.

Along with the new characters we have some returning favorites as well. Season six's Laura Vandervoort returns as Clark's Kryptonian cousin Kara, John Jones a.k.a. the Martian Manhunter (Phil Morris) is back and ultimately sans powers, and the founding members of the Justice League, Flash (Kyle Gallner), Aquaman (Alan Ritchson), and Black Canary (Alaina Huffman) show up as well.

Also in that group but deserving special attention is Justin Hartley who joined the cast as a series regular for this season as Oliver Queen a.k.a. The Green Arrow. I never thought Green Arrow would be an interesting character and I definitely never thought he'd be so good that his scenes and episodes would actually take the spotlight away from Clark, but that's exactly what happens. Hartley's sarcastic wit, wry smile and overall astounding sex appeal makes him perfectly suited to play this part. I was excited for him to play Aquaman in his own series but I'd say this character probably plays more to his strengths.

Back to those that we lost, when I first heard that Lana Lang was leaving Smallville for good I was overjoyed. It didn't make sense having all these love interests surrounding Clark when we all know that eventually he has to end up with Lois. Plus, I always felt like Lana stole too much attention away from Chloe. But when she returned this year for her three episode arc I was blown away by how much power and gravitas she added to those three hours. I guess it's true what they say, you don't know what you've got until it's gone and I think that was the case with Lana. We needed her to leave and return to reboot the character and the path that she was on. The Lana that we see come back is tougher, smarter and more evolved than she was when she left which makes the fact that she left again that much harder.

Don't get me wrong this departure for her as a character was far more gratifying than the previous year's season finale when a taped message saying 'don't come looking for me,' was all we got. But I did wish she could have hung around for a few more episodes before leaving again. Clark and Lana's final goodbye is amazing and is definitely the stuff of comic book superhero legends. I'm not going to give it away incase anyone hasn't

seen the full season yet, but suffice it to say it gives a perfectly rational explanation as to why they can't be together and at the same time frees up Clarks feelings in a way that will make his eventual love for Lois believable. It turns out he actually had two perfect loves in his lifetime that were equally important to him.

Season eight also brings new levels to the development of my favorite returning character the spunky, can always be trusted to be loyal but never gets the guy, Chloe Sullivan played by the adorable Allison Mack. I think one of the reasons I started to dislike Lana so much was because Chloe was so perfect for Clark but he could never see it because he was always so obsessed with Lana Lang. This year Chloe comes into her own and has to deal with everything from a failed marriage to photog Jimmy Olsen (Aaron Ashmore) to a super computer brain infection curtsey of Brainiac and ohh yeah being the love interest of the ultimate destroyer of mankind, Doomsday. Now tell me this poor girl doesn't always get the short end of the stick!

Allison does an amazing job with all of the trials she's put through throughout the season and always gives her emotional all. I am never, ever bored watching this character. She has so many different layers to her personality and her emotions it seems that she's never given a clear path; she always has to wrestle with impossible situations. A quick example is when she discovers that Davis is destined to kill Clark but promises that he won't if she stays with him, what does she do? You guessed it; she sacrifices herself and stays with a terrifying murderous monster just to protect her friend. Well, he's only terrifying when he transforms into Doomsday when he's Davis Bloom he is quite possibly hotter than Superman himself! But it was still a difficult choice to make.

The writing may get a little dry from time to time with a few characters but the Chloe storylines always seem to be among the most interesting and engaging. The show owes her a lot for sticking around as long as she has.

There are of course some downsides to the show being on the air for as long as it has been. As of 2009 star Tom Welling has been in 179 episodes of Smallville and you can start to see a bit of repetition finding its way into his performance as Clark Kent. At times it seems like he's 'phoning it in' as they say but not so much so that it ruins the character or kills a moment; it just feels like there could be more going on in some scenes than he's delivering.

He's definitely the only reason the show is continuing because obviously without him

they couldn't continue. But I'm left with this unsettled feeling that Tom Welling made the perfect Super-Boy but as time approaches to transition into Super-Man I'm just not buying it as much.

Visually the show can also get a little boring as they always use the same sets over and over again rather than building new ones or going on new locations. It's pretty much the Kent Farm, the Talon, the Daily Planet basement, the Daily Planet roof top, the Luthor Mansion, the Luthorcorp Office, Oliver Queen's apartment, Oliver Queen's jet, Metropolis Hospital, Smallville hospital, the Fortress of Solitude, and of course that one stretch of back lot that's supposed to be all of Metropolis even though it's just the one corner with the coffee shop and a pharmacy. It may sound like a lot of different locations when you list them out like that but trust me after watching 22 episodes back-to-back you find yourself asking why everything is so small (no pun intended).

Now on to the standard DVD vs. Blu-ray debacle. Warner Bros was kind enough to send me both sets so that I could compare and contrast them which was an eye opening experience to say the least. One would assume that choosing the higher quality Blu-ray would be a no-brainer but it turned out to be more complex than that. There are some things that you get with the regular DVD set that you don't on Blu-ray. For instance the Blu-ray does not have that cool video montage set to the theme song that automatically starts when you pop in the disc before you make a selection. The Blu-ray menu can only be accessed while the DVD is playing and shows up along the bottom of the screen rather than on its own separate page. Which means if you want to watch an episode and then watch the deleted scenes from that episode you have to keep going back and forth to that lower menu and it's a pain in the ass when there's more than one deleted scene. The Blu-ray also skimped on the artwork found on the discs themselves. They just reused the cover art of Clark and Lois together on each disc; on the standard edition they have awesome character shots of different cast members on each one. On the up side for Blu-ray though there are fewer discs which means smaller packaging so easier storage and let's be honest the episodes themselves look amazing! There really is no substitute for watching any kind of action adventure series with cool special effects in Blu-ray quality. So even though the menus suck, there aren't as many options and or artwork included with it, I'd go Blu-ray just because of how amazingly clear the shows are.

In addition to the deleted scenes, which are always great to have because who doesn't want

more Smallville, we have some pretty cool featurettes as well. The first is one following actress turned director Allison Mack through her directorial debut on Smallville with the episode Power. There are some great interviews here and the piece is very well edited. I knew I liked her before but now I'm sure I'd adore her in person!

The second is a featurettes outlining the process from concept to execution of creating the character of Doomsday. Again, lots of great interviews and it gives you a real sense of what a huge risk they were taking with this character and probably made me appreciate the end result a little more.

Unfortunately that's the end of the special features. I was hoping for some more interviews or some more behind-the-scenes features or maybe a gag reel or something else to punch things up a bit, but sadly there was nothing else.

If you've never watched this show before I wouldn't recommend starting here. Smallville is an amazing show that has had some stand out mind blowingly good seasons; eight is a good season but not the best. If you're a fan you're gonna pick this one up anyway to round out your collection as I was happy to do. But if you're a newbie go back to the beginning and start with the first season and go from there.

Season Grade: B-

DVD Features Grade: C+

Overall Grade: B-