in a Kryptonian sphere in the season-eight finale. Smallvilles executive producers called this incarnation "Major Zod" (as opposed to the typical "General Zod"), and in season nine "the venomous side of Zod rises because he experiences a few key betrayals with our beloved characters". Production Development Tollin/Robbins Productions originally wanted to do a series about a young Bruce Wayne, but the feature-film division of Warner Bros. decided to develop an origin movie for Batman and did not want to compete with a television series. In 2000, Tollin/Robbins approached Peter Roth, president of Warner Bros. Television, about developing a series on a young Superman. That year, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar developed a pilot based on the film Eraser. After watching the pilot, Roth approached Gough and Millar about developing a pilot about a young Superman; the two made a "no tights, no flights" rule that Clark would not fly or wear the Superman suit during the series. Gough and Millar wanted to strip Superman to his "bare essence", exploring why Clark Kent became the Man of Steel. They felt that because they were not comic-book fans or familiar with the universe, they would have an unbiased approach to the series. Gough and Millar learned about the characters, researching the comics and choosing what they liked. They pitched their idea to the WB and Fox on the same day. A bidding war between the networks followed, with the WB committing to thirteen episodes. Although Roth, Gough and Millar knew the show would be action-oriented, they wanted to reach 7th Heavens "middle America iconography". To create atmosphere, the team decided the meteor shower bringing Clark to Earth would be the ironic foundation of the show. The primary source of his life on Earth and the super-powered beings Clark must fight, it would take away the parents of the girl he loves and start Lex Luthor down a dark path. Roth appreciated Clark's conflict in dealing with the fact that his arrival caused so much pain. The creators also had to address why Lex Luthor would socialize with young people. They created a loneliness in the character which they felt would drive him to reach out to the teenagers, a loneliness echoed in Clark and Lana. Gough and Millar wanted a parallel to the Kents and created Lionel Luthor, Lex's father, whom they saw as conducting an "experiment in extreme parenting". They wanted