‘Smallville’ Creators Finally Own up to Major Blunder

Clana critics can rejoice. Smallville showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar expressed some regret over how they handled the will-they-won’t-they relationship between Clark Kent and Lana Lang on the 21-year-old TV show in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter about their new Netflix show Wednesday. When asked if they would have made any changes to Smallville today, Gough immediately brought up Clana. 

“The Clark-Lana thing played out way too long,” he said. “Something else had to happen there. I think that was one that got a little repetitive. My younger daughter is now, finally after Wednesday, she’s going back to watch Smallville, and she’s in Season 2. She goes, ‘What’s the deal with these two?’ I’m like, ‘It was a different time.’ So, I think there are things there, if we went back, we probably would be a little more adventurous with some of those relationships and bring them to certain heads and let them play out.” 

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Initially broadcast by the WB, Smallville began airing on October 16, 2001. After the series’ fifth season, the WB and UPN merged to create The CW, which continued airing until May 13, 2011. In Smallville, Tom Welling played the role of a teenage Clark (Tom Welling) as he grew up in his fictional hometown of Smallville, Kansas, before becoming the Man of Steel. Clark’s life in high school, his romance with Lana (Kristin Kreuk), and his friendship with future nemesis Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) are central to the first four seasons. As the show progressed into Clark’s early adulthood, the focus shifted to his career at the Daily Planet with Lois Lane (Erica Durance) and the introduction of other DC comic book heroes and villains. 

Meanwhile, Millar says he would rewrite all the female characters from a modern perspective. “We were definitely cautious and just very conscious of the fact we wanted to get to five seasons, and we ended up at 10 seasons, but we’re just like, ‘OK, if we split them apart, what are we gonna do?’” Millar said. “Again, as the father of girls, I think the female characters we would do differently today. I think Lana, her agency was not there. She could have been a much stronger character, and she always felt put in positions of weakness. It’s a different era, a different time. So, that’s something I think we could have done and would definitely look at to do better.”

The producers admit they wouldn’t be able to produce the story today due to the lack of interest in superhero shows on the CW. When asked if they would ever return to Superman, Gough replied, “I think we told that story, and they’re always refreshing Superman. I just read last night that James Gunn’s writing a new younger Superman movie, and I’m like, ‘OK.’ I feel like we were very, very fortunate to do the show when we did it because we got to make the show we wanted to make, and frankly, there was no committee sitting over us telling us what we could or couldn’t do.” He added, “I mean, we had Warner’s features, who wouldn’t give us certain characters that we wanted, but we got to make the show we wanted to make which we wouldn’t be allowed to make that show today. There were so many deviations from the canon. One generation’s heresy is the next generation’s gospel.”