Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Scenes that made you go....WHAT?

Arawn, Clark wasn't thinking when he proposed to Lois. After her near-death at his own hands, he was obviously in a seize-the-day mode, and I don't believe his secret was really on his mind. Before, when he still thought she was immortal and that he had plenty of time, he had tried to do it in the right order--tell her his secret first and start a relationship second. But now, he was reacting out of terror at nearly losing her, and the only thing that mattered to him was showing her how much she meant to him. That was totally in character for the Clark who used to vanish with stupid excuses and completely forget about them until he saw Lois after he returned (Clark: "Uh... I'm in the mood for frozen yogurt. Want some?" ... (Later, after a Superman intervention) ... Lois: "What happened to you? You left two hours ago. And where's my yogurt?") He focuses on one thing at a time, unlike Lois, who can focus on any number of things simultaneously. But that doesn't mean he was testing her when he didn't tell her he was Superman before proposing. It means he was focused on showing her how much he loved her rather than how much he trusted her.

Well, you can interpret things differently I guess.

Sheilah,

Which he could have shown by making his intent clear, then sharing his secret, then respecting her decision. Really how would you react too something like this?
A guy ask you to marry you, you say yes, and then he makes clear that he really is a someone completely different, proving that you lack any kind of judgement whatsoever. You are left in a position where you cannot look anything but shallow if you would want to backpedal.And shown that he doesn't trust you.

Sure Clark makes mistakes, but he is also thoroughly empathic putting other people’s feelings above his own. And considering Lois impressive number of near death experiences, it seems ridiculous to me that he not until now grasp that she isn’t immortal. The scene is just so ad hoc. In the previous episode we have Lois willing to die for him, Now we have petulant Clark with “Fine I asked, you answered”. Really nice.

The difference is that in those cases he puts saving lives above his own and Lois happiness. His sorry excuses, I understand more as reluctance to put effort in it rather then lack of ability to spin a story. Considering that he can play baseball with himself he seem to have a considerable multitasking ability.

When I examine the things done in the show that really drive me crazy I figured out 2 things.

1) When Debra Joy Levine was involved the show didn't aggravate me as much. I felt like most of the time she put thought into what happened on the show. I felt if she went with something questionable that if you looked at it she did it for a reason.

An example of this is Honeymoon. Having worked at a major hotel for 19 years I know that at an upper class property a maid would never, ever barge in as in the show, neither would maintenance. They would knock loudly and announce who there were and wait, then repeat. If no answer after knocking twice then they would enter. This was not done in the show simply for the reason the kissing scene on the bed would never have happened otherwise. There would be no need for it. But they wanted to ramp up the sexual tension in the relationship.

Yes despite her thought there were still things like the fire hydrant that were stupid or wrong. But not as many as in the later seasons.

After first season I feel they just wrote stories without really think of the characters at times or what would be believable.

Example: (Just went and watched the epiosde) The episode Sex...Videotapes. When Superman throws the mirror up to disarm the second bomb in Metropolis he shot his vision at the satelite dish on the roof of the building where the Peace Conference was to take place so the signal would not be received. Ok kind of dumb but I can live with it.

What I can't believe was the photographer falling backwards off the ledge without getting hurt. Yes there was snow but get real that would not have kept her from being hurt. But what really sends me over the top on THE GET REAL METER is when Superman goes to rescue Lois. There is a recording saying you have activated a pressure sensitive bomb. Okay so why doesn't he float and get her. He won't be standing on any pressure sensitive plate. But beyond that when they are playing charades she puts her right hand with her finger extended up to her mouth and nose (touching them in fact). So why not just pull the stupid tape off her mouth. No need to go through those stupid charades that make Superman look dumb. Some idiot probably thought it was a cute scene when it has to been one of the worse in the whole series. There is absolutely no reason for that entire scene of charades. No reason at all. Go in hear message, float to rescue Lois and stop other bomb from exploding - simple. NO NEED FOR CHARADES.

