After watching numerous episodes of Smallville, I'm slowly becoming irked by the character of Lana Lang. I have nothing against Kristin Kruek. Kristin is okay, but the writers have completely created a tease.
From my understanding of the Superman comics, Lana was the girl that Clark desired from afar. She was unattainable. In the series, seeing Clark and Lana become good friends, date, break up, and still be friends seems plausible. But we all know that Clark will never get Lana, and even though he may still have deep feelings for her, he keeps his distance. Lana, on the other hand, seems to be the one who can't get over Clark. Lana was Miss Popular in high school--a cheerleader dating the star quarterback and hanging with the popular crowd. She can have any guy she wants--as proven by episodes where several guys have asked her out. So why does she suddenly want Clark, a guy she barely noticed in high school--a guy, according to the comics, hardly cared about.
She, too, has a fixation on Clark. Always, she's prodding him about wanting to know the truth; always whenever she's in trouble, she looks to Clark; always when he rescues her, she prods in some indirect manner about why they are not together. Always she has to ask "do you love me?" As if his numerous rescues didn't answer her question already! She tortures Clark. She offers herself to him when he's trying to keep his distance and move on. She pleads with him with her eyes when he rejects her. This is not the unattainable distant Lana from afar of the original comics anymore, but a new "you're-in-my-face-Lana."
In other melodramas, when a couple breaks up even though they still love each other, they still go their separate ways. They get together eventually, but only after some dire and drastic episode which leads them to admit their love and finally be happy. How many dire and drastic episodes do Clark and Lana need? I know that the creators of Smallville are only posing these storylines as a hypothetical and substory to the original comics, but I don't find a continuum anymore. When Clark grows up to become a journalist, he can't mope around longing for Lana as if he never had her, as if she were the girl he could have had. He had more than several chances to be with her. And he can't argue that he couldn't be with her because he could never tell her the truth about himself--that has become his own issue. He has no one to blame but himself if he loses her. As a character, Lana has proven that she is reliable and maybe even keep a weighty secret, such as Clark's true identity. She's been in several situations where she had chances to witness Clark's powers that any person with a brain can put two and two together. If it were Chloe, she would have figured it out by now.
Thank God, Lois is coming in next season.