Guest Essay- Merrill Barr asks: Is The CW about to take control of the television landscape?

The year was 1987 and the television landscape was dominated by three major broadcasting networks, CBS, ABC and NBC. Seeing an opportunity to take hold of a specific niche of the viewing public, young viewers to be precise, media mogul Rupert Murdoch took an investment $325 million to launch what is now known simply as FOX.  Through forward thinking innovation in programming like edgy sitcoms (Married… With Children), barrier breaking sketch shows (In Living Color), animated sitcoms in prime time (The Simpsons), young lead characters (21 Jump Street), reality television (COPS), prime time soap-operas (Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place), dark science fiction (The X-Files) and a first down line during NFL games, FOX has since become the biggest name on the Nielsen charts every season (American Idol).  

Smallville finale shocker: no actual shots of Tom Welling as Superman!

Obvious spoiler warning: I'm not going to get into every plot detail of last night's Smallville finale.  The big climactic moments were disappointing for two reasons.  First, as usual with television superhero shows, the big action climax was painfully puny, especially for the payoff of ten years of mythology.   Basically, Clark flies through a possessed Lionel Luther (does that count as murder?) and then a CGI blue thing that is supposed to be Superman quickly flies into Apokolips and quickly moves it about three inches to the left, saving Earth.  The most emotionally potent moment of the finale was its opening and closing bookends, which had Allison Mack reading a comic book to her young child seven years into the future, a four-color tale of how Clark Kent became Superman and saved the world.  It's a weird breaking the fourth wall moment, but it served as a reminder of just how potent, primal, and powerful the Superman mythology really is.