Wednesday Creators Reveal How Smallville Secretly Influenced the Netflix Hit

WARNING: Mild spoilers for Season 2 of Wednesday. Family is at the core of the new season of Netflix’s Wednesday, with the titular character’s younger brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) a student alongside Wednesday at Nevermore Academy and Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) fundraising for the school. Though Wednesday isn’t exactly thrilled (when is she ever?) to have the rest of the Addams family at school with her, the second season of the Netflix smash hit is stronger for including more of the iconic characters the series is based on. And we can thank Wednesday‘s creators and showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar and their time on another hit show, Smallville, for the entertaining and surprisingly relatable family drama.

Speaking with Variety, Gough and Millar asserted “there’s no Wednesday without Smallville“, especially when it comes to the family dynamic that exists at the forefront of both shows.

Smallville‘s Focus on Family Inspired Wednesday‘s Version of The Addams Family

“The Kents are another aspirational family,” Millar explained. Although Clark Kent and his parents are perhaps the diametrical opposite of the Addams family, Miller and Gough described the importance of depicting those familial relationships on screen. Millar went on to say, “Families and parents and kids are a theme of all our work. Those relationships are so primal and important.”

“We wanted a very functional relationship where Clark went to his parents, because he had to,” Gough added. “They were the only ones who knew his secret, and they loved him and were supportive, but they were also parents. They set boundaries and had discipline, and that’s something that, frankly, both parents and kids really responded to.”

Gough and Millar ran the Smallville writers room for seven seasons before departing the show. However, it’s clear they brought the lessons they learned about from the young Superman show when crafting the teenage Wednesday’s story too.

“With the Addams Family, it’s similar in that you’re telling an untold chapter of a character,” Gough pointed out. “Our philosophy was they can be a family that loves each other, but it doesn’t mean that they’re a family that doesn’t have conflict. That gives us great drama, but also deepens the relationships and makes them feel like a real family.”

In the new season of Wednesday, that dynamic is made crystal clear when Wednesday and her mother settle their differences over a blinded sword fight. Although the scene is incredibly heightened and deliciously campy, the sequence works because of its very relatable anchor in teenage daughters striving for more independence from their mothers. Morticia’s expanded role in the new season and the introduction of her mother, Hester Frump (Joanna Lumley) only deepens her character and makes her clashes with Wednesday all the more universal, even in the over the top world of the show.

Smallville‘s Cutting-Edge VFX Also Inspired Wednesday

Smallville not only broke the mold with how it portrayed families on primetime television, choosing for Clark to have a functional relationship with his parents rather than the nonexistent adults of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the generally helpless older generation in Dawson’s Creek, it also raised the standard of what was possible with special effects on a network show.

Gough and Millar described pushing “the realm of what visual effects could do on TV” as their “signature through all our shows,” Wednesday included. Despite the exponential advancements in VFX and CGI over the past twenty-five years since Smallville premiered, Gough and Millar still found themselves challenged by how exactly to bring Professor Orloff to life. The character is quite literally a floating head in a jar, after all.

Gough and Miller cited bringing on Addams Family actor Christopher Lloyd as a major boon to solving that particular filmmaking puzzle.

“To get Christopher Lloyd — he’s always been at the forefront of visual effects, in [Who Framed] Roger Rabbit and Back to the Future,” Millar gushed. “So it felt like he was a perfect guy to do it. We’re always pushing what visual effects can do in the medium.”

The Wednesday creators said they were “grateful” for Smallville‘s legacy, as are we for the peak television the pair continues to create that’s informed by the show.

Wednesday Season 2 Part 1 is currently streaming on Netflix. Part 2 premieres on September 3rd.

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