Smallville: All 10 seasons ranked from worst to best

7. Season 3

Almost every drama TV show has the season where they went dark, and for Smallville that is its third. The tone is more serious right from the off, with Clark on his Red Kryptonite rampage as he refused to set out on the path that his father Jor-El wanted for him, and that sets the stage for a more dramatic and less fun season.

It’s not just Clark who went through a lot in this one. The relationship between Lex and his father boils over, which leads to more conflict as the former’s mental health takes a turn for the worst. Lana suffers severe injuries after a near-fatal accident. Pete begins to struggle with the fact that he’s the only one who knows Clark’s secret, which leads him into a very troubling situation. And, tired of being shut out by her friends, Chloe makes a deal with the devil.

As for Clark and Lana, this is the point where it feels like the show begins to run out of ideas for them – and given how great they were in the first two seasons, that’s a shame.

While making things more serious allowed the show to focus on more comic-centric storylines, it lost a bit of its heart in the process. Its more intense stories made way for intriguing character-driven arcs but with everything so dull compared to the first two seasons, it just needed a little more light.