Smallville, season 2

Cast and characters

Main

Tom Welling as Clark Kent

Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang

Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor

Sam Jones III as Pete Ross

Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan

John Glover as Lionel Luthor

Annette O'Toole as Martha Kent

John Schneider as Jonathan Kent

Recurring

Patrick Cassidy as Henry Small

Mitchell Kosterman as Sheriff Ethan Miller

Emmanuelle Vaugier as Dr. Helen Bryce

Production

Writing

At the start of the second season, developers and showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar brought in Ken Biller to run the newly formed writers' room. For the first season, Gough and Millar usually wrote the final draft of every episode because they were still seeking the show's voice. The pair understood that a writing staff would help "expand [the] show". As part of their expanding, they also brought in comic-book writer Jeph Loeb, who spent his first two weeks seeking fresh ideas for new episodes. One of the decisions the new writing team came up with was letting Pete Ross in on Clark Kent's secret. The decision to let Pete learn Clark's secret was a choice made so that the character would have a function on the show, and allow Clark someone who was not one of his parents. It was also a way to examine the "power of friendship and loyalty", and "the price of having to keep a secret".

Not all of Smallville's stories this season came from the writing staff. Mark Warshaw, who was head of the internet team that wrote the online Smallville articles for the Ledger and Torch, which interwove the television episodes with online, fictional newspapers that continued the stories from the show, was the one that came up with the idea behind "Skinwalker". Warshaw's story was about a Native American girl who falls in love with Clark, while at the same time revealing Clark's destiny to him. The story was bought and given to Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson on the writing staff to work on a screenplay. The episode had a significant role in the series, as it introduced the Kawatche caves—which held the Kryptonian language written on its walls—and explored Clark's origins, while at the same time posing the question that people from Clark's homeworld may have visited Smallville before Clark arrived on the planet.

For the second season, Gough and Millar brought in Christopher Reeve, who portrayed Superman in four feature films, as a guest star for a pivotal role in Clark's life, that of Dr. Virgil Swann. The pair always had intentions of bringing Reeve onto the show, and when they found out that he enjoyed watching the show himself, Gough and Millar decided that they were going to bring him on for season two. They had already crafted a character, Swann, they knew would reveal the truth about Krypton to Clark, and they decided that Reeve would be perfect for the part. Gough and Millar believed it was "natural" for Reeve to be the one to educate Clark about his past, and help him see his future, and the scenes between Reeve and Welling have been described as a "passing of the torch" moment for the series. Along with Reeve, another actor from the Superman films to be brought into the show was Terence Stamp, who portrayed General Zod in the first two Superman films, as the voice of Jor-El. Stamp's role as Zod in the films, coupled with how the writing team portrayed Jor-El's early appearances—giving Clark a message that he will rule Earth with strength—led to fan theories that Jor-El was in fact Zod at the ComicCon that met two months after the episode aired. Gough assured the ComicCon audience that the character was Jor-El, and not Zod in disguise.

Filming

The first episodes filmed for season two was actually the sixth episode aired; "Redux" finished principal photography shortly after filming for "Tempest" ended, which was just before the crew went on their summer break. With "Redux" filming directly after the season one finale, the cast and crew were required to forgo the immediateness of their summer break so they could film; it was not aired in season two until the sixth scheduled airdate because of complications that arose after filming had ended. During the summer hiatus, after director Chris Long finished working on his cut of the film, it was decided the episode needed more visual effects. Since the shots were not originally planned, Entity FX, the show's special effects contractor, had to create completely new shots.

"[In season two's "Redux"], the idea wasn't to do something soap opera-y. As Clark was finding out about his origins, [Lana] was finding out about hers, and trying to forge connections with [her father]. And what would that be like? That was another storyline where there were several episodes where we shot three or four scenes, and by the time it was cut for time there'd be one scene that might seem to come out of nowhere. That can be frustrating. That's just the limitations of TV. If an episode comes in at fifty-four minutes and it's got to be forty-two minutes, you end up chopping lots out, particularly character stuff that focuses on guest characters—we always keep the Clark/Lana scenes!"

The production crew attempted to use money saving techniques when it came time to film scenes in locations other than the usual spots—the Kent farm, Luthor mansion, Smallville High, and the Talon. For instance, the Kent barn was redesigned as Dr. Steven Hamilton's lab for the final climax in "Duplicity". When it came time to create the Kawatche caves for "Skinwalker", the production crew built on a sound stage in Vancouver. The team created movable pieces, which allowed them to rearrange the set, and give the effect that it was larger than it really was. The production team also used sandstone to give the impression that the caves may have once been a riverbed, and thus allowing the crew to not have to worry about putting a ceiling on the set.

