OK, so it's 4 a.m., I have stress-related insomnia, and after several hours, I need a break from writing fic angst. (I now remember why I prefer to write the hawt; it's much easier than writing a huge, unhawt fight.) So I thought I'd ask the question I have been pondering for a bit, and hope I have some nice replies to read when I get to work this afternoon. So here goes:
Do you prefer "Lois & Clark" (in the all-around sense) before or after Lois found out that Clark was Superman? And why?
For me, personally, I hated when Lois didn't know. I remember back when she not only found out that Clark was Superman, but eventually got engaged to him in winter 1995, the TV critic from Entertainment Weekly was blown away by not only the fact that L&C had broken canon so blatantly, but also that they had done it SO well. I agreed then, and I agree now.
The main reason why I hate Lois not knowing is because she's too damn smart and too damn good a reporter to be in the dark and be played for a fool. (Hey, she isn't my hero for nothing!) She was the best investigative journalist in Metropolis -- and probably among the top in the country -- and yet she couldn't seem to figure out that her partner, who eventually became her best friend, and then eventually, her boyfriend -- and all of whom would run out on her to return a video (journalists aren't exactly millionaires, but seriously, most of us can afford a late fee) or get his teeth cleaned so often that it's amazing that his gums didn’t hemorrhage -- wasn't the same superhero that she had been swooning over since day one.
Admittedly, you see what you want to see, and largely, at least in Season One, Clark was the "before" and Superman was the "way after" in Lois' eyes. But at the same time, some of the same things that attracted Lois to Superman -- his passion, his kindness, his sense of good -- were the same things she admired -- even envied -- about Clark. So as she began to fall for Clark, in Season Two, you'd have thought she'd have began to see Superman with less rose-colored glasses long before she decided that she wanted to be with Clark.
And while I do think she should have figured it out sooner, I did like that she figured it out on her own, and he didn't tell her. I think that would have been even more crushing. The fact that she very possibly could die when Superman froze her heightened her senses and made her aware of what she could be giving up -- and who she really wanted to be with. How ironic that being frozen is what thawed the ice queen out.
I love seeing Lois and Clark work together as a team -- it's one reason I love Season Four so much. Clark and Lois are both very passionate people, very dedicated people, very determined people -- and, individually, very isolated people. Lois throws herself into her work like Clark throws himself into his super duties. They both want to make a difference -- but they both also use it as a coping mechanism.
I like that when they became a couple, there were no longer any secrets between them -- and there was a sense of complete and total trust, something that I always felt like Lois was getting cheated out of when she finally was able to open up and trust Clark as her partner, best friend, and eventually, love interest (no easy feat for her), and he was still lying to her. Once she knew his secret, they were able to support for each other, and could understand each other in a way no one else could.
