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SEASON 1


LOIS AND CLARK:
The New Adventures of Superman
Season 2

Available on DVD

DVD box art
  1. Madame Ex
  2. Wall of Sound
  3. The Source
  4. The Prankster
  5. Church of Metropolis
  6. Operation Blackout
  7. That Old Gang of Mine
  8. A Bolt From the Blue
  9. Season's Greetings
  10. Metallo
  11. Chi of Steel
  12. The Eyes Have It
  13. The Phoenix
  14. Top Copy
  15. Return of the Prankster
  16. Lucky Leon
  17. Resurrection
  18. Tempus Fugitive
  19. Target: Jimmy Olsen
  20. Individual Responsibility
  21. Whine, Whine, Whine
  22. And The Answer Is...




Clark Kent/Superman -
Dean Cain

Lois Lane -
Teri Hatcher

Perry White -
Lane Smith

Jimmy Olsen -
Justin Whalen

Lex Luthor -
John Shea

OTHER LOIS AND CLARK SEASONS
Season 1

OTHER SUPERHERO SHOWS
Heroes
No Heroics
Birds of Prey







Madame Ex

The Daily Planet hires a psychologist to get the staff through the recent trying times not realising that she is the ex-wife of Lex Luthor and hell bent on wreaking her revenge on Lois Lane and Superman.

LOIS AND CLARK comes back for its second season and it doesn't miss a beat, carrying on from the end of the first season. There are issues to work out, both Lois and Clark having to deal with the emotional repercussions of the things that they said to each other in The House of Luthor.

Lex Luthor is dead, except that he's not. He might have plunged from the top of a very tall building, but the body is in the care of his physician and decidedly not dead yet. His ex-wife's plan is fun enough, turning the city against Superman with subliminal messages in her paper column and using a Lois Lane double to ruin her reputation, but her motivation isn't really up to it.

It's a surprise to find Justin Whalen in the Jimmy Olsen role, but everyone else is present and correct and now fit their roles like a glove, seemingly at ease and confident, something that is important in comedy as light as this one.


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Wall of Sound

Masked gunmen are robbing Metropolis blind, but their secret weapon is sound, a weapon that renders even Superman useless against them. Lois and Clark go on separate investigations that both lead to an ageing rock star, but can they get to him before he starts bringing down the city buildings through sonic waves.

Now here's a villain who is actually worthy of facing off against Superman for a change and Superman has to come up with an ingenious way to deal with the problems he presents.

The highlight, though, is Teri Hatcher's attempts to go undercover as a rock chick. She is so far from looking and acting the part that you can't help but smile and go along with it. Much like the rest of the show really.


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The Source

Lois goes up against a big time electronics company on the word of a whitle blower, but when his cover is also blown and he ends up probably dead, her career is in tatters.

The special effects that make Superman fly really aren't that special and that's possibly why he really doesn't get much to do. This time around it's picking Lois out of the sea in a barrel and stopping a runaway train.

The plot is muddled, morphing from the whistle blower story to SPEED to a plot to take over the Presidency with much crunching of gears, but the real failing is in its depiction of Lois Lane. How this woman got to be anything in the hard-nosed world of journalism is inexplicable as she spends much of the time bemoaning her own fate limply.


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The Prankster

A man who was ruined by Lois Lane's first big story comes back to haunt her with a series of pranks that leave her frazzled, but he has a much more sinister plot in mind.

For the second episode in a row we see Lois Lane acting like a total wuss who wouldn't last five minutes as an investigative journalist let alone be at the top of her chosen field. There is also, again, very little for Superman to do. There is no explanation as to why he can withstand a beam that could make a whole building vapourize.

There are the usual witty lines and nice playing from the cast, especially Bronson Pinchot as the entertaining villain who steals the show outright.


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Church of Metropolis

Lois's uncle runs a cafe on the south side of town, but the neighbourhood is going downhill rapidly as the gangs move in and the cops don't seem too eager to deal with the situation. Lois and Clark discover that behind the gangs is an organisation known as Intergang and their head man in Metropolis makes Superman an offer he can't resist - stay out of the south side or see Lois Lane killed.

You can't kill him and you can't bribe him, so it's time to blackmail Superman out of the way and for once the villain is an ordinary gangster with the right kind of backing. Peter Boyle is the head man, but he's in the shadows and clearly will have more episodes to come.

We'd also like to see more of Farrah Forke's DA Mayson Drake who shows more of an interest in Clarke than in Superman. Having her around might shake up the romance angle a little.


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Operation Blackout

Schoolfriends of Lois seem to be involved in a plot to wipe out all of the technology in Metropolis, but since one of them is dead that can't be possible, can it?

The main attraction for watching this episode is to see JT Walsh's look of bemusement about how he ended up being in such nonsense all the way through. It is nonsense, but it has the usual slick style and banter that we have come to expect from the show. Superman even gets to go into space, which involves special effects that are far less embarrassing than we were expecting.


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That Old Gang of Mine

When Perry is held up by Bonnie and Clyde it is clear that something odd is going on in Metropolis, but when Al Capone turns up things start to get nasty.

