Brian Peterson, one of the four executive producers of Smallville, sounds like he'd be a lot of fun to work with, something like a cross between Newsradio's unfailingly polite Dave Nelson and Ugly Betty's witty, fast-talking Marc St. James. The impossibly upbeat-sounding showrunner is familiar to the show's fans for the many episodes he and writing partner Kelly Sounders have done since Season Two, including "Reckoning," "Promise" and the much-maligned "Noir." When series execs Alfred Gough and Miles Millar left the show last season, Peterson and three of the show's other long-time producers (known collectively in the fandom as "PS3") were put in charge of Smallville, which begins its eighth season on September 18 with an episode called, "Odyssey."
When last we left the show, Lex Luthor and Clark Kent were locked in some sort of unholy man-brace as the Fortress of Solitude came down around them (in Hollywood, they call it, "Bringing the house down"), Lana Lang had said goodbye via videotape and Chloe was learning to cope with her meteor-infused healing powers. What could Season Eight possibly bring that won't infuriate longtime fans?
We spoke by phone to Peterson to find out the answer to that and other questions:
Brian Peterson: Is this Omar?
Omar G: Yes, this is Omar from Television Without Pity.
BP: Nice to meet you! Not in person, but over the phone.
OG: Yeah! I don't know if you read the site or not, so I apologize.
BP: I do. I try to avoid anything that will make me sad at the end of the day, so I try to look when I think things will be good. [Laughs.]
OG: So, you've never visited our site.