"Studio 60" only lasted one year and "Sports Night" just two. There have been others that have lasted three, five and even seven years, but I hadn't ever watched one that was on longer than that.
Yes, it had its shortcomings. I think one critic referred to it as "Superboy meets Dawson's Creek," and yes, there were lots of beautiful teenagers with high-powered libidos, and who knew that Metropolis was really Kansas City?
I'm not sure anyone expected it to last 10 full seasons, but we watched Clark Kent grow from awkward ninth grader to a young man on the verge of being super.
The fascinating thing about the story is that the creators weren't afraid to take the original Superboy story, told in hundreds of comic books, and throw out parts of it.
Certainly the biggest change came in the fact that we never heard him called Superboy. In fact, Clark doesn't go public until the seventh or eighth season of the show, and he never actually flies or wears the famous red and blue suit until the series finale.
One of the most fascinating changes is that Clark Kent and Lex Luthor start out as close friends, both living in Smallville, Kansas. But Lex is so obsessed with his own destiny that he eventually becomes Clark's greatest enemy.
Not everything always made sense, and it certainly slipped over into soap operadom too many times. But if there is one thing the series proved, it's that the best stories are always about the best characters, and Superman has always been an iconic American character.
Even as a Kansas farmboy.
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