KryptonSite Comic-Con Report: Kelly Souders & Brian Peterson Talk Season 8!
After the Smallville panel at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, the participating actors and producers spoke with members of the press about the upcoming season, and we are now happy to share with you an interview with two of the show's new executive producers, Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson, from their roundtable discussion.

Thanks go out to "Routh" for transcribing this one and saving Craig from about an hour's worth of transcribing.

Souders and Peterson began the roundtable by talking about someone who won't be a regular cast member in Season 8 - Michael Rosenbaum. "We can't say enough great things about Michael Rosenbaum," Brian Peterson says. "He just made the character of Lex Luthor for our show. It was sad to see him go pursue his own interests," he continues, pointing out that the Lex character is going to still be very much a part of this season.

Creatively, the departure of Lex has opened the doors for the show's producers to bring in other characters from the DC Comics universe. To fill that void, they looked to the character of Doomsday, killer of Superman from the classic 1992 comic book. "We needed a foe that was as great as Lex, and there are very few of those out there, so we brought in Doomsday who's going to be a great part of the season," Peterson says.

"And we brought in Tess who's going to be a formidable opponent for pretty much everybody on the cast at some point," Kelly Souders adds. "I think as much as we lost tremendously in Al and Miles, we're still in communication with them, and they've been really supportive. Obviously, we took some massive hits this year, but in a strange way it sort of forced everyone to look at the show differently, which I think you don't often have an opportunity like that after 7 seasons. It allowed the writers to walk in with a blank slate in some ways and look at how to reinvigorate and reinvent the show, the characters, the situations, the relationships. We're actually all very energized. I haven't seen the writer's room as energized in a while. Not that we weren't really passionate about it before, but I think it's just forced everyone to think [deeper]."

Also on tap for Season 8 is more interaction between Lois and Clark. "The dynamic of Clark and Lois at the Daily Planet, when the dailies are coming in, is fantastic," Peterson enthuses. "It's iconic, and it's exactly what those two actors feel like they were meant to do. They are just great together, and watching Clark and Lois together in the way that we're used to seeing them from everything that we remember, I think, is making it a really fun show this year."

Peterson is quick to point out that Season 8 will not be a rehash of the 1990's TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. "That isn't the feel of our show and isn't the characters that people have gotten to know on our show. I think as they work together you see the tension and the sparks fly which is really fun, but it's all born out of the same Clark Kent that we know, and the same Lois that we know on our show, so there is not a change in tone on the show in any way," he says.

Previous reports have had Erica Durance signed for the usual 12-13 episodes of her contract, though Peterson says there are always possibilities for more. "We have an option for her to do more, and what's great is she is really present in all of the episodes so far. She's front and center and is doing a great job. So yes, there's an opportunity for more," he says.

The relationship between Clark and Lois's cousin, Chloe, will also come into play early in the season. "We definitely have an episode this year that addresses a lot of the underlying tension, the sexual tension, the love tension between the two of them. So we do definitely touch on it this year," Peterson says. "It's also a season for all of the characters across the board to move on to the next phase of their life which is kind of exciting. So there's a lot of some sense of leaving the past behind and moving to the next part of the Superman mythology," Souders adds.

The romantic situation isn't the only thing Clark will have to explore this year. "Up until this point, we haven't done a lot with Clark trying to balance the double identity of Clark Kent and this Superman figure, so this year is very much about double identity and him learning the balance of that because that's a long journey in itself that we haven't even touched on really until now," Peterson reveals.

During the Comic-Con panel, Brian Peterson commented that Supernatural would be the show he would most like to see Smallville cross over with. As there are many who are fans of both shows, is that actually a possibility?

"We never cross anything out," Kelly Souders says. "We haven't talked about it in these first two months that we've been hitting the ground running on season 8," she reveals. "It was talked about in previous seasons, so it is in the realm of possibility," Peterson teases.

Season Eight marks the promotion of Peterson and Souders in addition to Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer as the series' new executive producers/showrunners. This team seems ready for the challenge, and they don't intend to change the show too drastically. "The great thing for the four of us since we've been on the show as long as we have, it sounds kind of cliche but these characters and the world and the show have a life of it's own, and so you can't come in and do a 90 degree turn, even if that's your intent because the characters are so true to themselves and I think our cast does such an amazing job of embodying the characters that they really live as real people. So when we talk about all of the changes, it's probably more of an evolution than a change," Souders says. "I think Allison has been such a great Chloe and she will always be that Chloe. This year, it's just about opening her world up a little bit more. Same thing with Clark Kent. So I think that show has been successful based on it's ability to kind of give us an origin story of Superman that felt real but also had some reinterpretations in it. So I think we're just following in those footsteps that Al and Miles created for us. Clark Kent's still the same Clark Kent, we just wanted to get him closer to the Superman that we know, that the general public is more familiar with."

Read part 2 of this interview, where Peterson and Souders discuss flying, more on Doomsday, and a dual identity for Clark!

Read our complete coverage of Comic-Con '08! Sam Witwer - Justin Hartley - Kelly Souders & Brian Peterson - Todd Slavkin & Darren Swimmer - Allison Mack - Cassidy Freeman

Also be sure to read our coverage on our other sites! KITTSite (Knight Rider) - TerminatorSite (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

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