Disclaimer: Reviews contain my personal opinion, and I don't claim to be the authority on these things. I appreciate and respect that other people may have different opinions. Friendly debate is welcome, but name-calling and other such immaturity will be ignored. My reviews assume you've either seen the series already or aren't planning to. They're full of spoilers, but they won't necessarily describe the whole series beginning to end... more likely I'll rant about some aspect or another in detail, but leave huge gaps about the plot. And oh yeah, I'll be cursing.
I had a lot of fond memories of Lois & Clark. I watched the first season back when it originally aired, and remembered it being my favorite iteration of Superman. After watching all four seasons, I still feel like that... but ONLY about the first season. It had clever writing, lots of comedy, and Dean Cain plays by far the most interesting version of Clark Kent I've ever seen. Teri Hatcher's Lois is a no-nonsense reporter that always gets her story and can kick some serious butt when she needs to, and I think John Shea's Lex Luthor is my favorite screen version of the villain. The supporting cast is great, too, each of them having their little quirks to make them memorable. The first season is a lot of fun and truly entertaining. So by all means, watch the first season. And stop when you're done with it.
Season two starts with a number of mistakes. First, they make the mistake of killing off their main villain way too soon. It seems like all live-action versions of super hero stories do this. Granted, it probably had something to do with the actor wanting to leave the show, but in some cases I'd rather see a different actor playing the same villain if only to give the show something to really keep it together. A good villain is like a strong glue to a superhero show; without one, the story simply falls apart.
Without Lex, the show is forced to bring out a string of ridiculous, non-threatening villains that just leave you scratching your head. They briefly attempt to introduce a new crime syndicate, but most of what they do comes across as goofy comedy rather than anything that needs to be worried about. The first boss is taken down quickly, and you have a glimmer of hope when freaking Bruce Campbell takes over as his son, but he ends up being in a total of two episodes. It was very disappointing.
The writing also takes a sharp turn for the worse. It's clearly an attempt to make the show more family friendly, but it comes across as dumbed down to the point that it's painful to watch. The Christmas episode featuring Toyman is a prime example of this.
One of the things that got to me the most about this show, post-season-one, is that, in a completely shameless attempt to pander to the teen demographic, they replace the original Jimmy Olsen actor with then-teen heartthrob Justin Whalin (who also starred in such classics as "Child's Play 3", and later the big screen adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons). In season one, Jimmy had been a clever, sympathetic aspiring reporter; maybe not someone you'd normally associate with the role of Jimmy Olsen, but he was a *good character*, which to me is more important.
In season two, Jimmy is suddenly and jarringly a teenage intern that the writers really don't know what to do with, and for a long time just pops up randomly around the office like "Hey guys, what's up?" grinning like an idiot and posing for the teen girls to swoon over. For most of season two and three, my fiancee and I referred to him as "Fake Jimmy," and wondered what he did to "Real Jimmy," and how he'd managed to convince the entire staff of the Daily Planet that he was the same person...
Jimmy does eventually get better; the writers start giving him a real character to play somewhere in season 3. Perry White mentors him and considers him like a son, and since he is the youngest person on the staff and the internet really took off during the time the show was airing, Jimmy became an expert hacker and the go-to guy for information.
Somewhere around season 3, the show departs from the dumbed-down kiddy formula to a soap opera style of writing, which is where it *really* got unbearable for me. The worst of them was the entire string of episodes involving clones. Lois and Clark were supposed to be married, but secretly a clone of Lex has come back and cloned Lois (who we referred to as "Clonis"). He replaces Lois with Clonis, and so Clark actually marries Clonis (*gasp*). Meanwhile, Lex takes the real Lois to a secret underground lair where he plans to have his Indian manservant, Asabi, transfer their souls into perfect, cloned bodies (since his original cloned body is starting to fall apart). Lois is, of course, not into this idea, but the writers had changed her from someone who could actually defend herself to a helpless damsel in distress sometime in season two, so she just waits around for Clark to save her. Long story short, Superman saves her, Lex dies for real this time, but at some point during the whole fiasco Lois had been hit on the head and got amnesia, so there are another several episodes of them dealing with her not remembering Clark. I wanted to burn my TV.
And oh god, don't even get me started on "Mike." Mike is a god-like angel figure that shows up and randomly teleports everyone to a (very fake-looking set of a) flowery mountainside for Lois and Clark's finally real wedding in the beginning of season 4. The whole scenario is very strange and heavy-handed and religious, and probably the lowest point of the whole show. Like seriously, a random angel named Mike??? WTF?
There are a few episodes in season 4 which surprised me and were very well-written and clever, but it was very much too little, too late. The season ends on a very random note, and it was clear they didn't know they wouldn't be picked up for another season. I honestly can't even remember who the villain even was, only that, during the course of the episode, Lois and Clark found out that Clark's Kryptonian physiology was too different from human for them to ever have a baby, so they were all boo-hooing, and then they randomly found a baby in their living room. They didn't question it or anything, were just like "yay, a baby!" and then the series ended. I blame Mike.
Play Freebird!
ReplyDeleteOh, Christian. :P
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