I think the point of that was that Ellen was too flakey to be trusted with the secret, so it was best for all concerned that she be made to forget.

At least, that's what I always figured was in the minds of TPTB on that one.

Me? I always thought it was a bit of an insult to the character. Sure she was a bit out there and prone to hysteria in any given situation. But she loved her daughter and she had no ill feelings towards Clark. So why on earth she wouldn't strive to keep the secret once she knew it defeats me.

I always imagined that Ellen would be dreadfully hurt if she ever found out that everyone but her knew what was going on.

LabRat

I'm annoyed by gag scenes in which Clark openly uses his powers in front of witnesses, while dressed as Clark, without any attempt to cover up - in particular flying in front of the homeless man in (I think) the pilot episode, and the basketball game in which he hangs motionless in the air for several seconds in front of the guy he's playing against in season 2.

Or openly discusses his secret with Lois in crowded rooms! That one always kills me. Course, it's the old TV convention, isn't it, that no one in a crowded room can eavesdrop on important conversations.

In a similar vein, I always love in the Stargate episode, Lockdown, when Carter wants to privately discuss the fact that the patient in the bed adjoining Daniel's is dying she draws the curtain between the beds! As though that's going to stop their conversation travelling to the poor soul! They don't even lower their voices.

Apparently sound doesn't travel the same way in TV land as it does in reality.

LabRat

Fire hydrants

Mm it does seem irresponsible, but perhaps Clark wasn’t really familiar with conventional fire fighting yet. Or since he seem able to take out the local fires with his breath maybe he thought the water came too better use by the children under those extreme circumstances.


Pressure sensitive bombs

Some of those are activated when you take your foot away from it. But I didn’t even think about the charade thing, mostly because it’s no problem whatsoever to speak through a film of duct tape.

Maybe that was more of an artistic license. Since he can take off faster then the eye can see it shouldn’t really matter, if he cared.

Well since Metropolis scientist can regenerate gangsters from the 1930- thies that should be a piece of cake.

I always assume that Clark reflexively play acts when someone bumps into him etc, it was more her follow up comment with “tanning his hide like cheap leather” that felt strange to me. Well they said he wasn’t born invulnerable so maybe Martha gave him beatings at a more tender age.


Maybe he has a standing offer to help himself? Or he could zip by his apartment, or maybe he keeps foreign exchange in the same place as his ordinary clothes. Or maybe he carries travel checks.

Regardless, I'm quite sure Martha and Jonathan brought him up not to tamper with property that doesn't belong to him. At best you can call it vandalism. The hydrants aren't his - what makes him think he has the right to open them up?

Seems a bit arrogant of him, if so. What makes him think he can decide how such water is used? He must surely know what a fire hydrant is for? So what gives him the impression that he knows better than Metropolis's Fire Dept.?

The one which really amuses me is in one of the Lex Files episodes (I think). Where he stands on the front window ledge for several moments, talking to Lois. In full view of all those apartment windows behind him. Then, after a time, casually drops down from the window ledge into the house. No zipping in and out in the blink of an eye there.

LabRat

Originally posted by Mara:
I laughed out loud when I read that — thanks, Mara! You're so right. I have no idea why the marketing executives at The Planet — sorry, I mean the show's writers — never thought about that particular aspect. If Lois and Clark were columnists, I'd understand. But an investigative reporting team (for a newspaper, not TV news, no less) ... ? Not so much.

I guess the bottom line is that beautiful people pique interest and sell papers.

OK, OK, I got one.

I just started watching "The Man of Steel Bars". What's with Sonny Bono being the mayor and quoting his famous songs? "And the heat goes on" to the first reporter and "I got you, babe" to Lois, of all people? Sheeesh! :rolleyes:

One thing that I have noticed while watching the Pilot is the writing on the bus that Clark stops. When the bus is going down the hill out of control, you can see that "RT 36" is separate, and on a close-up after Clark stops it, we have "RT36", together. Did they actually not notice that?

