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Season One: Metamorphosis - Hothead - X-Ray - Cool - Hourglass - Craving - Jitters - Rogue - Shimmer - Hug - Leech - Kinetic - Zero - Nicodemus - Stray - Reaper - Drone - Crush - Obscura - Tempest

PILOT - Series Premiere

First aired October 16, 2001

Official Description - Detailed Description - Notes

See also: Quotes - Music - Transcripts

The CW's Official Description:

Written by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar
Directed by David Nutter

October, 1989: A meteor shower rains down on Smallville, Kansas, wreaking havoc upon the inhabitants. Among those killed are Lewis and Laura Lang. Their three-year-old daughter, Lana, witnesses their tragic death while in her Aunt Nell's arms. Outside of town, nine-year-old Lex Luthor, son of corporate mogul Lionel Luthor, and heir to "LuthorCorp," wanders into a nearby cornfield. There he encounters a teenage boy, Jeremy Creek. Jeremy has been stripped and tied to a stake like a scarecrow - the victim of a traditional high school homecoming game prank. The meteors crash into the field, leaving Jeremy unconscious, and young Lex bald. Jonathan and Martha Kent, a handsome, childless couple, are returning to their farm when their truck is run off the road by falling meteors. They awaken from the crash, and see a small boy peering in through the window at them. The Kents discover the boy's spaceship, which has fallen undetected to earth among the meteors. Unable to have children of their own, they decide to adopt the boy and keep his origins a secret. They name him Clark.

The Present Day: Clark Kent is now in the prime of his adolescence. Incredibly strong and fast, handsome yet awkward, he longs to "get though high school without being a total loser." His parents keep him on a tight leash, excluding him from many activities, for fear that his unique abilities will be discovered or cause an accident. Clark pines for the now grown and beautiful Lana Lang. Lana is the quintessential "popular girl" of Smallville High - smart, pretty, a cheerleader, and dating the school's star quarterback, Whitney Fordman. Clark's friends, Pete Ross and Chloe Sullivan, joke that Clark "can't get within five feet of Lana Lang, without turning into a total freak show." Clark's clumsiness around Lana seems to be provoked by the strange green pendant Lana wears around her neck. Chloe is obsessed with folklore about the paranormal activity that pervades Smallville; and Pete has a scheme to join the football team. He wants Clark to join with him, reasoning that membership on the football team will keep them from being chosen as this year's "Scarecrow" - the kid chosen by the football players to be strung up in a corn field. Unfortunately, football is one such activity that Clark's father has forbidden him to engage in. On his way home from school, Clark is hit by a Porsche, driven by Lex Luthor. The car and Clark crash through the side of the bridge, and into the river below. Clark is unscathed, and ripping open the roof of the Porsche, pulls the unconscious Lex from the wreck to shore. Wondering how he survived the crash, Clark revives Lex.

Jeremy Creek, the 1989 "Scarecrow," appears at a auto repair shop one evening, not having aged a day. He attacks a mechanic, who was one of the football players that strung him up in the field. Bolts of lightening shoot out of Jeremy's body, and electrocute the man to death. Meanwhile, at the Kent farm, Clark arrives home from school to find a new pick-up truck in the driveway. It is a gift from Lex Luthor. Clark's father tells him he cannot keep the truck. He reasons that being a hero doesn't require rewards, and besides, much of the Luthors' money was swindled from the residents of Smallville. Clark is very upset by this, compounded with his anxiety about surviving the accident, and having super-human strength. He tells his father, "I'd give anything to be normal!" Jonathan is then motivated to tell Clark of his true origins. He explains how Clark came to earth in a spaceship with the meteor shower. He gives him a strange metal plate they found in his ship, with engravings in an unknown language. Jonathan tells Clark that he is meant for something special, and should look at his abilities as gifts. This doesn't help Clark feel any better, and he runs off to do some thinking. That night, Clark wanders through a quaint local graveyard, where he encounters Lana. Lana goes there to visit her parents' grave, and to speak to them as if they were present. Clark does not feel sick around Lana now, because she has given her necklace to Whitney for luck. Clark and Lana share their angst ("Do you ever feel like your life was supposed to be something else?") and discover that they have a lot in common. Clark walks her home, where Lana kisses him on the cheek. Jealous, Whitney watches them from the shadows.

