Lois & Clark : Les nouvelles aventures de Superman

Yesterday I watched a VHS released by "Warner do Brasil" with the pilot episode of this TV series. The story begins with Clark Kent (Dean Cain) arriving in Metropolis and being hired by Perry White (Lane Smith) to work in the Daily Planet with Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher) and Jimmy Olsen (Michael Landes). Meanwhile, Clark misses his parent Jonathan Kent (Eddie Jones) and Martha Kent (K Callan) and is harassed by his colleague Catherine "Cat" Grant (Tracy Scoggins). However, he has a crush on Lois Lane. Meanwhile, a spacecraft explodes and a scientist, considered mad by his community, advises that there was a sabotage on the launching. Along the story, it is disclosed but never proved that Lex Luthor (John Shea) was the responsible for the explosion. Clark becomes the Superman, and Lex Luthor his greatest enemy. I was not a regular viewer of this series on TV, but I liked most of the episodes that I have seen. This VHS is excellent, introducing the characters of "Superman" in a delightful story. The beauty of Teri Hatcher would be enough to support this movie, but the chemistry between the handsome Dean Cain and the gorgeous Teri Hatcher is also a wonderful attraction. "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" is a great and charming entertainment for children and adults. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Lois & Clark: As Novas Aventuras do Super-Homem" ("Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman")

Imagine Superman had it been done by Rock Hudson and Doris Day and you have some idea of what Lois And Clark was about. It was one of the more enjoyable shows from the last decade of the last century.

Lois And Clark had all the aspects of one of those domestic comedies that were popular back in the day. Dean Cain was a hip Superman and Clark Kent and Teri Hatcher was an ultra modern Lois Lane who had a nose for news. Granted she researched the internet for background instead of wearing out high heels chasing a story, but she knew her job and her suspicions about her colleague even before they got romantically involved.

And of course the accent here was on the budding romance of Lois And Clark. It could only end in super wedded bliss where Clark Kent finally had to let Lois Lane in on the biggest secret since the Manhattan Project.

In the old Superman series with George Reeves they also had an accent on comedy as well that is rarely talked about. Dean Cain modeled a lot of his performance on Reeves who always had an all knowing smile in every episode after he bailed out other cast members.

Technology is creeping up on the classic superhero. Back in the day Clark Kent became a reporter because he could keep track of evil doing with the use of those sources. I daresay today he wouldn't need the job, just good hacking skills. He could sit at home and stay on the internet and be just as informed. I wonder how future incarnations of the Shuster&Siegel hero will deal with that.

But it wouldn't be as fun and we'd sure miss all the Tracy/Hepburn like banter between Lois And Clark.

This is my all time favorite TV show. I first started watching it as a child and even though I didn't get all the plots at the time, I was mesmerized by the superhero in the blue and red suit. As years passed and I watched the show again on reruns, the intensity of the romance between Lois and Clark became what captivated me the most. I believe that this is definitively the best caricature of what would an amorous relationship between Lois and Clark (and not Lois and Superman) be. The idea of Clark being a normal guy (with superpowers, yes, but still trying to pursue a seemingly normal life)and Superman being his cover is a good change. Another good thing is that the show's merit doesn't rely only on the main characters. The supporting characters of Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Martha and Jonathan Kent, Lex Luthor and Cat Grant(this one unfortunately only during the first season) added many of the best moments in the show. Unfortunately, and I guess everyone realizes it, during the third season the show started having some really weird plots with no such thing as coherence. It was still fun but there was something lost along the way. Nevertheless, it's still the best TV show I've ever seen. The only that truly caught my eye from the very first moment. To this day I'm still a fan and it's still magical for me to sit in front of the TV screen and watch another episode of this great show. So, thank you very much Deborah Joy Levine and all the others that wrote all the episodes we watched, to Dean Cain, Teri Hatcher, Lane Smith, John Shea, Michael Landes and Justin Whalin, K Callan, Eddie Jones, Tracy Scoggins and all the other actors who performed such great roles, and at last but not least thanks to rest of the crew for making this Superman fly.

As a loyal fan of L&C, I have to say that I loved most things about the show. Teri Hatcher turned in my favorite portrayal of Lois Lane to date. Lane Smith's attitude as Perry White was usually enjoyable. Most importantly, Eddie Jones and K Callan set a new standard as Jonathan and Martha Kent. Originally billed as recurring characters, their efforts on screen were just too wonderful to be denied and became a staple of the show through its many ups and downs.

Dean Cain was solid as Clark--and the idea that Clark was a person with problems and goals and insecurities of his own and that Superman was the convenient guise he used to help people always appealed to me. I know that most of the die-hard fans are of the opposite opinion, but humanizing Kal-el and focusing on his relationships with his family, his friends, and the love of his life was one of Deb Joy Levine's truly masterful ideas. The ensemble cast of the first season with Michael Landes as Jimmy Olsen and Tracy Scoggins as Cat Grant worked superbly together onscreen. John Shea turned in a respectable performance with a good mix of glitz and sinister ambition for a '90s Lex Luthor. I loved almost all the episodes that first season and one of my abiding regrets is that the show's writing staff and cast changed for the second season. Nonetheless, the first two seasons were both solid (even if the alternating introduction of competing love interests became grating after awhile).

Much as I hate to admit it, the show didn't end too early. The wheels came off in the third season with the much-despised clone-amnesia arc and the disturbing introduction of the concept of New Krypton. By the close of the fourth season, a consistent villain was nowhere to be found and the idea of Lois's possible pregnancy, of a Superfamily, wasn't strong enough to help the show recover from a disastrous newlywed phase.

'Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman' was one of the better sci-fi shows to come out of the Nineties and it was probably one of the first attempts to give the comic franchises a modern twist.

During the four seasons it aired for, the familiar Superman characters were brought out and given a Nineties touch. While Lois is still very much her tenacious self, Clark Kent was now a confident, well-adjusted guy and was a far cry from the bumbling Clark of the films and comics. His mother Martha is the one who sews his uniform for him while she and husband Jonathan are always on hand to give their adoptive son advice on his love life. Lex Luthor is far more charismatic and he and Lois even have a fling. However, Perry and Jimmy are in usual form and Superman is ever the hero he's always been, fighting for truth, justice and the American way.

Dean Cain made an excellent Clark, portraying the loyalty and strength of the character as well as his uncertainties over Lois and his path as Superman. While Christopher Reeve gave us a very heroic Superman, Cain gave us a hero who was heavily influenced by his Earth upbringing making him very human at times and it does work for this series. Teri Hatcher depicted a beautiful, career-driven Lois who vacillated between arrogance and being insecure, and this softer edge made her a likable character. And John Shea's Lex Luthor was wonderfully evil and intriguing as the almost James Bond-like villain who had fine tastes and minions to do his dirty work.

The story lines were almost always fun and engaging, often capturing a nice balance between drama, action, humour and romance. And unlike the 'Smallville' series, where episodes are very formulaic ((ie, mutant-of-the-week attacks and Clark saves the day so he can get back to his brooding over Lana), this series avoids that plot hole by covering different villains and plots. The only problem, that eventually saw the show's demise, was when Lois and Clark married as this lead to it becoming too soapy and cavity-inducing although it did serve as a lesson to future TV show producers that you should always pair your leads together in the finale, not half-way through the series.

'Lois and Clark' was never meant to be a deep, dark insight into Superman's history but instead just an entertaining show aimed at both young and old, and I think it succeeds. Newcomers to the show should check out the first three seasons to see it at its best.