When the crew cannot get away with using a sound stage they have to scout actual locations that reflect a similar look to what needs to be filmed; sometimes those on-location shots create problems for the crew. Pitt Meadows, in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver, subbed for the Indonesian landscape the crew needed for the sequence of Whitney's ultimate demise during battle "Visage". This location presented its own problems for the crew, as the swampy waters of the river slowed production as well as the limited daylight available—in November, there is only six hours of daylight in the Pitt Meadow's region. The crew had to return eight days before the scheduled airdate for the episode in order to shoot close-ups of Whitney and the rest of the soldiers. The location that was scouted for the river scene, where Emily Dinsmore pushes Lana off a bridge and into a river, became problematic on the first day of shooting. The river had become too dangerous to shoot the water scenes, so they simply tied Kreuk to a safety line and had Jodelle Micah Ferland (Emily) push her over the edge, but without her actually going into the water. They moved the set to a sound stage where they filmed Kreuk's remaining scenes—where Welling dives into the river to save her—in a water tank.

Digital effects

A big part of the Smallville series relies on the effects it delivers, whether digital (CGI), physical, or special make-up effects. The effects shots, part of the post-production work, were originally developed and added in Los Angeles. At the start of season two, Entity FX, which is based in Santa Monica, California, became the primary special effects team. One of the first jobs the team had was creating the tornado that would suck up Lana in the season two opener, as well as creating the truck that would disintegrate around her as the winds from the tornado pulled it apart. Beck, the visual effects supervisor, describes the effects used to create the tornado as being similar to the techniques used to create the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003). For the scene of Lana's truck spinning around in the tornado, Beck used "animated sprites of real smoke that flew around following particles". Visual effects supervisor John Wash filmed debris hanging from a green screen, like loose straw and mailboxes, which he would "swirl around" the stage. The truck was then built on a computer by Jon Han, who created individual pieces—engine block, fenders, and other similar parts—that he would rip off to give the appearance of the truck breaking apart. Welling and Kreuk were filmed with tracking marks, which the computer used to line up the digital truck around them.

When Entity FX took over the duties of creating the digital effects for the series, they also took over the challenge of crafting effects that would illustrate Clark's super-powered abilities, including the new "heat vision" that was introduced this season. The visual effects for heat vision evolved over the course of the first season, until Gough and Millar agreed on one that reflected their image of what heat vision should look like; they did not want the usual "red beams" or "laser vision". The visuals developed from the idea that they wanted Clark to be able to use it in front of people without them being able to see it. What emerged was a "heat ripple" from "distorting the frame". Wash explained what the creators were looking for:"[Gough and Millar] wanted to be fairly accurate in terms of what you might see from something that was searingly hot traveling through the air, like a disturbance of the atmosphere. We keyed our research off the little ripples that you see if a light goes past a hotplate and reflects on a wall. We used a computer to create a conical version of that effect that could emanate from Clark's eyes, in combination with a little effect". They used "blobs of heat vision" instead of "constant rays" for the first instances of Clark using his ability, in an effort to simulate Clark's attempts to control it. A couple of episodes later in "Red", the special effects team would use similar techniques for red kryptonite. To illustrate red kryptonite's effect on Clark, and it releasing his inhibitions, the special effects team crafted digital effects in his eyes. Brian Harding tweaked the effects they were already using for Clark's heat vision, giving them a "little devilish, hellish red flicker" in Clark's iris. To help illustrate Clark's super speed, Beck and his team would slow down and speed up background settings in a single shot. For example, in "Ryan", when Clark speeds up to the camera everything else slows to a stop—leaves stop blowing and birds are frozen in mid-flight—then everything begins moving normally as Clark races away from the camera. Entity FX also adds a blurring effect to Clark's body, as well as a distortion to the background to help further illustrate the speed at which Clark travels.

Physical effects

Sometimes the digital effects are not necessary, even when they are expected. For the scene where Joe Morton suffers a fatal seizure, the crew used an under-crank shooting technique, to speed up the movements of Morton's character, coupled with Morton's own shaking. In "Precipice", Wash assisted the digital effects team when the production crew was filming a scene that was going to involve Clark X-raying a car with a group of teenagers in it. To achieve the effect of Clark X-raying a SUV, Wash had all the actors in the SUV sit on apple boxes to get them at the representative height they would be in the SUV. The actors then went through all the motions they needed in order to "sell the X-ray effect". For season two, Wash added prosthetic veins to Welling's hands, which would move when he moved, to help simulate the kryptonite poisoning his character would undergo. Then, in post-production, Entity FX would add a green hue to them, and digitally hide the prosthetics when Clark was not affected by the kryptonite; in the first season, there were no physical prosthetics and all effects were done digitally.

