FlawlessVictory
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Found this over at iFMagazine.com, published 2/5/2007
iF MAGAZINE: Will SMALLVILLE be back for another season?
ALFRED GOUGH: Fingers crossed, we have a good feeling about it, but all the back room rumblings are very positive. Our plan is to be back.
iF: The last two seasons have felt more align with the original movies the more and more we get closer to Clark Kents true origin. Was that always the plan?
GOUGH: Its rare I think for a show to have its second wind in the fifth season. The first four seasons were foundation building and we purposely didnt play with a lot of the toys in the D.C. Comics toy box. We obviously had Perry White in an episode and Flash in an episode. We knew what the end of Season 4 was going to be, the crystal on the tundra, throwing it, so we had the Fortress of Solitude. Obviously we had Lois Lane. I think we felt we had to earn the right to bring these characters in. So whats nice about it, unlike certain shows that flame out in two seasons, I think weve had more of a slow build with Clark out of high school. Now we have the benefit of sticking around by using these D.C. characters.
iF: Its pretty rare to have a feature film [SUPERMAN RETURNS], while youre still on TV. When you first started the show, you told me D.C. was nervous about you and Miles dipping into the comic book well too much because of the revisionist SUPERMAN movie in development. Did they get concerned when SUPERMAN RETURNS was finally greenlit since it is more in line with the original films, much like SMALLVILLE is?
GOUGH: The great thing ultimately, was our biggest savior was Bryan Singer. Bryan was a fan of the show. We had a gentlemans agreement. Miles, myself, Bryan, [SUPERMAN RETURNS scribes] Dan [Harris] and Mike [Dougherty] the writers, we would keep each other in the loop. Bryan invited us down to Australia. We sort of pitched out Season Five. Bryan offered to let us read the script and we said well, quite frankly we dont want that responsibility. But you tell us if any of this is conflicting or things that are not going to jive and things you want us to stay away from. For a television show, you have that flexibility. And it was a great working relationship. Before that, when it was the McG version of the movie and it was another origin story and Krypton didnt blow up, and Lex Luthor was a Kryptonian -- there was a year there where it was very tough, in that weird kind of way. We were in the weird position of arguing 60 years of comics history to them, where they were willing to have a planet where Superman is on Earth but Krypton still existed. It was bizarre. Thankfully Bryan came in and said, I dont want to do SMALLVILLE, I want to do a SUPERMAN movie, and he did SUPERMAN RETURNS.
iF: What did you think of the movie?
GOUGH: I enjoyed the movie a lot. I think that airplane sequence is great. I thought Brandon did a very good job. I like Kevin Spacey. Doing the show every week is a little weird and its a little weird to watch the movie, because to me Lex was a bit of a hybrid of [Michael] Rosenbaum and Gene Hackman. Some times he was really vicious and other times he was sort of goofy. All and all I enjoyed the movie, I think Bryan clearly has great affection for the character and Im looking forward to the sequel, because in a weird way, he did another origin story. Now thats all sort of been set up, Im curious to see them bring in a villain thats not Lex Luthor and curious to see where they take that Superman has a son thing, which was a huge thing and very daring. There are a lot of places to go with that story and Im curious to see what they do.
iF: Did anything from the new SUPERMAN movie inform SMALLVILLE?
GOUGH: No. Weve been saying that our character is pre-SUPERMAN 1 and that movie is post SUPERMAN II. So in a way its too far down the road. I think it was a really satisfying movie experience. Its interesting to see how different they did things too. Our X-Ray vision looks more like X-Rays and his looks more like an MRI. I thought the flying is spectacular, but we cant afford to do it. We did it once, which I thought looked great.
iF: What should we expect from the rest of the season?
GOUGH: What youre going to see is a convergence of the JUSTICE LEAGUE, the 33.1 story and the Phantom Zone. All those sort of storylines will start to come together toward the end of the season.
iF: Any possibilities of spinning off any other characters from SMALLVILLE.
GOUGH: They seem to be content with SMALLVILLE, but if youre going to do any spin-off, you would do Green Arrow. Justin is such a TV star.
iF: You always come up with these great season enders? Do you always know where you're going?
GOUGH: We always know where were heading, always, not necessary the season finale. We knew at the end of 4 he goes back and we knew at the end of 5, Zod gets out of the Phantom Zone, and we know what the end of Seasont 6 is, in a very rough form until we get to the end of the episode. Theres so many moving parts, there are certain changes as you go along. The rebound is, you dont want to get too locked into things that you cant change if theyre not working. Theres always a sort of fluidness to TV shows. We also tend to have the first half the season more fully formed in our heads than the second half, because you dont know how the first half is going to play and you dont know what surprises come to you. Certainly one of the great surprises of the season, was how well the Oliver Queen/Green Arrow character worked. You hope it works, you hope they have chemistry and blend seamlessly in the cast and Justin [Hartley] hit it out of the park. Its good when you leave the audience wanting more.
iF: Will he be back?
GOUGH: He definitely will be back by Seasons end. Martian Manhunter will be back.
iF: And SMALLVILLE should be back for a Seventh Season as well.
GOUGH: We better be, otherwise its going to be one hell of a cliffhanger, that you never see paid off.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2 NEXT WEEK
link: http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=1895
iF MAGAZINE: Will SMALLVILLE be back for another season?
