Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related A question, re: TOGOM challenges

I am curious why "That Old Gang of Mine" is such a popular episode over here for stories/challenges. I see more stories that are a spin-off of that episode than any other. I'd say the only one that even comes close in second is "The Family Hour."

I think I could answer that in one word - ANGST.

One reason is that the most prolific writer ever on these boards, Wendy Richards, loved to write her own variations of TOGOM. When Wendy ruled the boards, TOGOM was a genre of its own.

Ann

Oh, yes, the angst! Definitely!!

Plus, I mean, there are sooooooo many possibilities in rewriting the end of that episode. Or even the middle of it.

This story could have gone so many other ways, it's like opening up a door to the multiverse! It's just really so much fun is all.

(I have to wonder, though... are you sure there are that many rewrites of Family Hour? We'd have to check, but I'd be willing to bet it's not the one that comes in second)

I would have bet that 'House of Luthor' was next in line for most rewrites - again for the angst factor. 'Family Hour' does make a nice jumping off point for Baby makes a mystery stories.

I agree about 'Family Hour' not seeming like the most obvious choice. I'd have thought it would be 'Pheromone, My Lovely' or 'Honeymoon in Metropolis' or something from the NK arc.

Yes, certainly Wendy wrote a number of TOGOMs. But even if you removed all of her stories from the mix, there would still be a lot, maybe still more than any other episode rewrite. Tank has written quite a few as well.

There are also a number of All Shook Up stories.

Yup, angst is a big draw, all right. You really might as well ask why the episode itself was hugely popular among fans when it was aired. I think it's always been in the top five of any list. And I think that's partly - or mostly - because it's such an emotional episode. I know it's always been one of my favourites.

Mind you, I have to confess that when I wrote my own TOGOM rewrite it was nothing to do with the emotions or angst. It was because the one thing I wanted to see in the episode itself and didn't was when, exactly, Lois changed her clothes after finding out Clark was alive. Given the timeline, I figured it had to have been in the car on the way to the Planet. Once I'd established that my mind naturally went fertile on what Clark's reaction had been to his partner stripping off in the back seat as he drove. Since the episode didn't let me savour that one, I had to write it myself. And then the story just naturally followed on from that starting point...

You know, at one point, I had a list of which episodes had rewrites - it was part of the data drawn up for the Archive's search engine. But it's long since been lost. I know that there were some big surprises on it for me though. Episodes that I would have said had never had a rewrite had a fair number.

Might be interesting to compile that list again. (Any brave soul wanting to try it before I find time for it can probably do it easiest by collating data from the search engine database )

EJ, I've moved your thread from Challenge into here as it's not actually issuing a challenge, just discussing them.

LabRat

Oh that's fine that you moved it, Labrat; I only initially posted it there so people would see the topic since it correlated to the challenges.

It is interesting to read the perspectives on TOGOM, mainly because it's not an episode that really stands out to me. Then again, I am a big fan of the fourth season, when the chase was over and Clark had finally won his woman -- and Lois had finally won her super man.

I guess one element of TOGOM that I don't like is that it took Clark "dying" for Lois to realize how much he meant to her, when in reality she had feelings for him back at the end of the first season (HOL); and we also saw a glimpse of her feelings when she sought him out for comfort when the Prankster was after her. And yet, after TOGOM, she didn't act on those feelings for ... how long? I guess it just seemed like an anvil of sorts.

And furthermore, once Lois found out that Clark was Superman, it's like she had forgotten all about the fact that he put her through hell when he "died." That would have been a great point for her to bring up when she was so upset/hurt that he had been lying to her in WHALTTA.

(And may I add that when my paper had its 110th anniversary last year, we had no swanky party with swanky old cars (or swanky reporters acting less than swanky wearing nothing but a suit jacket and smashing swanky criminals into a cake) ... we had pizza and got engraved silver keychains. This is the sad state of newspapers in the Internet age. That being said, I do like my keychain.)