One more thing: on "Man of Steel Bars" also, when Superman is rescuing the trapped workers and he lifts up the power cables, when the last worker passes and Superman lets go of the cables, one of them actually hits the back of the worker. Wouldn't it give the worker a shock?

malu

Ok, it does seem OOC, I tried for a positive spin.
The Lawful Good aspect of Superman has always been his hallmark. but for the sake of argument,there is a streak of arrogance in Clark in the series, (rather understandable too), If he is sure that he can handle any potential fires with or without the fire department then his action might not be that strange for a naive good guy.


Another one of the villains supreme faith in Superman's ethics.

In "Don't tug on Superman's cape." we have Tim Lake's gleeful, "Ten seconds and counting" You wouldn't think Mr and Mrs Lake would be blown away too if Superman failed to comply. or that Superman could leave the cage anytime there is a choice between Miss Lane and hundreds of people trapped in the wake of a volcano or whatever.

The Lakes have everything, yet are willing to gamble it all away ,for fun, on their abilty to second guess Superman.

My moment of today is from a episode I watched recently...Supermann--I think that's the name. While I enjoy Clark and Lois's banter, I was kind of caught in a what the heck moment at the point where they're researching Lisa Rockford's fingerprints. They come upon a database in Russian, so Clark starts reading.

Lois then says, very nicely in an admiring way, are there any languages you don't speak?

Then Clark responds in a VERY unnecessarily rude way with: well, sometimes I don't understand you.

She laughs. And I think both his comment and her response make my eyebrows go through the roof. Clark isn't catty. They hadn't been fighting. There was no reason for him to make a rude remark to a purely nice aside from her. And that she didn't call him on it? Impossible. Lois Lane would have definitely challenged him or at least shot back some retort. I just have to wonder sometimes if a writer was mad at his wife and felt the need to get his kicks in there!

And could we possibly discuss some of the wardrobe choices? Why would an investigative reporter ever be caught dead wearing a straight skirt that went all the way down to the ankles and was so tight she had to take tiny steps to get anywhere. Yeah, fat lot of good that would be chasing down a source. Not to mention, who can do any kind of self-defence in that sort of get-up?

Yes, it's the little things that kill me.

How come no one notices that Clark is Superman with glasses?

Also why did he wear the specs before the tights?

Jensguy said:

I've always wondered if it's purely a creation of this fandom or something from the comics/movies/somewhere else that prompts most of us to use the idea of Clark wearing glasses (lead and all that) as a way to control his emerging powers as a teen?

I get so confused between what is canon and what just seems like it to me.

Interesting question. I always thought it as a way to hide his strength. You don't beat on the wimpy guy with glasses. It gave him an excuse to avoid contact sports.
But I've not seen any evidence of that from his youth. Then again in the beginning the comics start with Superman up and going and his fosterparents dead.

It seems that way, in the beginning his glasses was made of krypton materials allowing him to use his heat-vision through them.

This page goes through the change of Superman over time in great detail, check the biology section . In 1986 With a "man of steel" Superman got a large remake in order rekindle interest.

These are many of those changes we see in the series that aren't original:

