The biggest problem with the Smallville season premier isn't that it was bad (although it was!), it's that it seemed to be resolving a completely different season finale cliffhanger than the one that actually aired.
Last season ended with Lex finding out Clark's secret and gaining power over a MacGuffin to control him. Then Rosenbaum AND both head writers quit the show, so the new writers had to come up with a completely different resolution than whatever they had planned -- and came up with the highly original idea of having "control" actually mean "depower". What, an episode of Smallville where Clark gets depowered? Holy shit, what a twist!
Also, he is held prisoner in eastern Europe. So at this point they're pretty much just cribbing plots directly from Heroes.
Also also, no mention whatsoever of Kara, not even during Clark's near-death experience where he had a flashback to all his family members who have quit the show. So I think we can chalk her up as one more major character who's just going to be completely ignored for the remainder of the series.
Which, fortunately, is only eight months away!