Третий сезон «Маленькоговилля»: Путь к судьбе и тьме.

Season of television series

The third season of Smallville, an American television series, began airing on October 1, 2003. The series recounts the early adventures of Kryptonian Clark Kent as he adjusts to life in the fictional town of Smallville, Kansas, during the years before he becomes Superman. The third season comprises 22 episodes and concluded its initial airing on May 19, 2004. Regular cast members during season three include Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk, Michael Rosenbaum, Sam Jones III, Allison Mack, John Glover, Annette O'Toole and John Schneider. Season three follows Clark's constant fight against the destiny that his biological father, Jor El, has in store for him, and his guilt over the price Jonathan paid to bring him back to Smallville. Lex deals with the psychological breakdown he had when stranded on a deserted island, while the conflict between him and his father comes to a final blow. Clark's secret begins to weigh heavily on Pete, and the relationship between Clark and Lana hits a dead end. Writers also brought in several DC Comics characters, Maggie Sawyer, Morgan Edge, and most notably Perry White, in special guests spots. After spending its first two seasons airing on Tuesdays at 9:00 pm (ET), Smallville was moved to Wednesdays and aired at 8:00 pm for the third season. Season three dipped in the ratings, averaging 4.9 million viewers a week.

Going into season three, the Smallville crew wanted to establish two main themes, which were the consequences of Clark running from his destiny, and Lex taking steps toward "the dark side". One of the consequences the creative team attempted to show for Clark was his distancing himself from his friends. Season three was also about showing just how evil Lionel is – illustrated by how he attempts to destroy Chloe's life and make Lex believe that he is going insane. In order to get better performances from the actors in each individual episode, the crew would often limit the detail an actor knew about their character. Meeting just at the beginning of the year to discuss the plans for the actor's respective roles, usually the actors would only find out precisely what their characters were going to do when the scripts arrived. Other times, an actor might be given a specific piece of character development and told to keep it a secret from the rest of the cast. This would culminate in the episode "Shattered", where, as Mark Verheiden explains, the episode was set up like something out of the film Gaslight, where the audience believes that Lex is being driven insane. Gough and Millar wanted to be able to provide answers for certain aspects of the Superman mythology, in this case it was Jonathan's heart condition. According to writer/executive producer Mark Verheiden, the idea of having Jonathan suffer a heart attack came to the writing team in season one. The story was almost used in season two's "Fever", but they finally settled on an appropriate story in season three that would tie Jonathan directly to Jor El when he made a deal to bring Clark home that would eventually lead to a heart attack in the episode "Hereafter". Next to establishing a heart condition for Jonathan, the team also wanted to address the idea of Clark's mortality, or lack thereof. The concept in "Hereafter" of Clark possibly never dying came from an idea that sprouted after season one's "Hourglass". In "Hourglass", Cassandra Carver, a blind elderly woman who can see the future of the person she touches, shows Clark a future where he is surrounded by the tombstones of everyone he loves. For "Hereafter", Jordan Cross can see the moment of death for anyone he touches; when Jordan touches Clark he does not see Clark's death, only a billowing red cape. According to Verheiden, they wanted to illustrate how Clark's alien heritage put him on a different plane of existence, and allowed him to alter destiny. The idea to use Superman's cape, which came from Miles Millar, to represent Clark's "cosmic lifespan" came after much discussion on what to actually use. Ideas were thrown around, including a shot of Lex dumping kryptonite on Clark, as he is lying down, killing him. Ultimately they went with Millar's idea, which they saw as this "great iconic moment", because the audience finally sees their first glimpse of Superman's costume. "Perry" would introduce Clark's future boss, and editor of the Daily Planet, Perry White. This episode would also serve as the point where Clark finally learns that his powers are caused by the radiation from Earth's yellow Sun.

Jonathan's heart attack was not the only element that originated during the filming of season one. The use of kryptonite bullets was shelved during season one for a later date because of the limited number of episodes they are able to produce each season, as well as the writers wanting to find "the right moment" to use this particular plot element. They ultimately settled on season three's "Extinction", about a teenager seeking revenge against everyone infected by the meteors. "Extinction" featured a tie in with a season two episode; Van McNulty's reason for killing meteor infected individuals is based on the fact that his father was killed by the bone morphing Tina Greer in "Visage", when she impersonated Whitney Fordman. Van's father was the military personnel that came to the Fordman house to inform Whitney's mother that he had been killed in action. "Velocity" also began its life as an idea being tossed around during season one. The team thought about having an episode devoted to small town drag racing, as it was a problem in the Vancouver area while they were filming season one. The story was eventually used in season three, when the writing staff was looking for a reason to exploit the changing friendship between Clark and Pete. According to Verheiden, they wanted a moment where Pete could release his feelings to Clark, and the jealousy he has over Clark spending more time with Lex and Lana. The episode featured the moment when the friendship between Clark and Pete "fractured a bit". "Obsession" featured a scene first thought up in season two's "Visage", which called for the use of lead paint to block the effects of kryptonite on Clark when Tina Greer trapped him in the storm cellar with Lana's kryptonite necklace. The scene was rewritten to have Clark's spaceship save him, and used later in "Obsession", where Clark and Chloe use lead paint to trap the teleporting Alicia Baker.

