Kristin Kreuk is no stranger to romances on the small screen after her big break into American television was as Lana Lang on Smallville starting in 2001, followed by Beauty and the Beast. Her new co-lead role in the 2024 TV schedule is opposite Rossif Sutherland, and the series premiere of Murder in a Small Town on Fox quickly made it clear that the love story between local librarian Cassandra (Kreuk) and newly-arrived police chief Alberg (Sutherland) was central to the plot of the murder mystery series. When the stars chatted with CinemaBlend, Kreuk spoke about “never” wanting to watch another will-they/won’t-they romance.
If you’ve watched your share of crime shows, you might have expected Murder in a Small Town to ignite sparks between the two leads but avoid fanning the flames for too long for a classic will-they/won’t-they status quo. Instead, Cassandra and Alberg quickly connected and started a romance before the end of the 90-minute series premiere. (You can stream the premiere now with a Hulu subscription.) I spoke with Kreuk and Sutherland, and Kreuk didn’t hold back about preferring the new show’s approach:
I love it. I would happily never watch a will-they/won't-they ever again. [laughs] And the fun thing about our show is that they're not solving crimes together. They live in kind of separate worlds that come together, and I think a lot of the will-they/won't-they is about teammates who are working together, and that's a different vibe entirely. But having them enter into a relationship, and then the push and pull and the complications that come out of that, they establish that they care about each other from the start, and then the things that come into play are very real.
Murder in a Small Town isn’t just avoiding the will-they/won’t-they trope; the new show is also side-stepping the common trope of the job keeping two coworkers apart romantically. Sure, Cassandra helped crack the case of the series premiere, but there are no rules against the local librarian and the local police chief starting a romance. Kristin Kreuk went on:
Cassandra really struggles with his job as a cop, not only in a principled way, but also in that it affects her life. It becomes something that puts her in danger. I like that we get to live in that, instead of skirting the surface of attraction and desire and kind of delving more into love and relating.
If the first episode wasn’t proof enough, Kristin Kreuk’s comments more than prove that she’s not playing Lana Lang 2.0 and her new show definitely isn’t a Smallville revival. Rossif Sutherland, who originally had his doubts about Murder in a Small Town before Kreuk was cast, shared his own thoughts:
It's not so much will they or won't they make out or be together. It's will they or won't they manage to make this work? How do you nurture this spark, this love between these two middle-aged people, this gift in one's life after all the failings of each other's past, and that's the will-they/won't-they. Will they manage to leave enough room for each other to be able to survive this and celebrate one another and be in love and want to grow old together?
Avoiding will-they/won’t-they doesn’t mean that Cassandra and Alberg will have smooth sailing for the rest of the first season, but their issues sound quite different than what viewers might expect from other freshman shows with dual leads. Sutherland went on:
That's what I really wish for them. It is true love. It's that idea of a soulmate. That they found each other, the absurdity of life – what a gift. And here they are. That's the story of our show. In the midst of it all, people die, and I'm tasked to find out who killed them, but it's a love story.
See the love story between Kristin Kreuk and Rossif Sutherland’s new characters develop with new episodes of Murder in a Small Town on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Fox, following new episodes of Accused after Fox finally announced that it would be renewed and not cancelled. That said, the next installment of MIST will air at a special time on Tuesday, October 1 at 8 p.m. ET due to the Vice Presidential debate. You can always watch episodes next day streaming on Hulu.
