Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Moonlighting syndrome

I'm wondering how L&C fans like the way the Lois and Clark relationship was handled over the four season of the show. I'm still working my way through season 4 and the momentum has died down. While I've enjoyed several season 4 episodes like Bob and Carol and Lois and Clark, and the Christmas one, some don't seem quite as good (ie Ghosts).

Did the marriage cause the show to decline? (aka Moonlighting Syndrome) Having not completed viewing the entire season 4 yet, I'm not in a position to say. Though to me, Lois and Clark's relationship has always been about far more than sexual tension/attraction.

While the show was manipulative (and they all are) with the fake wedding, Lois' amnesia, Clark leaving for New Krypton and such, it didn't bother me because I knew they were eventually getting together. How was it for original fans? That might have gotten frustrating.

Some manipulation is necessary and fun for TV couples. If they get together too soon, it ruins the fun. On the DVD, one of the L&C creaters said she didn't want them together so soon. But I think they did a good job in that respect. If you drag it out too long, it becomes unrealistic and people lose interest. Like the couple on Bones. How many years has it been? Do people in love really wait six plus years to act on their feelings?

How did you like the way Lois and Clark's relationship over the years was handled?

I love some episodes from season 4 (the first episodes and the middle of the season episodes) but I agree that many of them are baaaad. I think it wasn't because of the marriage. In my opinion the fake wedding, the clone argh and bad plots and writing were the responsible for the decline of the show.

I think the engagement was too soon. They had only one or two dates before the proposal. I would have liked more dating before the engagement. They could have dragged it out for one whole season and I'm sure the fans would have loved it.

I hated the clone episodes. I watch them sporadically, but I skip them most of the time. I didn't like even Lois's and Clark's behavior during those episodes.

In season 4 there are some that are laughable for the absurd and implausible storylines and villains - ghosts, Fat Head, Mr. Smith... oh, please, give me a break! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: I hated all the episodes after AKA Superman. Beside stupid plots and storylines there was no romance to make it worthy watching.

So, I think the problem wasn't the marriage. We have amazing fics with Lois and Clark married. It's been over a decade since the show aired and still there are new and wonderful stories, many of them post-wedding. The problem was the bad writing and stupid plots.

Andreia (who thinks they should have fired the original writers and hired L&C authors to write the episodes)

Andreia covered everything that I would say pretty much exactly.

I think the writers got lazy. Some of the episodes were just plane bad: Ghosts and what they did with the wedding is unforgivable!!

I think they also showed a decided lack of any imagination of what to do with L&C as a married couple. Still, there are some episodes that I like in here. The ones I enjoy are:
1. End of NK arc
2. Soul Mates
3. People vs. Lois Lane (even though the trial was a farce)
4. Dead Lois Walking
5. The Myx Christmas episode
6. Sex, Lies and Videotape

It could have been so much better, but, with a few exceptions, it wasn't horrid.
Bob

I just about pulled my hair out when Clark left for New Krypton.

(but I secretly enjoyed it)
JD

I remember being very frustrated by the first half of S4 as it originally aired, but about halfway in (Lethal Weapon onward) it got better, IMO. It still didn't compare to the earlier seasons, but there was some decent stuff in there. I think the writers just all got whacked on the head and started doing some lunkheaded things. There were also reports that ABC was dictating a lot of what should happen as far as story arcs. They really did have to chase ratings and sometimes the stories suffered because of it. ;(

Many fans were happy when L&C got together. One noticeable difference in season 4, though, was that L&C kissed a lot less than in season 3. I mean, what the heck? Hello! But I don't know who to blame for that... the writers? The directors?

My husband proposed to me on our first date. We'd already been friends for a year and we were sitting in his car in front of my house afterwards when he asked me, "So, when are we getting married?" I thought he was kidding and laughed. We were married a year and a half later, and September was our 21st anniversary!!

When they showed him saying goodbye to Lois and his parents, I was crying so hard...just just a tear or two, but bawling to the point where I had trouble breathing...and my hubby was saying, "Why are you so upset? He has to come back or there's no show...duh!!"

I don't think it was due to the marriage either. I think the ideas got sillier and that turned semi-fans off. I mean, married by an angel named Mike? Really?

I think you're right. I've almost finishing watching Season 4. There were a few more good ones, but not as consistently as in past seasons.

