Smallville alum Eric Johnson, who played the first man to come between Clarke and Lana, Whitney Fordman, will be getting his own shot at superherodom as he takes on the title role Flash Gordon in the new series being developed, appropriately enough, by the SciFi channel.   Johnson was a pivotal character on Smallville through the beginning of the series and left the show after many character shifting redemptions.

Flash Gordon will be an all-new take on the series, disregarding the 1930’s Buster Crabbe serials, as well as the infamously disastrous big screen attempt of the 80’s.  Despite giving the material and stylings of its predecessor's a wide berth, Flash Gordon will still maintain many of the original themes and characters including Flash’s beau Dale Arden, and the eccentric Dr. Hans Zarkov. Adventures will indeed take them to Flash Gordon’s preeminent domain for adventure, the planet of Mongo, reined over by the Fu Man Chu like Ming the merciless.
 
The first two episodes of the series will be written by Peter Hume of ‘Charmed’ fame, and will reunite Johnson with frequent Smallville contributor Ric Rosthenal who will take up the directing duties. Flash Gordon will begin filming in late may and SciFI has put in an initial order of 22 episodes that will begin airing in August of  2007. 

Smallville fans will remember that his stint as object of Clark’s envy ended when his character was killed off-screen while in the military.  Johnson returned briefly to Smallville in the second season as Whitney, but it was later learned that this Whitney was a doppelganger.   The Clark vs. Whitney rivalry of season one was pivotal in the way that it frequently united Lex Luthor and Clark against the cocky jock. 

SciFI will begin to run promotional material for Flash Gordon as early as June.  Production house RHI that is handling SciFI’s controversial Wizard of Oz remake ‘Tin Man’ will be handling Flash Gordon as well.

- Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer   
(Source zap2it.com)
(Image from TheCW)