As the episode development progressed, the writing staff found that not all of their original ideas fit as well as they first thought. When this happens, the staff is forced to change aspects of an episode in order to save time, better develop characters, or stay in line with the rest of the season. For example, in the original script for "Whisper" the thieves who try and rob the jewelry store were going to be father and son. Clark was also originally going to be blind until the end of "Whisper". The team decided that "it wasn't going to be too satisfying to watch", so Clark received his sight back midway through the episode. In the original draft of "Truth", Mrs. Taylor did not reveal that she had been part of an activist group that had done some illegal activity years earlier, but that she was having an affair with a student. As Gough sees it, using the affair storyline would have created more scenes that would need to be shot in order to effectively tell that part of the episode, and using the concept that Mrs. Taylor had been on the run from the law worked easier for the crew. One of the bigger changes to the season, and the series as a whole, was the character of Pete Ross being written out of the series. The writers had hoped that having Pete know Clark's secret would make him more of a fundamental piece of the show, but it did not. What ultimately happened was that it led to his character becoming increasingly alienated from the other characters, which resulted in his exit from the show.

Season three saw the directing debut of one of the show's developers, Miles Millar, who got to direct the episode "Memoria". Welling describes Millar's style as very succinct, to which he credits to Millar's background of writing for all of the characters on the show. As Welling explains, Millar managed to capture the same effect as other directors, but with fewer words. Millar's visual style, at least for this episode, tended to lean more to applying "extreme lighting" to the scenes, to create silhouettes of the characters. Miles Millar was inspired by the film Kings Row when he filmed the scene for Lex's birthday party as a child. In the scene, a camera pulls back from a flashback transition to reveal a young Lex sitting alone at a large table full of food and gifts. Another late change, though it was not at the last minute, came for Lionel's physical appearance on the show. John Glover came up with the idea of cutting Lionel's hair for the season finale. Glover was busy preparing for a play that he was going to be acting in, and he needed his hair cut for the part. Glover made the suggestion while the crew was filming "Memoria", as well as the idea of setting the scene in prison. Gough admits to needing some kind of device to cut back to while all of the other cliffhangers are occurring—Clark being taken away, the Kryptonian symbol burned into field on the Kent farm, and Lex being poisoned—and he felt that Glover's suggestion would help them pull off the effect they wanted. Not all of the last minute changes are about adding new situations to an episode. Ken Horton pulled a scene in "Phoenix" before it aired, which involved Chloe informing Lionel that she will no longer help him dig up information on Clark. He then placed it in "Extinction", which he felt was a better location for it given the events that transpired in "Phoenix". Scenes involving Allison Mack and Kristin Kreuk were cut from the episode "Memoria"—with the exception of the opening teaser where Lana finds Lex on the balcony and then informing Clark—as the team felt they were inappropriate for the episode, which stood well on just the story arc involving Clark, Lex and Lionel. This also directed the episode into more of a "mothers and sons" feel that departed from the usual "fathers and sons" tone the show had come to use. The interior scenes of Summerholt Institute were shot in a local train car washing building, so that they had enough room to create and film the tank of kryptonite solution. The set was found early in the production of season three, but the crew could not find a use for it until then. In season two, the crew was able to use the set of NBC's Third Watch, courtesy of John Wells, to film Reeve's scenes. The opening segment for "Truth" where Chloe questions a former co worker of her father's about why her father was blacklisted by Lionel Luthor, had to be filmed over two nights; the crew ran out of time the first night because of the weather, so they filmed Mack's scenes in front of the studio.

Effects are an important element in the production of most episodes, and sometimes those effects must be performed practically. One of the largest stunts for the season was performed in "Exile", where two stunt men were dropped from 300 feet down to eight feet above the ground. The effect was used for the scene where Jonathan and Clark are fighting and fall from Lionel's office at LuthorCorp. Producer Bob Hargrove petitioned for the scene to be shot with real stuntmen, as opposed to using computer generated effects, which was an idea that was being tossed around at the time of filming. Although there are stunt people on the sets for each episode, the cast is more than willing to take on some of the stunt work themselves. Welling and Schneider performed a lot of their own stunts for the scene where Clark and Jonathan, who now has the powers to take on his son, battle over Clark's use of the red kryptonite in "Exile". This lent to the filmmakers being able to show more of the two actor's faces during the scene, which also lends more realism to the audience. The refusal by the film department to allow Smallville to show Jor El forced the special effects crew to come up with a creative way to display some sort of aid to help the audience visualize this disembodied voice that was supposed to be talking to Jonathan in "Exile". They decided to create a force field around whoever was speaking to Jor El, which acted as Jor El's voice, rippling as he spoke. To save money on this effect, the crew filmed John Schneider on a black backdrop, and Entity FX digitally added the force field around him. Wind machines and a spot light were added to help synthesize the atmosphere in the force field.

Season three saw the second volume of Smallville: Chloe Chronicles get released. After the first volume received positive responses from viewers, the second volume was created as a continuation, but with Sam Jones III appearing as Pete Ross alongside Allison Mack as Chloe. This volume used the Smallville comic books as a secondary tie in to the series. Viewers could watch Smallville, followed by Chloe's Chronicles, and finish with the Smallville comic book, which would provide an "enhanced backstory to the online segments". Additionally, the Smallville producers teamed up with Verizon to provide its registered users the chance to view plot updates—in the form of a press release from The Daily Planet—as well as quizzes and games related to the show. As part of the deal, Verizon products and services were placed in various episodes of the show.

In 2004, the show was nominated for a Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in "Exile". The series was recognized by the Visual Effects Society with a 2005 VES Award nomination for Outstanding Compositing for the episode "Crisis". The DVD release of season three won the Saturn Award for Best DVD Television Release.

The complete third season of Smallville was released on November 16, 2004, in North America. Additional releases in region 2 and region 4 took place on April 18 and July 18, 2005, respectively. The DVD box set included various special features, including episode commentary, The Chloe Chronicles: Volume II, a behind the scenes featurette on how they produce the series, and DVD ROM linking to Smallville websites. On October 16, 2021, for the 20th anniversary, the complete series was released for the first time on Blu ray. The Blu ray release marks the first time when season 3 was released in its native high definition resolution.