The season finale of “Smallville” ended with Clark Kent and his compatriots in dire circumstances. Lois Lane and Clark's mother had been kidnapped by the archvillain Brainiac; his friend Chloe was surrounded by a mob; and Clark himself was zapped into a space purgatory called the phantom zone. Meanwhile, Clark's enemy Lex Luthor and Clark's bitter ex-girlfriend, Lana Lang, calmly watched Metropolis consume itself in rioting and fiery chaos.
Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, the “Smallville” creators and executive producers, say they have no idea how they will resolve these problems when Season 6 begins in the fall. In an interview in Los Angeles, Millar – British and tempered in speech – grimaced and said, “Getting out of the finales is always tricky.” Gough, the more exuberant of the two, laughed and said, “We always go, 'Well, that's a problem for June.' ”
A year ago, Millar and Gough did not think that conceiving a sixth season of their young Superman series was a problem they would face. When the WB announced its fall schedule in May 2005, “Smallville” had been moved from 8 p.m. Wednesdays to Thursdays at the same hour. As far as the producers were concerned, the move was a death sentence for the show.
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Gough said, “Looking at what we were up against on that night – 'The OC' and 'Alias' and 'Survivor' – it was like, 'Oh, my God.' ”
But rather than being crushed by those three shows, which directly compete for a similar group of young adult viewers, “Smallville” experienced a resurgence. For the season it was No. 1 in its time period among men 18 to 34, a hard-to-reach audience that would often rather play video games than watch television. (Overall, it averaged 5.3 million viewers for new episodes, a slight increase over last year.) In the middle of the season, Fox moved the “O.C.” time slot back an hour; ABC's “Alias” moved to Wednesdays.
When the sixth season of “Smallville” begins in September, it will be on the new CW network, created by the merger of UPN and the WB. Laura Caraccioli-Davis, executive vice president of Starcom Entertainment, who advises companies on product placement, said “Smallville” was one of CW's most valuable shows.
“To get young men to the screen, it takes a lot,” she said. As for why “Smallville” experienced a ratings renaissance and caused its competitors to move, she said: “You just go back to the tortoise and the hare story. It's been a really strong, solid property that had good characters, good narrative.”
Dawn Ostroff is now the president of entertainment at the CW and held the same position at UPN. Last week at the fledgling network's first “upfront” presentation to advertisers, she announced the schedule, and “Smallville” is to stay on Thursdays at 8 p.m. In a telephone interview Ostroff said, “It would be hard to mess with that success.”
Looking back on the past season, Gough called the assumption that “Smallville” would soon be canceled “freeing.”
He said: “We figured: 'We have nothing to lose. We have these arrows in our quiver. What are we waiting for?' ”
Millar said that other strictures were lifted in Season 5 because the characters were older. DC Comics, the publisher of the “Superman” comics, is old-fashioned, and Clark's sex life on “Smallville” had been quite restricted.
“We waited five years for him to lose his virginity,” Millar said. “Most shows do it in episode 12.”
Gough added: “How many shows have to wait five seasons before they can play their key love triangle, which is Clark, Lana and Lex? We had to wait, quite frankly, until everybody was legal.”
In writing Superman's back story, they had always been miserly in introducing the significant landmarks of Clark's evolution as a superhero. Last summer Millar and Gough flew to Australia to meet with Bryan Singer, the film director, on the set of his “Superman Returns,” which is to be released next month. “What we were trying to avoid were egregious mythology clashes,” Gough said.
With Singer's blessing, over the course of the season they wrote milestones that would be familiar even to casual fans of Superman. The Daily Planet newspaper became Clark's home base; Jonathan Kent, his adoptive father, died; and Clark began visiting the Fortress of Solitude, the ornamental ice structure where he can communicate with the spirit of Jor-El, his Kryptonian biological father.
Millar and Gough said they thought “Smallville” would run for two more years – if it continues to do well – as the actors are signed through seven seasons. Gough said, “After that is when 'Smallville' and 'Superman' will sync up.”
And how will it end? “Badly!” Gough said cheerfully. “It's a tragedy. He doesn't end up with Lana, and he and Lex are mortal enemies. How is that good?”
