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I don't know how many Smallville fans are still on LJ, but I thought that this interview with Al and Miles was fairly interesting:
Q: Smallville stirred up a lot of controversy with hardcore comic book fans devoted to the original. How did you guys deal with that?
AG: Like all writers — we tried to avoid it as much as possible! We stopped reading Ain’t it Cool News where we were being burned in effigy everyday, and didn’t go to the San Diego Comic-Con until Season 2.
MM: Listening to fan boys is tiring, frustrating and ultimately futile. Smallville began at the dawn of the fan-forum era — we used to scan the posts to get a sense of the general feeling, but that’s it. If we did course-correct a storyline it would be because the fans’ sentiment mirrored our own. The truth is the so-called “hardcore fans” will find fault with anything and everything. We had no interest in following the established mythology of the D.C. universe or aligning our timeline with theirs.
Q: What was the most controversial?
AG: Making Lex and Clark friends. That was a radical idea at the time, as well as casting an African American actor to play Pete Ross and a Eurasian actress to play Lana Lang. You would not believe how much flak we caught for those choices from the internet peanut gallery.
MM: Again, probably the meteor shower because it led to accusations that we over-relied on the “freak of the week” formula. We had a super-powered, crime-fighting teenager — we figured he had to battle someone every week. It’s not like sleepy Smallville was a hot bed of crime. It wouldn’t exactly be great drama if Clark was forced to use his awesome abilities to solve the case of the missing library book. I have zero regrets about that.
Q: Looking back, is there anywhere you wish you’d taken the characters of Smallville?
AG: I wish we had a better trajectory for Lana Lang. That was probably a three-season love story that lasted six seasons.
MM: It’s so torturous and slow. Ultimately, it damaged Lana in the audience’s mind. Because Clark refused to tell her the truth about his identity, he was constantly forced to lie to her. Although justified, Lana’s response to his behavior made her seem cold and unsympathetic — even though from her POV, Clark was a sneaky, bold-faced liar.
Miles also mentions that We also almost succeeded in bringing Aquaman to the small screen but were thwarted when the WB got swallowed by UPN and became the CW. The atmosphere at the new network was very hostile to Smallville and they were not open to doing another comic book series. It was all about Gossip Girl — looking back, it’s kind of amazing we survived at all.
Q: Smallville stirred up a lot of controversy with hardcore comic book fans devoted to the original. How did you guys deal with that?
AG: Like all writers — we tried to avoid it as much as possible! We stopped reading Ain’t it Cool News where we were being burned in effigy everyday, and didn’t go to the San Diego Comic-Con until Season 2.
MM: Listening to fan boys is tiring, frustrating and ultimately futile. Smallville began at the dawn of the fan-forum era — we used to scan the posts to get a sense of the general feeling, but that’s it. If we did course-correct a storyline it would be because the fans’ sentiment mirrored our own. The truth is the so-called “hardcore fans” will find fault with anything and everything. We had no interest in following the established mythology of the D.C. universe or aligning our timeline with theirs.
Q: What was the most controversial?
AG: Making Lex and Clark friends. That was a radical idea at the time, as well as casting an African American actor to play Pete Ross and a Eurasian actress to play Lana Lang. You would not believe how much flak we caught for those choices from the internet peanut gallery.
MM: Again, probably the meteor shower because it led to accusations that we over-relied on the “freak of the week” formula. We had a super-powered, crime-fighting teenager — we figured he had to battle someone every week. It’s not like sleepy Smallville was a hot bed of crime. It wouldn’t exactly be great drama if Clark was forced to use his awesome abilities to solve the case of the missing library book. I have zero regrets about that.
Q: Looking back, is there anywhere you wish you’d taken the characters of Smallville?
AG: I wish we had a better trajectory for Lana Lang. That was probably a three-season love story that lasted six seasons.