The next day, Clark returns the new pick-up to Lex at his mansion. Lex knows that Jonathan doesn't like him, but he hopes that he and Clark can still be friends. Meanwhile, Chloe and Pete are at a crime scene, taking photos for the school paper, "The Torch." Another ex-football star has been electrocuted. They notice Jeremy, a strange face in the crowd, and snap his photo. At school, they find Jeremy's photo in the 1989 yearbook, and learn that he was that year's "Scarecrow." They tell Clark that since the meteor shower, Jeremy has been in a coma. An electrical storm came through a few days ago, and all the power went out at the hospital. When it came back on, Jeremy had disappeared. Now he is seeking revenge on the football players who strung him up. Chloe surmises that the meteor strike must have somehow altered Jeremy's body, causing it to have not aged and all, and giving it the capacity to store and control electricity. Clark finds Chloe's theory far-fetched, so she shows him the "Wall of Weird." - a huge collection of articles on the strange occurrences in Smallville since the meteor shower. Clark sees a picture of the young orphan Lana, and suddenly believes that his arrival with the meteor shower makes him complicit in her parents' deaths, as well as all the other unnatural incidents in town. Clark runs from the school, riddled with guilt. He's stopped by Whitney and some of his football buddies. In a rage of jealousy, Whitney grabs Clark. Clark moves to defend himself but Whitney is wearing Lana's necklace, and Clark is weak with pain. Whitney sees Clark looking at the necklace and puts it around Clark's neck. They throw Clark in the back of a truck and drive off.

Night. Clark is stripped to his boxer shorts and hung on a pole in a cornfield, a red "S" painted on his chest. Lana's necklace still dangles from his neck, causing Clark great pain. Jeremy arrives and tells Clark this has to end. Clark warns Jeremy to stay away from his friends, but Jeremy refuses and leaves for the homecoming dance. Lex sees Jeremy leaving the field and goes to investigate. Finding Clark, Lex frees him and the necklace falls off. Instantly revived, Clark quickly dresses and takes off, leaving Lex to examine Lana's necklace. At Smallville High, the homecoming dance is in full swing while Jeremy is outside preparing his revenge. Clark arrives and again asks Jeremy to stop. Jeremy tries to use his electrocution power on Clark, but Clark is unharmed and hurls Jeremy across the alley. Jeremy then drives a truck into Clark, carrying them both through a brick wall and smashing open a water main. The truck begins to fill with water and Jeremy's electricity power rages out of control. Jeremy shocks himself into unconsciousness. As he comes to, he has no memory of what he's done or what has gone on. As the dance ends, Whitney and Lana, the homecoming king and queen, exit only to find that Whitney and buddies' trucks have been stacked one on top of the other. Later, in his loft, Clark tells Jonathan he's glad it was Martha and he who found him. Then Lana arrives. She's come to collect her dance. Clark and she share a special moment as they dance gently, but Clark's reverie is broken by the sound of horns honking. Lana is gone - Clark was daydreaming. "Thanks for the dance, Lana."

Detailed Description:

By Nadine

We first witness the events of October 1989, when a meteor shower hit the town of Smallville, Kansas. We see what happens to many of the habitants at the precise moment when the meteors hit.
Martha and Jonathan Kent (Annette O'Toole and John Schneider), a couple who own a farm on the outskirts of Smallville are driving home by the cornfields. Their truck is hit by the shower, and when they wake up from the accident, they see a 4 year old little boy staring at them through the truck window. Upon further investigation, they discover a spaceship in the cornfields. The couple cannot have children, and decide to take the child home, hide the spaceship and adopt him as their own. He is named Clark.
The meteor shower also kills many, including Lewis and Laura Lang. Both their daughter Lana and her Aunt Nell (Sarah-Jane Redmond) witness this tragedy as they stand in front of Nell's flower shop.
At the same time, a 9 year old boy named Lex is wondering through the cornfields, where he comes across a teenager named Jeremy Creek (Adrian McMorran) who has been tied up like a scarecrow by high school students in the yearly "hazing" ritual. At that moment, the meteors hit the cornfields, and both are hit, when Lex gets up, he is bald.