William Devane has a ball playing the mobster king Al Capone, but he and his gang of cloned mobsters are no match for the Man of Steel and so the episode has to spend a lot of its time explaining why Superman can't find them take them away a lot sooner than he actually does.

Things pick up considerably when Clark is shot by the villains and has to play dead. We get to see how all the characters would deal with his death. Clark has to come up with some convoluted excuse for being alive when all he needed to say was that he was wearing a bulletproof vest.


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A Bolt From the Blue

Superman saves a suicide, but when he is struck by lightning, his powers are transferred across to the man he is saving. Within days, there is a new superhero in town, but this one likes to charge for his services.

This is a lot of fun thanks to the flipside of superheroing shown as 'Resplendent Man' tries to move in on Metropolis. The villain is Lex Luthor's doctor girlfriend who plans to use Superman's powers to restore Lex to life, but it is the comedy side of things that reigns here, making the episode entertaining but disposable.


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Season's Greetings

It's Christmas and a toymaker is taking revenge on Metropolis for not liking his talking Teddy Bear by unleashing a toy rat that sprays a chemical to make children greedy and adults act like children. Even Clark Kent isn't immune.

More often than not Christmas episodes are abominations to be avoided at all cost, but since this show is fairly sweet to begin with the extra hit of saccharine isn't too much to stomach (although the orphan who won't speak comes pretty close to sucrose overload).

It would have been nice to see what Superman as a kid would have gotten up to, but that would have broken the special effects budget so instead there are some minor Clark Kent moments instead. Everyone else acting like kids turns out to br not as funny as we thought it ought to be.

Merry Christmas everyone.


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Metallo

Lois Lane has a sister called Lucy whose lowlife criminal boyfriend takes a step into the big leagues when he is almost killed and ends up as a cyborg with the strength of Superman. His main threat to the Man of Steel, though, is that he is powered by Kryptonite.

A villain who is strong enough to take on Superman at last and the brief fight scenes show promise, but are so short as to be lost in a sizeable blink. At least the manner in which Superman overcomes the strength-sapping kryptonite shows originality.


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Chi of Steel

Illegal immigrants being brought in from China and then treated in outright slavery find themselves a saviour when a mysterious ninja proves to be the bane of those who run the scam. Lois and Clark investigate and find that being the strongest isn't necessarily the only thing that you need.

It's nice to see that Superman can actually be beaten by an ordinary human (admittedly a highly skilled and trained human, but a human nonetheless), but when he takes a martial arts class himself and suddenly becomes able to beat his opponent, now supernaturally endowed, it becomes just another disappointing climactic fight that fizzles out.

The main fun is to be had from Lois' reaction to random and casual sexism that she encounters throughout the episode. Nicely played by Teri Hatcher, it is actually a better way of getting the message across than the usual pontificating.


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The Eyes Have It

A device that passes information directly to the brain on a beam of light is misused by a pair of crooked scientists and leaves Superman blind.

Dean Cain does a nice job of convincing that he is blind, though he does play it a little more cross-eyed than is necessary. The blindness gives his character a vulnerability that we're not used to seeing and gives the relationship between Superman and Lois Lane a different aspect.

Unfortunately, there is nothing else in the story to support it and it gets fairly tedious along the way.


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The Phoenix

Lex Luthor is finally reborn, but finds himself without hair and without money. As he sets about regaining his wealth he decides to reclaim Lois as well by force if necessary.

It's nice to see John Shea back as Lex Luthor. Whilst the show has benefitted by not having Lex Luthor in the background of every episode, he is a real villain with a sense of style. His reaction to losing his hair is also quite amusing. Sadly, his fixation on Lois is harder to believe from a cold-hearted schemer and that undermines the rest of the episode.


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Top Copy

Diana Stride is a top TV journalist, but she also happens to be Intergang's deadliest assassin, so when she sets her sights on Superman in both her roles, she exposes his secret identity live on air and leaves him dying of a kryptonite kiss.

Racquel Welch plays the femme who is a little more fatale than most. whilst she can't do the action thing so well (or at least isn't given so much to do), she can turn on the sizzle and shows the other girls on the show (Farrah Forke is back as Mayson Drake) just how it's done.

Clark infected by kryptonite that he can't actually get away from is quite an affecting storyline with a suitably clever solution, something that can't be said from the contrived way that he proves that Superman and Clark Kent are not the same person.


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Return of the Prankster

A visit to Metropolis by the President of the United States presents the newly-escaped Prankster with an opportunity to try out his new freezing weapon.

Bronson Pinchot is back as one of the most entertaining villains that the show has come up with to date. He is certainly more fun to watch than the main characters.

The scenes were everyone are frozen into immobility are well-realised and really rather fun.


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Lucky Leon

Intergang recruit an ex-soviet criminal to mastermind the theft of some nuclear warheads. His great plan? To fool Superman into stealing them for him.

Another light and fluffy, but ultimately forgettable episode that has moments of fun, some nice lines and some neat comic performances all of which add to up to a slick, but unsatisfying package.