Agreed. This was my main frustration with the show - that the dating period was over too quickly. Not that that can't happen - clearly it can. But it would have been much more enjoyable to watch, for this viewer at least, had they spent longer on that period in their relationship.

And, yes, Mike the Angel was ridiculous and a huge turnoff. :rolleyes:

The NK and clone arcs didn't bother me that much. Especially because the latter contained a whole host of themes which have always fascinated me - like evil doubles and memory loss. So although they were bizarrely plotted at times and contained huge OCC elements which were frustrating I enjoyed them hugely all the same. The frustrating thing about the NK arc, for me, was that Clark came back way too soon. All that drama, all that trauma and then five minutes into the new season it's all over. Bleah.

I'd have liked to have seen it play out over the first couple of episodes before they were reunited. Having him turn round and head back to earth almost instantly completely negated all that suffering in the season 3 finale and made it a bit pointless.

LabRat

That would've been nice to prolong the dating part. But I'm not sure they could've managed it. Clark having to disappear as Superman at inopportune times would've made it difficult for Lois to trust him and grow closer to him. She was already frustrated by his disapperances, thinking it meant he couldn't be serious about her. She was ready to move on to someone else (though why Dan - I couldn't stand him. ).

I was also surprised by Clark's sudden marriage proposal. But...it's a huge Catch-22. He doesn't want to tell his secret unless he's sure she wants to be with him. But by not telling his secret, he pushes her away with his 'absenses' so they can never 'get serious'.

All I can think of is that Clark knew absolutely that he loved Lois. They've both worked closely and had the opportunity to get to know each other. Dating was merely a formality - suddenly looking at each other (or in this case, mostly Lois with Clark) in a different light. They didn't need to do some of the things dating couples do, since they already knew each other well.

Isn't that the truth?

Excellent point! They could've gotten a lot more mileage out of that plot line.


Joan

Maybe I was easy to please as a child, but I really liked S3 and S4, and didn't have a problem with them being together (I was 8 when the show ended). Actually, when the show was rerun, I was always impatient to get to the part where they get together! <g>

I'll agree that some S4 episodes weren't as good as earlier ones, but I think that has more to do with the silly plots than the relationship. Aside from that one episode where they had a fight, this show was too wholesome to show what struggles a relationship really includes (that things aren't magically awesome after you say "I do"), so since the relationship stuff was filed under "happily ever after" they had to come up with SOMETHING to write about... which was apparently sewer dwellers who thought they were the spawn of Lex Luthor... It didn't have to be that way - House, for instance finally got the two romantic leads together but there is still a lot to explore for both of them - the relationship is definitely not getting boring to watch. (Although maybe in the case of L&C is did have to be that way, because the wholesomeness is what I loved about it. It is a superhero, good-conquers-all story, after all.)

I don't buy into the Moonlighting curse because that's never turned me off a show, personally. What is rapidly starting to annoy me about certain shows is the will-they-won't-they thing. There's only so long you can stretch it out for til the viewers can't take it anymore, haha. XD (I have to mention that the X-Files is an exception, because I LOVE that show - not getting the partners together til S7 and only hinting that it was happening offscreen - but I also watched it within a few weeks rather than over the course of its original run, so I couldn't say how it would have felt then. But also they weren't intended to be a potentially romantic couple at first.)

And definitely yes, a very early engagement.

Julie

I completely agree with you Julie. When they drag the relationship out so long it gets unrealistic. After being manipulated so much, the audience doesn't care anymore. I'm not a huge "Bones" fan but I think it's going to end up that way.


I don't know if TV writers on the whole know how to portray happily married couples. Or if networks are interested in that. Admittedly, you need some conflict to keep things interesting. But like Andreia pointed out a few posts back, look at what our L&C fanfic writers have come up with. It can be done.

Joan

Ah, but, see, I don't see these two as being mutally exclusive. My ideal would have been for Lois to have learned Clark's secret and then for there to have been a period of dating before an engagement.

I don't see why they would need to rush to an engagement just because Lois found out CK=S. For me, they could easily have achieved both.

But, of course, the way that they configured the show made it pretty impossible to take that route. But, you know, in an ideal world...

LabRat

Funnily enough, Joan, Bones is exactly what I had in mind when I was writing that. We'd better see some progress soon! XD