NBC recently revealed that ‘True Blood’ star Lucy Griffiths would not be appearing on ‘Constantine’ as Liv Aberdine after the pilot episode. Instead, she will be replaced as the female lead by Angelica Celaya, who will play ‘Hellblazer’ character Mary “Zed” Martin. But when this announcement was made, fans were left wondering why the change was made. Now, thanks to comments from the Television Critics Association press tour, we have some answers.

According to IGN, showrunner Daniel Cerone and executive producer David Goyer talked about the changes being made to the television series based on the DC Comics character created by the legendary Alan Moore. First, Cerone explained that the relationship between Zed and John would be a more dynamic one than the relationship with Liv:

“Pilots are great because they are a litmus test and you get to go through production and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Liv was wide eyed and would always be reactive. Ultimately, we felt hamstrung by her. Whereas Zed – who is from the comics – is psychic and has powers when she meets John [Constantine]. She has a dark past and can go toe-to-toe with John. We wanted that relationship rather than a teacher and a student. One of John’s character traits is that he’s a bullshit artist. Zed is intuitive and can detect bullshit and so she can call him on it.”

Goyer, who is also known working on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, ‘Man of Steel’, and ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’, went on to say that the writers wished that they had used Zed from the beginning:

“In the writer’s room after pilot we realized that we wrote ourselves into a corner. We thought, ‘Why didn’t we use Zed?’ and then decided to do it. It’s a character we got excited about.”

Previously, Goyer mentioned that Zed would be appearing in the show eventually anyway, but I guess after some early buzz about the pilot came out, they decided to pull that trigger sooner rather than later. It will be interesting to see how they explain Liv’s abrupt exit from the series once the second episode airs though.

What do you think about Daniel Cerone and David Goyer’s explanation about replacing Liv Aberdeen with Zed Martin after the pilot of ‘Constantine’? Are you sad to see Lucy Griffiths exit the series before it even premieres? Let’s hear what you think in the comments below.

‘Constantine’ starring Matt Ryan, Harold Perrineau, and Charles Halford debuts on NBC at 10:00pm on October 24, 2014.