And to kill off Farah Forke's Mayson Gray is an unforgiveable act considering that she is far more fun than Lois Lane.


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Resurrection

Mayson Gray was killed with the word 'resurrection' on her lips. The plot is to mastermind the escape of criminals from jail by giving them a drug that puts them in a state of suspended animation that looks to all intents and purposes like death and then dig them up in the outside world.

Apart from the emotional fallout of the death of Mayson Gray in the last episode, there is nothing here that is remotely new or interesting. There is the introduction of an agent who attracts Lois, providing the barrier to her relationship with Clark that Mayson had represented, but that doesn't go anywhere very much.


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Tempus Fugitive

HG Wells arrives at the Daily Planet and asks for Clark's help in sorting out his protege from the future, a man called Tempus. Tempus isn't the peace-loving type that exists in the future Utopia that Superman and Lois Lane will help establish, but someone who hankers for the past and violence. He also has access to the truth about Superman's secret identity and sets off to kill him in the past.

Tempus Fugitive is the entire plot of the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy boiled down to a single TV episode. Not only is there a time machine, but everyone goes back to Hill Valley (sorry that should read Smallville) in the sixties and then the wild west of the 1880s.

Fortunately, the episode also has Lane Davies as Tempus, a villain whose delight in the simple evil that he does is infectious and whose dripping sarcasm is as cutting as a blade. It is his performance that makes this one of the most entertaining episodes that the show has come up with to date. We can't help but admit to a sneaking wish that he was going to get away with it as his analysis of the future that Superman would create does sound deadly dull indeed.

That cannot be said of the episode.


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Target: Jimmy Olson

A mother and daughter criminal team get data on subjects of a military experiment in mind control that was abandoned years before, but which has left three subjects available for further testing, one of whom in Jimmy Olsen. The drugs will create assassins out of anyone, but have the unfortunate side effect of killing those used if the dosage is wrong.

The plot here makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The military were experimenting on kids? How the heck did that one stay under the media wavelength? Why were the kids just set loose without anyone knowing anything about these experiments? What kind of a doctor sees a livid rash that comes up on the skin at the same time every year and doesn't do extra testing?

The villains for this story are an oversexed mother and her terminally embarrassed daughter. These are hardly the kind of bad guys that are actually going to cause Superman any sleepless nights. And so it proves.

Lois is more upset that every time she tries to have a heart to heart with Clark he disappears off to save someone's life. Of course, she doesn't know where he's going so she decides to give the other man in her life a try.

All of which is more than a little dull, less than exciting at any time and only the possibility of Jimmy getting off with his fellow experiment victim gives it any life at all.


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Personal Responsibility

Intergang, now headed by Bill Church Jr, the son of the original leader and friend to Perry White, discover that Red Kryptonite doesn't kill Superman like the green stuff, but does make him really not care very much, even when Perry is kidnapped.

Setting a story around the main character not caring very much is asking for trouble when it comes the story being reviewed, but the truth is that whilst the story does have little in it to make the viewer care the idea of having Superman being analysed is brilliant. Sure, the show doesn't make the most of the comic opportunities offered (what would Freud have said about a man who wears his underpants over his tights?), but there is still enough there to raise a smile.

It's also difficult to dislike a story that has B-movie icon Bruce Campbell doing his stuff in it. He can make tired material burst into life, as long as it's larger than life material that we're talking about.

As for the continued friction in the relationship between Lois and Clark, well that's beginning to pall.


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Whine, Whine, Whine

Superman saves an unemployed musician from being killed by a falling amplifier, but the man responds by suing the superhero for injuring his hand. Before long, everyone is out for a piece of the litigation pie and the Man of Steel is faced with the prospect of having to hang up his cape forever.

LOIS AND CLARK:THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN has been many things during its two season run to date, but dull has rarely been one of them. This episode, however, is just that. The idea of Superman being sued by someone that he saves (later the entire concept behind Pixar's animated THE INCREDIBLES) is a good one and could have been played with a lot more, but it is merely background for the main story, which is Lois Lane trying to decide whether she should continue to love Superman from afar, Clark who is always running away without explanation or Scardino who might not even be all he says he is.

The therapy session sequences might be fun, but they are not enough to hang a whole forty five minute plot on and neither is Lois's decision making process. The only high point is spotting Adam West and Frank Gorshin from BATMAN in cameo roles.


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And the Answer Is...

Clark is toying with the idea of finally telling Lois who he really is when his parents are kidnapped by a man who knows all about Superman's secret identity and blackmails him into carrying out a jewellery heist.

In keeping with the show's ethos of being about the relationship between Clark and Lois rather than Superman's antics, this season finale is a low-key affair that focuses on the danger posed by revealing Superman's secret. Whilst Superman can't be harmed, those that he loves certainly could be.

It's disappointing for the season to go out without a big bang, but it does have a cliffhanger at least as Clark, realising how close he came to losing Lois during the course of events proposes to her and the end credits interrupt her answer. This at least means that season 3 was inevitable.


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SEASON 1

HOMEPAGE

A-Z INDEX

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TV THIS WEEK


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