MM: It’s so torturous and slow. Ultimately, it damaged Lana in the audience’s mind. Because Clark refused to tell her the truth about his identity, he was constantly forced to lie to her. Although justified, Lana’s response to his behavior made her seem cold and unsympathetic — even though from her POV, Clark was a sneaky, bold-faced liar.
Miles also mentions that We also almost succeeded in bringing Aquaman to the small screen but were thwarted when the WB got swallowed by UPN and became the CW. The atmosphere at the new network was very hostile to Smallville and they were not open to doing another comic book series. It was all about Gossip Girl — looking back, it’s kind of amazing we survived at all.
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-17 11:49 am (UTC)And honestly I feel like the only reason that Clana kept coming back in the end was because of the network, I get the feeling that A&M were always more intrigued by Lexana and were ready to move on to that once high school was over. After season 5 they were talking about their regrets on dragging out the Clana break-up and how it's definitely over forever now, so I feel like they were planning to go in a very different direction with Lex and Lana working together and Lana going on a slightly darker path (which we see hints of in Arrow when she's blackmailing the Doctor, or in Static when she's agreeing with Lex on Level 33.1 and wanting to be included on it). Most likely the network stepped in during season 6 because of the falling ratings, and forced the about-turn that we see from Hydro-Promise with the baby all of a sudden being a fake and Lana saying that she wouldn't have hesitated to see yes if it were Clark asking.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-17 07:19 pm (UTC)They probably were, because with Lexana this provided them with a chance to really develop Lana's character and show her figuring out who she is and wants to be, as well as giving her more character depth. I was really not happy with the Network as well as the pandering to the Clana faction in the fandom either, for as long as they did. I still, to this day, cannot get over the whole Hydro-Promise with the fake baby and Lana's unhesitant "yes" to Clark. This was the most frustrating of them all, because they had so much potential wrapped up in the baby storyline and they could have made Lana and Lex such an amazing dynamic duo. There was never one shred of doubt in my mind that Lex loved Lana or that she loved him and was just too afraid to admit that, because admitting that would mean that there were some darker hints in her as well and she wasn't always the "pretty girl next door who wore pink" for the majority of time for on the show.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-17 10:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-18 03:28 am (UTC)Word. Regarding everything and then some, that you said about S6. I know that it had a few good moments for Lexana, but not that many. Although, I have to admit that I kind of did like Lana being a little cold, I don't know. It just felt more edgey and her, rather than the sweet little bubble gum next door perfect can never do anything wrong, romantic barn/loft Lana that we were given for so long ad nauseum. But, I did hate that she completely turned all feelings off for Lex, again I think it was more of her being scared to acknowledge the fact that she really did love him though. Or at least, that's what I choose to believe, over what we were given because for me if I accept their story and how they weakened one of the most interesting ships on the show other than Clex, well ... you know I'm bound to go a little crazy and have to be locked up. lol.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-18 05:47 am (UTC)It was around the time of Promise and Crimson that I hated how the writers suddenly had Lana turn off all feeling for Lex for no justifiable reason :( Even earlier that that really, because in Trespass too there was a weird cold vibe between them. As soon as they brought back her feelings for Clark, it felt like they suddenly had to write her as turned off by Lex's touch, and that just didn't fit with the writing of them in late season 5 and early season 6 at all when you look back at episodes like Fragile, Static and Wither when she could barely contain her passion for him. It didn't make sense for her feelings to apparently change so much before finding out about the faked pregnancy
(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-18 10:03 pm (UTC)To the best of my knowledge, there really was no reason for the writer's to suddenly turn her of of Lex for any reason. They had one hell of an interesting storyline going on between them and it could have been so much more, but no it had to be all teh Clana. I never realized this until you mentioned it, but now that I think about it there was some cool tones in Tresspass.
See, that's what infuriates me the most, the finally give us a ship that actually had the chance to make it for the long haul and be interesting enough to keep people watching and then they do this and just un-write it the best way they can.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-19 11:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-28 08:15 pm (UTC)