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Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have regrets about Lana

posted 8 years ago by MickyMac (3254)
6 replies | jump to latest

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.

http://www.sundance.tv/series/the-writers-room/blog/2014/04/interview-with-smallville-creators-alfred-gough-and-miles-millar

[–] MickyMac (3254) 4 years ago

They were afraid once she knew his secret the show was gonna take a turn for the worst.

[–] melissah1982 (883) 4 years ago

Ha, just wrote a post about this. I completely agree. I liked Lana in the beginning and she just got too boring after a while and they gave her weird/supernatural plots that just didn't fit with her character. I think (if I remember correctly) she left to go overseas and they should have left her there for a few seasons, bringing her back near the end of the show after Clark is with Lois or something like that.

The problem for me with the lying and hiding is when you see Lana with all the other 'meteor freaks' and how she handles them, Clark should have had no fears of telling her the truth. She's seen enough to be trusted. But they had to keep that drama there and it just made things annoying.

[–] MickyMac (3254) 4 years ago

When SV came along it had become a bit time worn for a love interest to not ever find out the hero's identity. His constant hiding and lying should've resulted in her spying on him and I think the reasons it didn't happen because they feared her knowing too early would kill the tension and probably felt he should be obsessing over his first love for the entire series like Ross & Rachel in Friends.

[–] melissah1982 (883) 4 years ago

It's a legitimate fear but they just handled it poorly. in any story, once the 'Will they/won't they' plot is concluded, it makes the story boring. In the 'Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman': once Lois discovered Clark's secret and they got married and all that, you fall into the problem of 'where do they go from here?'. The difference (and benefit) Smallville had was because it was Superman's origins and early story, his story didn't end with Lana; it ends with Lois. so they could have easily nudged her out of the show and moved him on to other people before even getting to Lois. They just didn't take that road because teen drama.

what I have to keep remembering and reminding myself was this wasn't meant as some epic, adult, serious, historic version of Superman. It was a CW teen drama. They just did too damn good of a job that the teen drama end of it really hindered the amazingness this show could have been.

[–] MickyMac (3254) 3 years ago

It was kind of hard to have "Will they/won't they" work with Clana when everyone knows he ends up with Lois, when Superman and Lois is such a commonplace in pop culture it once again makes SV Lana's stay over welcomed because it's no surprise he doesn't end up with her when you know the characters' fates.

[–] MickyMac (3254) 2 years ago

I read from a comment on YouTube that it may have been a network thing, prioritizing star power and familiar faces over narrative cohesion, telling the producer that it needed to stay the Clark and Lana show until Kristen left, so it's like they knew she overstayed her welcome but wanted or forced to keep her on anyway.