At the PaleyFest Fall Preview on Saturday night, we caught up with Flash Executive Producer Greg Berlanti on the red carpet, getting some intel about what’s to come on the show, which premieres on The CW Tuesday, October 7.

Berlanti is one of TV’s busiest producers and writers – he has Arrow and The Flash, the upcoming series The Mysteries of Laura on NBC, and a handful of shows in development, including a possible Supergirl series. So let’s go for it, eh? Our questions to Mr. Berlanti are posted in bold; his answers are not. If you like the interview, please just link to FlashTVNews rather than copying/pasting the whole thing elsewhere.

FLASHTVNEWS’ CRAIG BYRNE: You’ve said before in interviews that you were a huge fan of The Flash. Can you talk about what it’s like to get to bring this character to TV?

I would say that when you’re that lucky, your primary thing that keeps you up at night is just not messing it up, and then after that is just the most successful time for a show is, for me, when the episodes and the moments make me feel like the book made me feel when I was a kid.

Did you have a particular favorite Flash storyline from the comics?

I would say Crisis [on Infinite Earths] was my favorite comic, because it was the thing where I realized, when he died… I found myself crying in a comic book shop at 13 or however old I was… that I was more attached to these characters than I had realized I was.

Might we ever see a Crisis of any sort on the show?

A lot of stars would have to align, I think, and we’d have to be really, really blessed and lucky to actually build toward that.

Crisis was also well known as a big crossover. You’ve got Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) coming in with Episode 4, and a full crossover with Arrow in Episode 8, and you have some Arrow villains coming in. Can you talk about some of those crossovers that are coming up?

My favorite part of them is that we’re not waiting to do “two characters in Episode 18.” They’re really an active part. I just love when they’re in each others’ universes. It makes both shows feel bigger. So that’s a lot of fun. I know if I were a fan watching the show, those two nights in a row [with the crossover], they would own me. I would be so excited to see back-to-back episodes like that.

Are you allowed to tell us about the villains in that 2-parter yet?

We use a famous Flash villain, actually, in the Arrow episode, and then I would say as much as there is a villain in the Flash one – the first one (“Flash vs. Arrow”) – we’re not deceiving anybody with the title. There will be some real fisticuffs between our heroes.

Are there any character interactions that surprised you all in the writers’ room when breaking the crossover?

It’s all the interpersonal stuff, so it’s the real connection…. the deepening friendship between Barry and Oliver is always great. But when you’re getting to write scenes with Cisco and Dig… that’s just a cool scene, you know? And Diggle’s reaction when he sees what The Flash can really do? It’s hysterical and funny.

News just came out that the Flashpoint character Blackout might be coming onto the show. Is there anything you can tell us about that?

He’s in Episode 7.

What’s the title of that one?

I shouldn’t say yet. They’ll release it soon enough.

Our thanks to Mr. Berlanti for talking with us, and you can stay tuned soon for more interviews from Paley! A gallery of PaleyFest photos can be found here.