And that, right there, is what made me write my very first TOGOM story: the fact that she'd never - metaphorically speaking - slapped him across the face for letting her believe he was dead. I believe it's a running theme in most of my TOGOM adaptations...

But, yes, the principal reason for writing TOGOM fics is the angst and grief.

Back to add:
Well, she did already know what he meant to her. But at the end of HoL he told her he just saw her as a friend, so she felt rejected (and, yes, she'd already rejected him, but still - she was left believing that her feelings weren't wanted). And Lois was always afraid of taking that step from friendship to lovers with Clark, because all her relationships had been disasters. She didn't want to risk losing the one friendship that clearly meant so much to her. We saw that fear manifested both when Clark asked her out and after their first date.

Why didn't she do anything after TOGOM? She tried. But when she discovered Clark was asleep she lost her nerve. And then when Mayson started hanging around more she went into "I'm not jealous! (but I am really)" mode. And then it really wasn't all that long between TOGOM and Phoenix, when Clark did actually ask her out and she accepted.


Wendy

It’s about the classical ”you don’t miss what you have until it’s gone”. We see that Lois find Clark attractive even in the pilot, and I took her barrage of put downs as her way of stopping herself, and him, from acting upon that attraction.
In reality, Lois "did have time for the farm boy falling for her", she was just terrified of the being hurt and losing control. So she works very hard to psyche herself into believing there is nothing between them, but as we, the viewers, can see in a lot of small ways it’s not true. But when Clark is gone everything comes down and she cannot pretend anymore. As to why she didn’t act on it afterwards, the same reason Clark doesn’t act on his desire, their relationship means to much to them that they are unwilling to risk what they have by pressing on.

Yes hence why it’s so popular, fanfic is often driven about righting the “wrongs” of the canon.


It’s also a very good obstacle because it isn’t petty, the other things, the secret identity, the white lies could be worked through, by reasonable people, but this is a very legitimate concern. Yet Clark’s view can be understood as well.

Otherwise I have always thought it was a rather weak plot. Cloned 1930th gangsters, and the GIGANTIC plot hole that if the killed Clark could be revived with Hamilton’s technology, it is the greatest leap of medicin in human history. The world as we know would be fundamentally changed, but Hamilton destroyed the result because he discovered that reviving gangsters with their life experiences intact was a bad idea. And for being so driven, Lois doesn’t seem to care about a gift wrapped Pulitzer. :p

A quick check of the archive search engine gives 122 responses for "This old gang of mine" and 97 responses to the term "TOGOM." Given that there might be some duplication, that suggests maybe 200 TOGOM stories, and 132 responses for the term "Nightfall." The term "Family Hour" got 70 responses.

*That* Old Gang of Mine also turns up 204. Knock off a few for duplication and you've got maybe 350 in total?

Nan

Just for fun:

If you take a look at the fanfic spreadsheet, one of the topics is Episode Related. Here are the top hitters based on this:

Episode Related (That Old Gang Of Mine) 73
Episode Related (House Of Luthor) 46
Episode Related (And The Answer Is) 43
Episode Related (BGDF/BE) 38
Episode Related (BatP/HoL) 35
Episode Related (The Pilot) 29
Episode Related (Season's Greedings) 22
Episode Related (Family Hour) 18
Episode Related (Whine, Whine, Whine) 17
Episode Related (All Shook Up) 16
Episode Related (Pheremone, My Lovely) 15
Episode Related (Contact) 14
Episode Related (Honeymoon In Metropolis) 13


As you can see, some are in the list more than once as they are part of an arc. Also, a fic won't be hit this way if the Episode Related theme isn't included. And there are several that say Ep Rel: Various or early S1, etc. And of course this doesn't include S5 stories that automatically continue Family Hour.

It actually looks like the Barbarians at the Planet and House of Luthor arc actually beats out TOGOM based on this!! But 73 stories seems low to me for TOGOM on the archive.

Jo

Considering that I have three stories based on All Shook Up on the archive...Fugue, Fusion and Nocturne...I'm betting that sixteen stories is very much on the low end...