2011 TV News Archives

October 15, 2011: "Smallville" Retrospective Panel at NYCC

Smallville Superman Homepage member Dave Bratton attended the "Smallville" Retrospective Panel at New York Comic Con this weekend, and filed the following report...

I attended the NYCC's "Smallville" Retrospective Panel (featuring the 90 minute "Smallville" Retrospective doc). Essentially a rep from Warner Bros. pressed play on a DVD player hooked up to a LCD projector for about 150 or so of us (I was first in line, got a very good seat).

Some tidbits (and forgive me if these have been covered in previous articles or "Smallville" DVD features).

Transference: It was pretty easy for Tom Welling to play Lionel, but tougher for John Glover to play Clark? Why? Tom's portrayal of Clark is very still. Why? Because in Season 1 Tom was so green, he was scared to make mistakes and essentially stood on his mark and didn't do a lot more. Tom Welling also noticed that in the first few episodes the camera cut away from him while he was talking to the other actors. That changed after a few episodes as he got better.

Allison Mack had lots of discussions with "Smallville" producers/writers about NOT killing Chloe in the finale. Allsion said, "Chloe has already died about 5 times. It would be anti-climactic!"

Season 8 was definitely going to be the final season. "Smallville" had been moved to Thursday (where many thought it would die), but it's ratings rose. Hence, more "Smallville".

I assume most people know this (I had always assumed it), but the identity switching episodes, the episodes where characters were exposed to something and acted very different, were often about budget. They were fun character explorations, but they were cheap to produce, especially if other episodes featured lots of effects.

John Glover was given a very short amount of time to make up his mind about playing Lionel Luthor. Someone else had dropped out, or hadn't worked out. Glover was told that it would be a 2 day filming commitment with the possibility for more in the future.

Michael Rosenbaum was a complete cut up on the "Smallville" set. About as opposite of his Lex Luthor character as possible.

In one episode, Clark was to catch Chloe falling from his barn loft. They were going to hook up a rig to Allison Mack and drop her a few feet into Tom's arms... until Tom suggested he toss her up into the air and catch her. Which is exactly what they ended up doing.

There were more revelations - it was a fun retrospective. I don't think there's anything too earth shattering, no shocking revelations that suddenly change the way you view everything, but there were lots of nice moments. John Schneider talking about how people react to his character, Jonathan Kent, and about his relationship with his own son, was moving.



2011 Television News

Listed below are all the Television News items archived for 2011 organized into various categories:

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