Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Al Be There For You
By Omar G | Season 5 | Episode 10 | Aired on 01.18.2006
The email from the WB publicist said simply that Executive Producers Al Gough and Miles Millar were going to be doing a phone teleconference to talk about the upcoming 100th episode of Smallville, where it's expected a major character will snuff it. And if the coffin in the previews is to believed, it won't be one of those vague, off-screen, "They might be back next season" kind of deaths. The teleconference morphed into a one-on-one phone interview with Al Gough (who was in Los Angeles), whom I interviewed way back in Season 1. That's a lot of time and a lot of gay under the bridge. The interview was limited to ten minutes. Al, just like last time, was a good sport about dumb questions, and did let slip that Chloe fans shouldn't get their hopes up about her transformation into Lois Lane, and that Aquaman is going to be a family affair in terms of staffing. Omar G: How are you doing? It's been a while. Al Gough: Good. It's been a little busy. OG: It's well-known that you're killing off a character in the hundredth episode. Wouldn't the obvious solution be to kill off Clark Kent, bring back Aquaman, and transition straight into that show? AG: [Laughs] You figured it out. I knew somebody would. OG: It would save a lot of money, I think. How's Aquaman coming? How will you balance the two shows? Will you and Miles both be doing show-running on the new show? AG: We're going to be doing both shows. The nice thing about Smallville is it'll be in Season 6, so definitely it's a well-oiled machine. We have a terrific writing staff and great production staff in Vancouver. I don't think it'll require as much of our time. Aquaman, being a new show, will. I think we can balance both given we have a lot of good people on Smallville and some of them we'll move over to Aquaman. OG: Is the plan for Aquaman to start next fall? AG: The plan would be that if we don't violently fuck it up in the pilot by next fall. OG: Lex Luthor has been making more evil decisions lately than we've seen in the past. At what point in the character's evolution would it be safe to call him "A Bad Mutha"? AG: This season he's definitely accelerated. When you get into Season 6, he's definitely gonna be in the black hat category. That's been accelerated because of the fallout with Clark and [Lex's] attraction to Lana.