Apart from digital, the physical effects performed in Smallville are key, especially when dealing with the villains that Clark must fight in each episode. In "Nocturne", Byron is transformed into a monster with superhuman strength. To demonstrate Byron's strength, the stunt team did a fifty-five foot "chuck", where Bryon throws Clark across the front lawn. To accomplish the task they connected a wire to the stunt man's back, so when Bryon hits "Clark" they can use a crane and hydraulic system, positioned one hundred feet in the air, to pull the stunt man. Twenty-five feet into the pull the wire is released and the stunt man flies the rest of the distance to the landing pad. In "Visage", the bone-morphing Tina returns disguised as Whitney. When she learns that Lana wants Clark, she decides to become Clark. The real Clark confronts Tina, which results in a physical fight between the two Clarks. The fight sequence between the two Clarks originally had more choreographed shots, but had to be cut down to five actions, as the fight sequence was pushing twenty minutes. For the scene, Welling performed all of his stunts alongside his usual stunt double, Christopher Sayour, who doubled as the "second Clark" in the sequence. For the actual stunt of leaping from the Daily Planet to the LuthorCorp building, the production team hooked Welling to a "parallelogram" on the studio greenscreen stage, and then filmed him running across a platform and leaping into the air. The parallelogram rig floated him in midair as he went over the building sill and began his downward trajectory. Although Welling did the initial stunt, his stunt double took over the chore of sliding through the glass as it explodes on contact. Welling is not the only actor to perform his own stunts. Kreuk performed her own stunts for the bridge scene in "Dichotic", where she had to hang 500 feet (150 m) above the river. Her willingness to perform her own stunts saved the team money on greenscreen effects, or stunt doubles that would have been used in her place. Though the cost of using a greenscreen was saved, Entity FX still had to digitally remove all the wire harnesses from the scene, which is an effect that goes unnoticed in the final product of the majority of episodes.

Tie-in

Beginning during this season, Mack's character, Chloe Sullivan, starred in a promotional tie-in series, Smallville: Chloe Chronicles. An internet based mini-episode wrapped up "unfinished business" from the television series. In this first volume, Chloe investigates events which led to the death of Earl Jenkins, who held Chloe and her friends hostage at the LuthorCorp plant in the first-season episode "Jitters". It aired between April 29 and May 20, 2003, and was exclusive to AOL subscribers.

Reception

Ratings for Smallville's second season were up 23% from the same point last year. It also surpassed 7th Heaven as The WB's most popular show. Gough contributes much of the second season's success to the family dynamic between Clark and his parents, whose emotional core provided a large part of the appeal, as was the move away from the overused "freak of the week" story lines. Gough stated that "most of the time (on TV), the kids are smart, the parents are clueless and they never talk to each other. Ours is the antithesis of that. He turns to them and relies on their guidance". Smallville's adjustment proved successful, as the second season averaged 6.3 million viewers, up from 5.9 million viewers in season one. That was also a move to #113 overall in the Nielsen ratings, up from #115 the year before. The season's fourth episode, "Red", the season's seventeenth episode "Rosetta", and the season finale, "Exodus", were selected in The Futon Critic's 50 best episodes of 2002 and 2003, respectively. "Red" placed 9th, while "Rosetta" placed 22nd, and "Exodus" placed 35th.

The season received mostly favorable reviews. IGN's Jeremy Conrad, gave the second season a score of 8.0/10, stating it was "a clear improvement over season [one] ... This season has better pacing, more interesting story arcs, better special effects, and more importantly, better episodes". When referring to Christopher Reeve's guest appearance on the show, the review went as far as calling it "the best [episode] the show has delivered in its current lifespan ... Reeve is the best special guest star yet." Another review called the show "excellent" and called the acting of Welling, Rosenbaum, and Kreuk "phenomenal". Jennifer Contino from Sequential Tart, a comic-book website, observed that the season was more about "the characters and their relationships", rather than the show's reputable "villain-of-the-week" style. She complimented the red kryptonite that the season introduced into the series, saying that it was fun to see heroes turn bad or see the good guy become a little tarnished or confused. In 2009, TV Guide ranked "Rosetta" 81st on its list of the 100 Greatest Episodes.

Awards

The visual effects team was recognized by the Visual Effects Society with a 2004 VES Award for Outstanding Compositing in a Televised Program, Music Video or Commercial, for the work they did on "Accelerate". That same year, they won the Outstanding Matte Painting in a Televised Program, Music Video, or Commercial award for "Insurgence". In the 2003 Teen Choice Awards, Welling and Kreuk were nominated for Choice TV Actor and Actress; Mack and Rosenbaum were both nominated for Choice Sidekick, and the series was nominated for Choice TV – Action/Adventure. In 2004, "Rosetta" was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and actress Jodelle Ferland was nominated for a Young Artist Award for her portrayal of Emily Dinsmore in "Accelerate". For the 29th Annual Saturn Awards, Welling and Kreuk received nominations for Best Actor/Actress, Rosenbaum and Glover both received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and the second season was nominated for Best Network Television Series. The DVD release won the Saturn Award for Best DVD Television Release.

Home media release

The complete second season of Smallville was released on May 18, 2004, in North America. Additional releases in region 2 and region 4 took place on September 17, 2004, and January 1, 2005, respectively. The DVD box set included various special features, including episode commentary, The Chloe Chronicles, a featurette on the special effects of Smallville, and a documentary on Christopher Reeve's involvement this season. For the 20th anniversary, the complete series was released for the first time on Blu-ray on October 16, 2021. The Blu-ray release marks the first time when season 2 was released in its native high-definition resolution.