ALFRED GOUGH: Fingers crossed, we have a good feeling about it, but all the back room rumblings are very positive. Our plan is to be back.
iF: The last two seasons have felt more align with the original movies the more and more we get closer to Clark Kents true origin. Was that always the plan?
GOUGH: Its rare I think for a show to have its second wind in the fifth season. The first four seasons were foundation building and we purposely didnt play with a lot of the toys in the D.C. Comics toy box. We obviously had Perry White in an episode and Flash in an episode. We knew what the end of Season 4 was going to be, the crystal on the tundra, throwing it, so we had the Fortress of Solitude. Obviously we had Lois Lane. I think we felt we had to earn the right to bring these characters in. So whats nice about it, unlike certain shows that flame out in two seasons, I think weve had more of a slow build with Clark out of high school. Now we have the benefit of sticking around by using these D.C. characters.
iF: Its pretty rare to have a feature film [SUPERMAN RETURNS], while youre still on TV. When you first started the show, you told me D.C. was nervous about you and Miles dipping into the comic book well too much because of the revisionist SUPERMAN movie in development. Did they get concerned when SUPERMAN RETURNS was finally greenlit since it is more in line with the original films, much like SMALLVILLE is?
GOUGH: The great thing ultimately, was our biggest savior was Bryan Singer. Bryan was a fan of the show. We had a gentlemans agreement. Miles, myself, Bryan, [SUPERMAN RETURNS scribes] Dan [Harris] and Mike [Dougherty] the writers, we would keep each other in the loop. Bryan invited us down to Australia. We sort of pitched out Season Five. Bryan offered to let us read the script and we said well, quite frankly we dont want that responsibility. But you tell us if any of this is conflicting or things that are not going to jive and things you want us to stay away from. For a television show, you have that flexibility. And it was a great working relationship. Before that, when it was the McG version of the movie and it was another origin story and Krypton didnt blow up, and Lex Luthor was a Kryptonian -- there was a year there where it was very tough, in that weird kind of way. We were in the weird position of arguing 60 years of comics history to them, where they were willing to have a planet where Superman is on Earth but Krypton still existed. It was bizarre. Thankfully Bryan came in and said, I dont want to do SMALLVILLE, I want to do a SUPERMAN movie, and he did SUPERMAN RETURNS.
iF: What did you think of the movie?
GOUGH: I enjoyed the movie a lot. I think that airplane sequence is great. I thought Brandon did a very good job. I like Kevin Spacey. Doing the show every week is a little weird and its a little weird to watch the movie, because to me Lex was a bit of a hybrid of [Michael] Rosenbaum and Gene Hackman. Some times he was really vicious and other times he was sort of goofy. All and all I enjoyed the movie, I think Bryan clearly has great affection for the character and Im looking forward to the sequel, because in a weird way, he did another origin story. Now thats all sort of been set up, Im curious to see them bring in a villain thats not Lex Luthor and curious to see where they take that Superman has a son thing, which was a huge thing and very daring. There are a lot of places to go with that story and Im curious to see what they do.
iF: Did anything from the new SUPERMAN movie inform SMALLVILLE?
GOUGH: No. Weve been saying that our character is pre-SUPERMAN 1 and that movie is post SUPERMAN II. So in a way its too far down the road. I think it was a really satisfying movie experience. Its interesting to see how different they did things too. Our X-Ray vision looks more like X-Rays and his looks more like an MRI. I thought the flying is spectacular, but we cant afford to do it. We did it once, which I thought looked great.
iF: What should we expect from the rest of the season?
GOUGH: What youre going to see is a convergence of the JUSTICE LEAGUE, the 33.1 story and the Phantom Zone. All those sort of storylines will start to come together toward the end of the season.
iF: Any possibilities of spinning off any other characters from SMALLVILLE.
GOUGH: They seem to be content with SMALLVILLE, but if youre going to do any spin-off, you would do Green Arrow. Justin is such a TV star.
iF: You always come up with these great season enders? Do you always know where you're going?
GOUGH: We always know where were heading, always, not necessary the season finale. We knew at the end of 4 he goes back and we knew at the end of 5, Zod gets out of the Phantom Zone, and we know what the end of Seasont 6 is, in a very rough form until we get to the end of the episode. Theres so many moving parts, there are certain changes as you go along. The rebound is, you dont want to get too locked into things that you cant change if theyre not working. Theres always a sort of fluidness to TV shows. We also tend to have the first half the season more fully formed in our heads than the second half, because you dont know how the first half is going to play and you dont know what surprises come to you. Certainly one of the great surprises of the season, was how well the Oliver Queen/Green Arrow character worked. You hope it works, you hope they have chemistry and blend seamlessly in the cast and Justin [Hartley] hit it out of the park. Its good when you leave the audience wanting more.
iF: Will he be back?
GOUGH: He definitely will be back by Seasons end. Martian Manhunter will be back.
iF: And SMALLVILLE should be back for a Seventh Season as well.
GOUGH: We better be, otherwise its going to be one hell of a cliffhanger, that you never see paid off.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2 NEXT WEEK
link: http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=1895
that would give us something to talk about..don't you think?
