On Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Right now, though, I really want to ramble about something else entirely. So I’m going to blog about a show that probably changed my life, only I didn’t know it had at the time. ;) The past few nights, I’ve been revisiting Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman via my DVD collection. It’s a brilliantly cheesy mid 90’s show, but I absolutely adore(d) it.
I was 7 when it first started, and had just turned 11 when it went off the air. My father had been a fan of Superman comics back in the fifties, and in any case, he and my mom would watch it in the living room together at home. Something about it absolutely appealed to me, and I would often watch along with them. I don’t remember much about the show during its broadcast run, but I remember being absolutely captivated by Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. She was clever! She was pretty. And she liked Clark Kent (played by Dean Cain), who was kind of …sweetly adorable. The show left a fond impression on me, in any case. I don’t remember much about the television run of the series (bits and pieces from season 4), but I do remember that it made me feel happy. It was a good memory.
Flash forward about ten years later. I’m an undergraduate student at Stetson, and my Grandma Ada and I were at Target over the summer break after my freshman year. She had taken me out to buy me a birthday present, and I was eying the DVD section, looking around for the latest season of Gilmore Girls (which may get a blog of its own someday). Also on that small display was Season 1 of Lois and Clark. I smiled fondly, remembering the show from my childhood, and decided to pick that out instead.
I took that DVD set home later, setting it on in my room, intending to take in some nostalgic good memories while I started unpacking boxes. Three hours later, my room was still a mess, but I’d worked my way to the second disc and was remembering all the reasons why Lois Lane had been my childhood role model. She had attitude! She had guts. She wasn’t afraid of being awesome. SHE WAS INTELLIGENT. And unapologetic, and pretty much real and wonderful and well, it was a childhood sense of awe over the character turned into a grownup admiration.
Clark Kent grew on me too, during that re-watch when I was nineteen. (And yes, I mean Clark Kent, the character, not the alter-ego, Superman.) His character was dorky, and charming! Downright pleasant, even. Definitely more interesting than Superman himself, who dropped even lower down my interest list during the watch. Lois Lane was distilled awesome, and Clark Kent was her best friend, who made her even more awesome. And happy! I do like seeing some happy out of my favorite characters.
I watched the first season that weekend, and collected seasons two and three down the road, when I had a giftcard to spend or I saw it on a good price at Amazon (or very likely in my case, a combination of the two things). I watched the seasons once, smiled, and let the show remain fondly in my memory, with the season sets tucked in a box under my bed. Lois Lane remained one of my favorites, and I even investigated other aspects of the Superman mythos (other series, the comics, the movies, etc.) But Teri Hatcher’s Lois Lane was my favorite, and my increasing disinterest in the Boy Scout in Blue led me away to other shows, like back to Gilmore Girls, and over to Avatar: The Last Airbender. (And to this day? I love Lois and Clark, the characters, but can’t stand Superman, the alter-ego. He’s so… dull.)
Then, the summer between my junior and senior years at Stetson, I was determined to stay away from my parents’ house for the summer. I had a job that I liked, and I damn well wasn’t going to quit it to suffer and be depressed at my parents’. So I bopped from place to place, until I found somewhere I could rent for dirt cheap. I could barely afford utilities, let alone internet or cable. I picked up a second job and worked forty-five and fifty-hour weeks.
It was the loneliest summer of my life, but also one of the most rewarding ones, in a way. If it hadn’t been for my writing group, I …don’t know what might have happened. But I had a lot of time to think that summer, both about the good and the bad. I ate a lot of ramen and mac and cheese. I read a lot. And I watched DVD’s, which I could get for free from the library, where I worked.
I plowed through Season 4 of Lois and Clark, which the library had just acquired. Suddenly, my admiration for Lois Lane increased tenfold, and my love affair with the love affair between Lois and Clark provided some much-needed levity in the sad state of my life that summer. It made me smile.
Flash forward a few years later. I’m doing much better, thank you, and I actually got Season 4 a little while ago, to round out my collection. This week, I decided I really wanted to rewatch the series for some reason. I think my friends’ talking about Smallville (which I don’t care for, but what I’ve YouTube’d from seasons 9 and 10 has been tolerable), made me decide a revisit to my favorite version of the mythos was in order.
I started with Season 2. I think season two if my favorite, for some reason. It has a good balance of Lois and Clark before it got crazy with the over-the-top storylines of seasons three and four, and unlike season one, they’re actually friends and their relationship progresses in a forward motion quite nicely. Also, I really, really like the episode This Old Gang of Mine.
So anyway, I was watching, and something hit me. Lois Lane, intrepid journalist. I wanted to be a journalist for a long time, back when I was choosing undergraduate schools. Eventually I veto’d that degree in favor of a field that wasn’t dying, but things suddenly clicked. I’d wanted to be a journalist. I like to write. I want to write a novel, maybe one day… actually finish a good, solid novel.