Twelve years later, and Clark Kent (Tom Welling) is 16 and in high school. Clark has discovered certain of his abilities, and his parents are extremely protective of him, afraid that these abilities will be discovered. Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) is the popular cheerleader, who is dating Whitney Fordman (Eric Johnson), the gorgeous and ever-popular quarterback.
Clark's best friends are Pete Ross (Sam Jones III), who recently joined the football team in order to avoid the yearly "hazing" ritual, and Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack), the editor of the school newspaper, The Smallville Torch. She is also obsessed with the various strange events that have occurred ever since the meteor shower, and collects hundred of articles and pictures on her "wall of weird".
We find out that Clark has a crush on Lana, but becomes extremely clumsy when he gets anywhere near her. This is due to the necklace she is wearing around her neck, made of a strange green rock that begins glowing when Clark approaches. We also suspect that Chloe has a crush on Clark and Pete a crush on Chloe.
As Clark returns home from school one day, he is hit by a speeding Porsche belonging to Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), who is now 21 and on a hiatus from college. Lex, Clark and the car crash into the side of the bridge and fall into the river. While in the water, Clark's superhuman strength allows him to tear the roof of the car off and rescue an unconscious Lex. Clark himself wonders where this strength of his came from.
A few days later, we see Jeremy Creek, the young man who was tied to a stake in the cornfields 12 years earlier as the shower hit Smallville. Jeremy has not aged a day, and has strange electrical powers. He attacks and kills a man whom we realize was one of the football players who had tied Jeremy up all those years ago.
Clark confronts his father about his abilities, and Jonathan explains to his son how they found him in a cornfield with his spaceship and they adopted him. Meanwhile, Lana has given Whitney her necklace for luck in the homecoming game. She then goes to visit her parents' graves, and runs into Clark who is wandering around, shocked by his father's confession. Clark, who for once can act normal around Lana, since she does not have her necklace, finds that they both have a lot in common, and Lana gives him a goodnight kiss on the cheek. A jealous Whitney looks on from the shadows.
Lex wants to thank Clark for saving his life by offering him a new truck, but Clark follows his father's advice and returns it. He still does not understand the hatred that his father has for the Lex and his father Lionel Luthor (John Glover). Clark and Lex begin a strange friendship, with Lex wondering how Clark saved his life, and Clark intrigued by Lex and his lavish lifestyle and by his father's hatred for the Luthors.
Pete and Chloe are at the location of Jeremy Creek's crime scene when Clark joins them, and they notice Jeremy in the crowd. They find out that Jeremy was the high school's scarecrow in 1989 and that he was in a coma ever since that night, until a few days ago, when a strange electrical storm caused Jeremy to wake up and disappear. Jeremy has been on a killing spree ever since, wanting to reach all the men that were once football players in 1989.
That evening, a jealous Whitney and his football buddies attack Clark, and find that he is weakened by the necklace given to Whitney by Lana. They put the necklace around Clark's neck, strip him to his boxers, paint a huge 'S' on his chest and tie him on a stake in the cornfields. Jeremy is on his way to the high school, and sees Clark tied like a scarecrow. Instead of saving him, he promises Clark that this hazing ritual will end when he kills everyone in the school. Later, Lex is also on his way to the school and sees Clark and frees him. The necklace falls, and Clark runs off to save the school, while Lex is left holding the necklace. Clark confronts Jeremy, and as they fight, a water main bursts and electrocutes Jeremy, who is rendered unconscious. When he wakes up, he has lost his electrical powers and has no memory of events since 1989.

All detailed descriptions © Copyright 2000-2008- All Rights Reserved

Notes:

This episode and "Metamorphosis" are sometimes shown as a feature-length movie. The Thanksgiving 2001 airing in the US presented them in this manner. When the series was first shown in the UK (on December 31, 2001), the two episodes were shown in such format as well.

When meeting Lana in the graveyard, Clark stands in front of an angel in such a way that the wings appear to be moving from his shoulders. This can be foreshadowing him being able to fly, or emphasizing his whole Christ-like role as savior later on in his life, or the fact that he is a "heavenly" visitor.

