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.
Episodes
Production
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.
Writing
Series developers Al Gough and Miles Millar wanted to set up Lex's "mental illness" early in the season, as it would be something that Lionel would take advantage of in later episodes of season three. In order to accomplish what they wanted, Gough and Millar introduced Lex's imaginary friend "Louis", who appeared on the deserted island with Lex following his plane crash in the season two finale. They had Rosenbaum pull what they referred to as the "Fight Club gag", where he believes that he is fighting Louis, but in reality he has been fighting himself the entire time. 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.
The final scene in "Exile", which extended into the opening act of "Phoenix", was the establishment of a storyline that would run the course of the third season, and even extend further into season five. The storyline involved Jonathan making a deal with Clark's biological father, Jor-El, to be given powers strong enough to bring Clark back home; the result was a heart attack for Jonathan later in the season, whose body could not handle the powers. 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".