"It has a sense of humor in that it doesn't take itself too seriously, but I wouldn't say the show intentionally tries to make you laugh very often. Which is nice, in the sense that they can do an episode featuring the Legion, and not feel as though they have to camp it up for the sake of viewers who don't read comics."
That's what I meant, really. I watched Smallville up to about halfway through season two and switched off (in both literal and metaphorical senses) because it seemed like the writers and producers wanted to make a mopey teen angst show with a hastily-thought-out bad guy stuffed in there to get the male demographic onboard. And while I didn't necessarily want Buffy-style hijinks, the po-facedness of it all just didn't work, especially when this supposedly tiny town was beset by mysterious deaths and disappearances every week that nobody seemed to notice. At least Buffy could turn that into a running joke.
So yeah, something that's a little more action-adventure and a little less inaction-angst sounds great. Also, Kristine Kreuk is a really bad actress, so if they've booted her out that's grand. Is the girl who played Chloe still in it? She was ace.
And at what point did they make the transition to the new, more adventure-based style?