While we're at it, avoid season 7, episode 13 (Hero), unless you are a big fan of Stride gum, then by all means watch and enjoy.

I don't think there's any "comic baggage" to it. I'm a comic fan, but I tend to be pre-inclined to like anything comic related. I'll rewatch really mediocre comic-related stuff that I wouldn't touch if it wasn't comic related. If I'm as negative about Smallville as I am, despite it being comic related, that should be telling. Hell, they've thrown us massive amounts of fan service in the form of JLA, JSA, and 4th World characters in the past two years, and I still say skip it.

That wasn't near as bad! At least it featured One Republic. I'd put that other Pete episode (Fast) ahead of Hero in the worst column. In fact, we should come up with a worse 5/10 episodes list.

Well we can all agree on the top 3 (order may vary): Vampire Lana, Stride Gum, Fast & Furious Pete.

I'm not much of a fan of the Superman character outside of the occasional screening of Donner's original flick, and I gave Smallville a try a few years back for the hell of it. Just didn't gel.

I watched about 7 seasons of the show before I gave up. Starting back at the beginning and watching all the episodes again would be excruciating. There are some fun episodes, sure, but the will-they/won't-they between Lana and Clark was ridiculously overdone, and then the writers would still found new ways to drag it out some more. Kristen Kreuk is gorgeous, but Lana Lang is the worst. The Luthors are pure awesomeness though. Maybe try watching the premiere, mid-season finale, and finale from each season? It seems that those are the only episodes where the producers were given money and writers.

I'm intrigued by all the positive reviews for the latest few seasons, but I don't think I can endure another 60 episodes in order to catch the 5-10 great ones. Recommending that someone watches all 220 episodes? That's just mean.

Was the Vampire Lana worse than the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Lana? All those Lana storylines seemed so bad.

I just finished a roughly 2 and a half month journey of watching little else and it was a blast. Ideally though I'd recommend starting from the season 5 finale. Cleanest reboot point after the witch craziness, plus you can get seasons 6-10 on blu ray and watch 5.22 on VOD. Biggest thing you mill is going to the Arctic for the first time but if you're not enduring the freak of the week monotony the payoff isn't as great anyway.

I also starting rewatching a few weeks ago. I just started S4 and tho it is a little weak with all the witch stuff, I still like the show and can't wait to experience the whole series again.

Smallville did have its positive attributes, though the sloppy writing at times overwhelms everything. Tom Welling was perfectly cast as a young Clark Kent and it's a shame we never saw him don the costume (two seconds at the end of the series does not count). Welling is probably the second best Superman casting of all time after Christopher Reeve.

What they did with Lex Luthor was amazing for the limitations of a weekly television show, though the Clark-Lex relationship became ridiculous as the years wore on.

But S2 had some great moments with Lex. The best moments of Smallville.
"Memoria" had a GREAT scene with Lex and Lionel.
S3-S4 also had great moments with Chloe, eg in the episode "Blank"

I got so tired of Lex being behind every single bad thing on some level. And the stretch where Chloe went from the target audience's ideal high school girlfriend to Trinity from The Matrix I found awkward, watching the episodes consecutively. I most liked the way they introduced characters from the comics post-Brainiac, the Welling/Durance chemistry when they were working together, and everything by Geoff Johns.