I blame Lois Lane for making me want to be a writer.
And I thank her for it.
I was 7 when it first started, and had just turned 11 when it went off the air. My father had been a fan of Superman comics back in the fifties, and in any case, he and my mom would watch it in the living room together at home. Something about it absolutely appealed to me, and I would often watch along with them. I don’t remember much about the show during its broadcast run, but I remember being absolutely captivated by Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. She was clever! She was pretty. And she liked Clark Kent (played by Dean Cain), who was kind of …sweetly adorable. The show left a fond impression on me, in any case. I don’t remember much about the television run of the series (bits and pieces from season 4), but I do remember that it made me feel happy. It was a good memory.
Flash forward about ten years later. I’m an undergraduate student at Stetson, and my Grandma Ada and I were at Target over the summer break after my freshman year. She had taken me out to buy me a birthday present, and I was eying the DVD section, looking around for the latest season of Gilmore Girls (which may get a blog of its own someday). Also on that small display was Season 1 of Lois and Clark. I smiled fondly, remembering the show from my childhood, and decided to pick that out instead.
I took that DVD set home later, setting it on in my room, intending to take in some nostalgic good memories while I started unpacking boxes. Three hours later, my room was still a mess, but I’d worked my way to the second disc and was remembering all the reasons why Lois Lane had been my childhood role model. She had attitude! She had guts. She wasn’t afraid of being awesome. SHE WAS INTELLIGENT. And unapologetic, and pretty much real and wonderful and well, it was a childhood sense of awe over the character turned into a grownup admiration.
Clark Kent grew on me too, during that re-watch when I was nineteen. (And yes, I mean Clark Kent, the character, not the alter-ego, Superman.) His character was dorky, and charming! Downright pleasant, even. Definitely more interesting than Superman himself, who dropped even lower down my interest list during the watch. Lois Lane was distilled awesome, and Clark Kent was her best friend, who made her even more awesome. And happy! I do like seeing some happy out of my favorite characters.
I watched the first season that weekend, and collected seasons two and three down the road, when I had a giftcard to spend or I saw it on a good price at Amazon (or very likely in my case, a combination of the two things). I watched the seasons once, smiled, and let the show remain fondly in my memory, with the season sets tucked in a box under my bed. Lois Lane remained one of my favorites, and I even investigated other aspects of the Superman mythos (other series, the comics, the movies, etc.) But Teri Hatcher’s Lois Lane was my favorite, and my increasing disinterest in the Boy Scout in Blue led me away to other shows, like back to Gilmore Girls, and over to Avatar: The Last Airbender. (And to this day? I love Lois and Clark, the characters, but can’t stand Superman, the alter-ego. He’s so… dull.)
Then, the summer between my junior and senior years at Stetson, I was determined to stay away from my parents’ house for the summer. I had a job that I liked, and I damn well wasn’t going to quit it to suffer and be depressed at my parents’. So I bopped from place to place, until I found somewhere I could rent for dirt cheap. I could barely afford utilities, let alone internet or cable. I picked up a second job and worked forty-five and fifty-hour weeks.
It was the loneliest summer of my life, but also one of the most rewarding ones, in a way. If it hadn’t been for my writing group, I …don’t know what might have happened. But I had a lot of time to think that summer, both about the good and the bad. I ate a lot of ramen and mac and cheese. I read a lot. And I watched DVD’s, which I could get for free from the library, where I worked.
I plowed through Season 4 of Lois and Clark, which the library had just acquired. Suddenly, my admiration for Lois Lane increased tenfold, and my love affair with the love affair between Lois and Clark provided some much-needed levity in the sad state of my life that summer. It made me smile.
Flash forward a few years later. I’m doing much better, thank you, and I actually got Season 4 a little while ago, to round out my collection. This week, I decided I really wanted to rewatch the series for some reason. I think my friends’ talking about Smallville (which I don’t care for, but what I’ve YouTube’d from seasons 9 and 10 has been tolerable), made me decide a revisit to my favorite version of the mythos was in order.
I started with Season 2. I think season two if my favorite, for some reason. It has a good balance of Lois and Clark before it got crazy with the over-the-top storylines of seasons three and four, and unlike season one, they’re actually friends and their relationship progresses in a forward motion quite nicely. Also, I really, really like the episode This Old Gang of Mine.
So anyway, I was watching, and something hit me. Lois Lane, intrepid journalist. I wanted to be a journalist for a long time, back when I was choosing undergraduate schools. Eventually I veto’d that degree in favor of a field that wasn’t dying, but things suddenly clicked. I’d wanted to be a journalist. I like to write. I want to write a novel, maybe one day… actually finish a good, solid novel.
I blame Lois Lane for making me want to be a writer.
And I thank her for it.