Nothing on video yet for now, but The CW (the network that emerged from the UPN and The WB merger which will start broadcasting this September) has released some previews of the upcoming sixth season of Smallville.

During the Season 5 finale in May this year, we were left with Clark Kent stuck in the Phantom Zone. The Earth is in chaos due to a computer virus BrainIAC (apparently, Milton Fine was called a Brain Inter Active Construct by Jor-El at some point in the show, so go figure!) released. General Zod has also possessed Lex Luthor’s body and is poised to destroy Earth as we know it, similar to how he worked towards the destruction of Superman’s home planet Krypton.

We’re used to cliffhangers during season finales and some lull time during mid-season episodes as prevalent in the past five seasons of Smallville, so I’m pretty interested in how the producers are going to move on with the series this year, considering Smallville was originally intended as a five-season production only.

Kryptonsite has the goodies on Season Six, and here are some highlights (and I add some commentary, too).

• Clark, sans his superhuman abilities, must battle his way out of the Phanton Zone against Kryptonian criminals who were imprisoned here. Presumably some of these Kryptonians who would be able to escape the Zone along with Clark would resurface in later episodes within the season. Away with Meteor freaks, then! We’ve had enough explanations of what the meteor rocks can do to people throughout the past seasons. I think it’s time to introduce other story arcs, concepts and Superman villains (having General Zod and Brainiac was great, IMHO).
• Lex and Lana hook up. It’s over between Clark and Lana. Finally? I really, really hope so.
• Clark and Lex’s friendship is now a goner. I wouldn’t think they become arch-enemies just by fighting over Lana, though. Of course, it’s more of Lex-is-turning-into-an-evil-genius and Clark-has-to-save-the-world reasons that they had eventually fallen out of each other’s favor.
• Martha Kent faces her growing feelings toward Lionel Luthor. Oh, we’re going to have one big happy family, eh?
• Green Arrow will enter the picture, for at least seven episodes. He will apparently be a love interest of Lois Lane (whom many fans do not believe to be the real Lois Lane that Clark is destined to be, at least in personality).
• Jimmy Olsen joins the Daily Planet, rekindling a relationship with Chloe Sullivan that had been mentioed in a past episode.

Okay, so nothing really exciting is going to happen, except probably for some twists and further character development. The creators have taken some liberties in this re-imagining of the Superman mythos, and I think some are good, while in some cases, I think the writers are stretching things too far.

For instance, quite a number of fans were exploring the prospect of Chloe’s character actually being the Lois Lane of this mythos (and the Lois whom Clark is destined to be) because of her characteristics and personality. However, by Season 3, the producers decided to bring in Lois Lane herself, but this Lois was quite the exact opposite of the Lois we know from Clark’s Daily Planet days. Smallville’s Lois hated journalism and was quite the slacker. On the other hand, all clues were pointing towards Chloe eventually being “Lois,” like being the youngest DP reporter to have a frontpage byline, having a passion for investigative journalism, and all that.

So somehow, this has to be resolved, and I think something drastic will happen towards the end of the series. Either someone will die, someone will have a drastic personality change, or the writers would come up with something really out-of-this-world that they’d have us believing in no time.

Still, Smallville has grown to become my favorite show of late, and I’ll be gladly anticipating the Season Six premier this September 28th. As I’m not much of a TV watcher–as I prefer to watch shows on my own time–I’ll probably follow the series via good ol’ downloads.

More (unofficial) sneak peeks are available at Kryptonsite’s spoilers page.