Smallville season 7

Episodes

• In Canada, all season seven episodes originally aired one day earlier than their normal United States airings.

Cast and characters

Main article: List of Smallville characters

Main

• Tom Welling as Clark Kent
  • Welling also portrays Bizarro in three episodes
• Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor
• Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang
• Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan
• Erica Durance as Lois Lane
• Aaron Ashmore as Jimmy Olsen
• Laura Vandervoort as Kara Kent
• John Glover as Lionel Luthor

Recurring

• Anna Galvin as Gina
• Terence Stamp as the voice of Jor-El
• Michael Cassidy as Grant Gabriel
• James Marsters as Brainiac / Milton Fine

Production

Writer's strike

On November 5, 2007, a strike began between the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). A prolonged strike would have forced television shows to end their seasons early, because no scripts could be written until a settlement had been reached. The strike pushed back Smallvilles scheduling, as the episode "Siren", which was originally intended to be aired on January 10, 2008, was moved to a February 7 airdate. According to developers and showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, they were able to complete the scripts for 15 episodes and the studio planned to produce all of them. They also explained that the fifteenth episode would have had a cliffhanger ending. The shortened schedule also meant Allison Mack would not see her directorial debut for the season's 20th episode as was originally planned. This allowed the shooting of five new episodes that began airing on April 17. This was in addition to the episodes that had already been filmed, leaving the season total at 20 episodes.

Characters

For season seven, the Smallville team would bring in two new regular cast members, Jimmy Olsen, who first appeared as a recurring guest in season six, and Kara, Clark Kent's biological cousin. In July 2007, Canadian actress Laura Vandervoort was cast to portray Kara. According to Gough and Millar, her backstory is that she was sent to look after Kal-El, but was stuck in suspended animation for eighteen years. When the dam broke in the season six finale "Phantom", she was set free. She has all of Clark's abilities, as well as the ability to fly. Gough iterated that Kara will not wear any version of the Supergirl costume. At the same time, Michael Cassidy was cast as the new editor of the Daily Planet, Grant Gabriel. Grang was designed to be Lois Lane' new love interest; he appeared in seven episodes.

Smallville also brought in more actors with previous connections to the Superman lore. Helen Slater, who portrayed Supergirl in the 1984 film of the same name, was cast as Lara, Clark's biological mother. She made appearances in episodes six and eight, titled "Lara" and "Blue", respectively. Dean Cain, who played Superman in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993–1997), had a guest role as "evil Dr. Curtis Knox" in the fourth episode "Cure". Marc McClure, who portrayed Jimmy Olsen in all of the Superman films as well as in Supergirl, was brought in to play a Kryptonian scientist named Dax-Ur for the episode "Persona". James Marsters was brought back to reprise his role as Milton Fine / Brainiac in a four-episode arc slated for January 2008; Marsters had not appeared on the show since the season five finale "Vessel". Another character from the DC Comics universe arriving on Smallville was the Black Canary. The character was intended to be featured in the January 10, 2008 episode "Siren", but the Writers' Strike pushed scheduling back to February 7. Black Canary was portrayed by Canadian actress Alaina Huffman, and the episode featured the return of Justin Hartley as Oliver Queen / Green Arrow. This season also saw the return of former series regular Sam Jones III as Pete Ross, after a four-year absence.

Tie-ins

In 2008, The CW entered into a partnership with the makers of Stride brand chewing-gum to give viewers the opportunity to create their own Smallville digital comic, titled Smallville: Visions. The writers and producers developed the comic's beginning and end, but allowed viewers to provide the middle. The CW began this tie-in campaign with the March 13 episode "Hero", where Pete Ross develops superhuman elasticity after chewing some kryptonite-infused Stride gum. Going to The CW's website, viewers voted on one of two options—each adding four pages to the comic—every Tuesday and Thursday until the campaign ended on April 7. For season seven, Smallville again worked with Sprint, bringing its customers "mobisodes" featuring Clark's cousin Kara, titled Smallville Legends: Kara and the Chronicles of Krypton.

Reception

The season premiere was watched by 5.18 million viewers, marking an increase from the previous season finale, "Phantom", which was viewed by 4.14 million. "Bizarro" and "Cure" were also the highest-rated episodes of the season, both being seen by 5.18 million viewers and scoring a 1.8 in the Nielsen rating in the 2 year old and up demographic. Smallville ranked as the 175th most-watched television series, out of 220, for the 2007–08 television year.

Awards

"Bizarro" was nominated for a VES award in Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program or Commercial, specifically for the flood scene; it was also nominated for, and won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series. In 2009, the season received five Teen Choice Awards nominations. The nominations include Choice TV Show: Action Adventure, Choice TV Actor: Action Adventure for Welling, Choice TV Actress: Action Adventure for Kreuk, Choice TV: Villain for Rosenbaum, and Choice TV: Sidekick for Mack.

Home media release

The complete seventh season of Smallville was released on September 9, 2008, in North America in both DVD and Blu-ray format. The DVD and Blu-ray box set were also released in region 2 and region 4 on October 13, 2008, and March 3, 2009, respectively. The box set included various special features, including episode commentary, a documentary on the Supergirl character, a featurette on the different actors to portray Jimmy Olsen, as well as mobisodes for Smallville Legends.

Notes

References

References

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