Annette O'Toole, who plays Martha Kent in this version of events, previously played (adult) Lana Lang in 'Superman III' (1983).

The "villain" in this episode is loosely based on the comic villain Conduit.

When this episode first aired in the US, The WB ran it in a "special" 70 minute format. This caused some consternation among fans in the US who were unaware of this and only set their VCRs to tape until the end of the hour. In subsequent re-airings and when it was compiled into a full-length movie, several scenes are deleted to bring it back down to 60 minutes. One such scene is Clark stacking the trucks up to get back at Whitney for the hazing incident. Another is more conversation between Pete and Chloe on the bus after we see Clark run through the cornfield. Both of these scenes contained probable goofs so they may deliberately have been chosen for removal.

The bridge that Lex goes off is the "Loeb Bridge" - an deliberate in-joke reference to Jeph Loeb, a major current-day writer for the comic book series (who also works on the show in the second season).

Director David Nutter is a veteran director of the X-Files and also directed the pilot episode of the similarly themed sci-fi series Roswell. Nutter also directed the film Disturbing Behavior which starred fellow WB star Katie Holmes as well as Chad E. Donella, who guest stars as the villain in the next episode.

A DVD of the "Pilot/Metamorphosis" movie was released in Canada, but instead of removing scenes from the pilot, some of the scenes were extended slightly. Most significant occurs shortly after Clark rescues Lex after driving off the bridge. When Lex comments that he thought he hit Clark, Clark says "If you had, I'd be dead", and looks over his shoulder at the damaged guard rail on the bridge. The TV version fades to commercial at that point, but in the DVD version, Clark looks weak, and Lex asks, "Kid, are you feeling alright?" Clark says "Yeah, I'm fine", then faints, falling flat on his face.

Not every scene with actress Cynthia Ettinger, the original Martha Kent, was re-shot. In a scene with Clark and Jonathan in the barn and Martha outside in the background, you can tell that it's not Annette O'Toole.

Lionel can be seen reading a newspaper with a headline referring to "Queen Industries." In the DC comics lore, Queen Industries is (or was) owned by Oliver Queen, aka Green Arrow. No indication the character may ever appear, however, then or since.

Clark steps out of the ship as a baby and approaches the Kents, smiling. However, we see several meteors (and presumably shattering) hit the ground around the Kents as they are driving near the ship. Why doesn't young Clark get some green meteor exposure then and there?

Clark is seen in this episode carrying around a stack of books. What ever happens to those books? He is portrayed here as nerdy, yet in "Nocturne", when Lana meets a new, literature-oriented guy, Clark is portrayed as the stereotypical "dumb" farm boy. Which is it? Is Clark a nerd who carries around a stack of books (for only one day, apparently) or is he dumb?

There is a blooper when you look at the Langs tombstone. For Mrs. Lang it read 1959-1959, but in another scene it reads 1959-1989.

Despite the fact the opening caption before the meteor shower says "1989", the vast majority of the cars in Smallville (including the one the Langs are at when they get squished) appear to be vintage 1950's.

In the premiere 70-minute version, when Clark is running past the bus, Chloe comments that she hears something odd on the roof of the bus. In the next shot we still see Clark running toward school, so what was on the roof?

When Chloe and Pete pass money between them, you can just make out the fact they're using Canadian money. In Kansas, USA? Of course, the show is actually filmed in Canada.

In the 70-minute premiere version, how does Clark stack three trucks up on top of each other if he doesn't have flight? He isn't tall enough to put the third truck on top of the second and if he tossed it up and on top you'd think there'd be a lot of damage.

When Jonathon shows Clark the ship, Clark speeds away from the storm cellar (is it the same storm cellar as the rest of the series?), and the blur starts before Clark moves.

Season Two - Season Three - Season Four - Season Five - Season Six  - Season Seven - Season Eight

Season One: Metamorphosis - Hothead - X-Ray - Cool - Hourglass - Craving - Jitters - Rogue - Shimmer - Hug - Leech - Kinetic - Zero - Nicodemus - Stray - Reaper - Drone - Crush - Obscura - Tempest

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