Why do I keep watching Smallville when the show has never risen above mediocrity? For the same reason I kept collecting every X-Men comic until more recently than I'd like to admit: I want to know what's going to happen. It's a mythology that I find easy to invest in unlike, say, Dollhouse - another mediocre show (albeit one with a much better cast, much more interesting themes, and much better writing). I can't give Dollhouse any more time because it has way too many serious narrative blind spots (and a central character and actress who don't much interest me) and yet I continue to watch Smallville every week. It's a lot easier to explain why I don't watch a show that I don't like than it is to explain why I refuse to stop watching a show I don't like. I tolerate Smallville in strange ways: I can laugh when the show is intentionally funny, when it's unintentionally funny, when it rips off Buffy for the thousandth time and botches the idea, when it nods to DCU continuity in clever ways, when it nods to DCU continuity in clumsy ways ("Some kind of Junior Lifeguard Association?" "I don't think I'm ready for the JLA just yet."), and its dogged insistence on dressing up all its super-heroes in pleather and hoods. But, mostly, I just want to know what's going to happen. And I can't honestly tell you why.
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