Smallville

Smallville is an American television series created by writer/producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, and was initially broadcast by The WB. After its fifth season, the WB and UPN merged to form The CW, which is the current broadcaster for the show in the United States. more...

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Smallville premiered on October 16, 2001, and completed its sixth season on May 17, 2007. A seventh season was officially announced by The CW on May 16, 2007, and premiered on September 27, 2007. It is produced in and around Vancouver, Canada.

The plot follows the adventures of a young Clark Kent's life in the fictional town of Smallville, Kansas, during the years before he becomes Superman. The first four seasons focused on Clark and his friends' high school years. Since season five, the show has ventured into more adult settings, with some characters attending college. Recent seasons have seen an increase in the introductions of other DC comic book superheroes and villains.

Smallville inspired an Aquaman spin-off pilot, which was not picked up by The CW network, as well as promotional tie-ins with Verizon, Sprint, and Toyota. In other media, the show has spawned a series of young-adult novels, a DC Comics comic book and soundtrack releases. The show broke the record for highest rated debut for The WB, with 8.4 million viewers tuning in for its pilot episode.

Production

Development

Originally, Tollin/Robbins Productions wanted to do a show about a young Bruce Wayne. The feature film division of Warner Bros. had decided to develop an origin movie for Batman, and, because they didn't want to compete with a television series, had the television series idea nixed. In 2000, Tollin/Robbins approached Peter Roth, the President of Warner Bros. Television, about developing a series based on a young Superman. That same year, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar developed a pilot based on the film Eraser. After watching the pilot, Roth approached the two men about developing a second pilot, based on the young Superman concept that was brought to him. After meeting with Roth, Gough and Millar decided that they didn't want to do a series where there was lots of flying, and a cape. It was here that they developed a "no tights, no flights" rule, vowing Clark would not, at any point, fly or don the suit during the run of the show.

Gough and Millar wanted to strip Superman down to his "bare essence", and see the reasons behind why Clark became Superman. Gough and Millar felt the fact that they were not comic book fans played into their favor. Not being familiar with the universe would allow them an unbiased approach to the series. This didn't keep them from learning about the characters; they both did research on the comics and picked and rearranged what they liked. They returned and pitched their idea to both the WB and FOX in the same day. A bidding war ensued between FOX and the WB, which the WB won with a commitment of 13 episodes to start.

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