Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Question of timing between episodes

Does anyone know how much time passed between Witness and House of Luthor? I'm not sure how to determine that, and from reading various threads it seems that I can't reliably go by air date to determine when the episodes are supposed to take place. I'm working on a story where the timing here matters.

Thanks.

It depends on where you set Witness in the line-up. It still has Christmas decorations up, so technically it should be sometime within the week of Christmas 1993 (either before or after).

I've been told that Witness was originally supposed to air earlier (pre-ASU), so I've usually put it after Man of Steel Bars (which is set in Nov. '93). I realized recently though, if you take a look at the calender that Rourke points at in HiM (or you can take my word for it, since I've already done the research), the airdate (12/12/93) is close to when the episode was set (or when Lois and Clark are in the Honeymoon Suite at the Lexor. IOW, that's a Dec. 1993 calender). So, you could move Witness directly before ASU (making the whole Nightfall incident take place in January). Keeping Witness in January (per it's 1/9/94 airdate) seems unlikely because of the lack of Christmas decor in ASU and because there is Christmas decor in Witness.

"Ides" from "Ides of Metropolis" refers to the 15th of the month, since Vatman takes place on Perry's birthday (per Jimmy leafing through Perry's desk calender, we know is on March 17th), you could set IoM in mid-Feb., but that would mean Foundling happened at the end of Feb 1994 and Rival at the beginning of March.

Then you could safely assume FlyHard takes place in April and BatP in May (or late April).

I've always assumed that HoL wedding took place in June, because I could see Luthor wanting a June wedding as it was usually his desire to have himself appear traditional, but as far as I know it isn't stated as such in the episode. Being that Lois requested that they wait until their wedding night to consummate their relationship, I could see Luthor wanting to hurry and have the wedding ASAP.

Hope that helps and I didn't leave you

It appears the time elapse should be about 5 to 6 months. With the trial in "Ides of Metropolis" and the long time of kidnapping in "Illusions of Grandeur" there is plenty to fit in that time.

I tried to see if I could find a date on any of the papers shown in "Fall of the House of Luthor" but I couldn't. I did see one of the side headlines mention something about camp help, so it does seem it is meant to be into the summer by then.

I also re-watched the scene where Clark tells Lois he is not in love with her, and I have to say I still do not get why he insisted on going first and not letting Lois speak her mind.

Wow, thanks for the detailed replies. So about 6 months between Witness and HOL sounds good.

How long would it have taken to rebuild the DP before they were back in business? It seems like Stern buys it, and POOF! it's rebuilt, but I imagine that it would take considerably more time than that in real life. Might there have been a month between the failed wedding an the DP reopening? Is that reasonable? Or is two months more likely?

I don't know if we have a firm date of when Madame X takes place, but if you assume that Stern takes over the DP in June, Madame X could logically take place 2.5-3 months later in Sept. 1994. Since the DP building isn't destroyed in BatP, the newsroom floor only needed remodeling and with Stern's considerable fortune 2-3 months is a reasonable amount of time for such remodeling (updating with modern computers etc) to take place. The major reconstruction would have happened in the press (print?) room where Jack and Jimmy were working after Luthor took over, and where the bombing actually took place.

A two-three month timetable would also explain why Cat wouldn't be there in the fall, having that much down time she has found another job elsewhere. I do wish they had addressed Cat's and Jack's disappearances in the series. I, of course, explain Jimmy change in looks in Wrong Clark as does Lynn S.M. (in a very different manner) in her excellent story: Gofer No More? .

I've always assumed that WoS takes place in October (I don't know or remember why but I do).

Awesome. Thanks Virginia.

Oh, I just thought of another detail.

The reason Clark is at the DP on a Saturday night (for FlyHard) is that he was doing his taxes. April 15 (Tax Day) in 1994 was on a Friday, which is why I mentioned that FlyHard took place in early April. The episode aired on 3/27/94, so conceivably could have taken place as early as Sat. March 26th (9 days after Vatman) or April, 2, as we all now that Clark would never have let his taxes be turned in late. (Although, why Lois was looking at her tax receipts during Bolt of the Blue in S2, the episode before the Christmas episode, always seemed to stumped me, because she does seem like a wait until the last minute filer, in my opinion.)

I also wanted to mention that Perry's birthday 3/17 for Vatman was on a Thursday, in case anyone really cared to know.

EDIT: I started watching FlyHard the other night and discovered in the opening shot, Clark's page-a-day calender open to Sat. March 26th. ~nailed it~ I know, I know. The things that make me happy.

Well, "Madame X" is maybe in the fall, so they might take a few months to rebuild. Since the building was only internally damaged it might not take that long. Also, maybe Superman helped. They might reopen in other offices temporarily, but I would imagine it would take at least 3 months to get the building open again.

Hmm... good point about opening in temporary offices. I want my story to start the day Lois goes back to work after the Luthor fiasco, but it might make more sense to have them starting the DP back up in temporary offices rather than waiting until the building is fixed.

In "Super Mann" we see a newspaper from "two years ago", that was from Neverending Battle, is dated May 7, 1993. This would indicate that the end of Neverending Battle is on May 7th, and suggest Superman first showed up, even if we assume Neverending battle comes before Strange Vistior, at the very end of April and Clark at little before that.