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 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 fall?
AG: The plan would be that if we don't violently fuck it up in the pilot by 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.
OG: He's got the Anakin thing going.
AG: Kinda. I think there's more to it than that. A lot of it is his father. After a while, how much hounding can he take from that guy?
OG: A recent episode had Clark worried about how his powers might hurt Lana when they have sex. Shouldn't that issue have come up earlier in the show when he was having sex with Lex Luthor?
AG: [Long laugh.] Yeah, you know, perhaps.
OG: That's more than I thought I'd get out of you.
AG: [Laughs.] ...with the gay subtext.
OG: There's been lots of speculation about who will evolve into the Lois Lane that Superman fans are familiar with -- the Lois Lane currently the show, or Chloe Sullivan.
AG: No, it's funny, I've been hearing the rumors that Chloe is really Lois Lane. Then we put in that Lois was her cousin. When you actually put Lois on the show, you'd think that would quell that. I don't think Chloe goes into witness protection and comes out as Lois Lane.
OG: So, people aren't responding to these big hints you're dropping.
AG: When you actually introduce the character on the show, that to me would be the big hint. But people can dare to dream.