The planet Krypton was a cold and emotionally sterile planet.
Although all of his standard superpowers remained, Superman was effectively limited in power and scope; while the pre-Crisis Superman at his peak could easily move planets, the post-Crisis version strained at moving a commercial airliner in flight.
While the pre-Crisis Superman's costume was invulnerable (as a result of being made from the blankets in the rocket that brought him to Earth), the post-Crisis Superman's costume was made of ordinary material. Since the post-Crisis Superman possessed an invisible "aura" that surrounded him and contributed to his invulnerability, objects held close to him, such as his costume, were protected from harm; his cape, meanwhile, could (and did) easily sustain damage in battle.
Kal-El was not an infant sent from Krypton to Earth; rather, his fetus was placed in a "birthing matrix" equipped with a rocket engine and Jor-El's experimental warp drive, with Kal-El gestating during the trip to Earth; once the rocket landed, Kal-El was fully "born" on Earth.
Superman was made the sole survivor of Krypton's destruction (vs. the earlier version having other survivors such as Supergirl, Krypto, etc. attached to him).
Clark's abilities developed gradually in the yellow sun environment, starting with resistance to injury, then strength, x-ray vision, etc., with his ability to fly being the last to emerge. It took until his late teen years for all of his powers to develop; thus, Clark only adopted the Superman identity in adulthood, and never was Superboy.
Clark's adoptive Terran parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent are alive and well in Clark's adulthood, and Clark visits them periodically. (Previously, they had died shortly after Clark's high school graduation).
Lois Lane was written as an aggressive reporter and person from the start, and never expressed a desire to find out Superman's secret identity.
Superman's arch-nemesis Lex Luthor was no longer a mad scientist but instead a power-hungry billionaire, "the most powerful man in Metropolis," who resented Superman's overshadowing presence. Instead of battling Superman directly, Lex would use hired minions and staff on his payroll to confront Superman directly using whatever schemes or devices Lex had in mind.
The villain Bizarro was established as an imperfect clone of Superman, created from the superhero's DNA, rather than as a duplicate from an alternate universe.
Lana Lang and Jimmy Olsen lost all of their superhero identities.
All of the variant forms of kryptonite (red, gold, yellow, blue, white, etc.) no longer existed. Only green remained.
Superman's relationship with Batman, which was much closer pre-Crisis, became much more tentative, as each disagreed with the other's methods and attitudes.
Superman had no memory of his existence on Krypton, but instead identified himself as a citizen of Earth.
Two of the most important changes made to Superman's personality included:

Superman's alter-ego Clark Kent was no longer "mild-mannered"; he became more assertive, and an important half of a double life. Man of Steel established Clark Kent as the "real" person, with Superman being the "disguise" - a reversal of the earlier canon.
It was not known to the general public that Superman had a secret identity, since he didn't wear a mask.

i haven't seen the episode where Clark says "well, sometimes I don't understand you" in a while, but I always thought it was teasing, not rude. Much like the "babble" comments. I don't remember thinking he sounded angry with Lois or anything, and if she had gotten angry with him, I feel like it would've been unjustified given the minor nature of the comment.

He was definitely teasing when he said that, and he actually did that a lot. And Lois knew he was teasing, which was why she didn't call him on it.

Clark was always portrayed as somewhat of a smartass, so that was completely in character, in my opinion. Remember his "pumpkin" remark in Requiem for a Superhero? Or the "You like to be on top, got it" comment in the Pilot (in this case she would have been totally justified in letting him have it, IMO). Some people just communicate that way, it's what they do, and it doesn't mean they're being rude.

In any case, in Super Mann, his tone of voice and facial expression definitely told her that he wasn't trying to upset her, and she responded in kind.

Okay, so I finally got S2 on dvd and was watching Chi of Steel when I heard something I couldn't quite justify to myself. It's when Chen Chow says that he knows Clark from the optometrist. Okay, I get why Clark goes to the eye doctor...to get the glasses. But have you ever tried looking through glasses that weren't your prescription? I think even Clark's eyes would hurt from it. So yeah... I don't get that.

I was watching The Source the other day and I noticed that when Clark went home with his parents after Perry said that he could and Lois told him that there was nothing pressing going on and when he's about to have lunch with his parents and sees the paper being dropped on the side walk and he focuses in on the headline, he doesn't pull down his glasses to read them when he normally does to focus in on stuff or to use his heat or X-Ray vision.

Crazy_Babe - It's been a few weeks since I watched "The Source" but I know what scene you are talking about.

I just thought the camera panned away before we saw him pull them down, and came back after he'd already put them back in place. Doesn't he 'hear' the paper being delivered and looks out he window and then we see the image of the paper getting zoomed in on? Like I said, it's been a few weeks since I saw that one last.

I'm one of those naive people that tries to give everyone the benefit of the doubt though.