PhoenixRising

Seriously, I think the kryptonite must've affected Clark's brain. You cannot just be friends with this girl.

TomsEnough

^ Clark just didn't like Chloe in that way. He loved her as a great friend!

PhoenixRising

I beg to differ, after that kiss at the Daily Planet. He did admit under red kryptonite that he had been thinking about her like that.

TomsEnough

^ "I can't say I haven't thought about it." ?

livstevi21

And he definitely felt something for her at the end of S1. They went to the spring formal together after all. And they were about to kiss in Tempest if it wasn't for those darn tornadoes ruining their moment.

TomsEnough

^ They had something together for sure.

PhoenixRising

Exactly.


Yep, I felt the same way, Liv. I always say, if you don't want your audience to want two characters together, don't tease or imply that they may get together. Chekhov's Gun.

livstevi21

Yeah, teasing us was just mean.

TomsEnough

Clark and Chloe together were always just a tease.

PhoenixRising

But you don't tease your audience, Fatima. If you develop it and imply it, you must follow through on it. Clark/Lana had five seasons. To not go with Clark/Chloe because you were too afraid of Clana fans and had to squeeze two more seasons of that stuff after it was no longer important to the story was just wrong.

TomsEnough

I think the Clark & Lana fans were just more than Clark & Chloe fans.

PhoenixRising

Possibly, but many Clark/Lana fans weren't Superman fans, because everyone knows that Clark ends up with Lois, so being a Clark/Lana fan was redundant. Also, since Chloe was created to be a proto-Lois, there did come a point in the story where she just fit into Clark's storyline better than Lana did.

The mistake I think that Smallville made was in trying to promote Clark/Lana like a standard young adult romance typical of other shows like Dawson's Creek or The OC. What they forgot is that even those shows knew when to move on and end a story. Did Dawson end up with Joey? No, she ended up with Pacey. Did Ryan end up with Marissa? No, the OC had the guts to kill off Marissa after only three seasons because, as the show's creators put it, "We were … under tremendous pressure to do something with that level of drama. Killing a series regular came down from the top. If we wanted a season four, we’d have to do something like that.”

When I hear about "pressure from the top," it makes me suspect that Smallville's creators were similarly pressured to keep Lana around because they were too afraid of what to do with the show without the Clark/Lana storyline. But the fact is that the Clark/Lana storyline was a high school romance that only worked in high school, and you can't stay in high school forever. Once the show made it to season 5 and high school ended, they should've done what The O.C. did, which is move on. Especially when you have Lois Lane on the show as a constant reminder to the audience that Lana is destined to never end up with Clark.

I heard that Clana fans went crazy when Lois Lane showed up in season 4 because they had somehow convinced themselves that the inevitable wouldn't happen. See, that's why the showrunners screwed up with Clark and Lana. If you know they won't end up together, then you can't make them your central love story and have Clark act like she's the love of his life, because the deeper you dig that hole, the harder it's gonna be to dig your way out of it.

eternalfate

PhoenixRising

Wow, really? I didn't know that Chlark was a bigger fanbase than Clana by that point. Thanks for letting me know, Tia.

But by season 5 that would make sense since it was mostly Chlark by that point.

And yes, Lois' arrival should have ended the Clana bandwagon altogether, logically speaking.


Yeah, this latest episode we just watched was really fascinating in terms of how far Chloe had come by the end of the show. I can barely believe that this is the same woman who once had her "Wall of Weird" at her high school.

TomsEnough