Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Smallville: Sneeze

Any thoughts about tonight's episode, Smallville fans?

I wasn't thrilled about how they just flipped a switch and, bam, suddenly Lois is a journalist. Although I did like Clark's comment, "She won't stop digging until she reaches China," it seemed more apt for Chloe than Lois.

I must admit I still can't get over Chloe. Throughout this episode she was right there, digging in the mystery and joking around with Clark about his powers. Why can't TPTB just make Lois go away? Then Chloe can take her pen name and she and Clark can be together and Lisa will be happy. Because it's all about Lisa being happy, of course.

And what a fun way they had of introducing SuperBreath!

I haven't had time watching the episode yet (though it's on my harddisk) but I can agree with you on Lois. Her being a journalist is certainly surprising in the Smallville universe and not being employed by the Planet seems just wrong!

On the other hand, I don't want her to go away, because what good female cast would there be left? While Lex certainly is an interesting character, this whole Lex/Lana stuff is so boring. Without Lois, only Chloe would be left and that'd be another disaster waiting to happen. For the whole fifth season, Chloe was nothing more than Clark's confidante, research machine and provider for some rare episode plots. Changing from that position to lead female on Clark's side, no that wouldn't go well

I was soooo annoyed to see they had baseball on last night, you have NO idea. I wasn't at home last night and had set the VCR to record the ep, but I guess now all I have on the tape is from the bottom of the 6th to the top of the 9th or something. *sigh*

Thank God FOX still showed the ep after the stupid ballgame was over, cause I was able to catch it anyway. I would have been in a ridiculously bad mood today, otherwise.

I can't say I thought the idea of Lois just getting up and suddenly decising she wants to be a journalist was particularly brilliant... But... Well, you know she has to decide at some point and, the thing is these days, "kids" don't always know what they want to do with the rest of their lives -- I was 28 before I found what I realized what I really wanted to be doing (mind you, it had been staring me in the face since I was 12, but... oh well!) so I can totally understand that she might not have always known that this is what she wanted to do.

I thought the 'digging all the way to China' remark was pure genius, btw. Which, reporter or no, is still true of the character.

And the super breath, *yay*. Finally. I liked how he pushed the clouds away so they could go to the beach, cause that was just plain cute. And the red diamond-shaped kite? LOL. Kind of bugs me that I've seen him do the cloud thing, though cause I had Superman do that in one of my stories and now it's going to look utterly un-original. *sigh*

And I gotta ask... Oliver - I know he's "Green Arrow", but is he a good guy or a bad guy?? I mean, I know from the comics, but looking at the character last night, he seemed to me like he might "swing both ways" if you pardon the expression.

Oh and Lana living at Lex's?? WTF??? WHY? ...blah! (if there's an "I hate Lana" or even an "I hate Lex" club, please let me know, I would like to join. LOL!)

Sliding OT because I just have to say how I feel for you on this one, Lara! <g>

I remember when I was writing a Young Riders fanfic, years ago. I'd only seen S1 at that point and had the totally brilliant idea of having one of the characters - Kid - go out and furiously chop wood because he was upset over something and end up being asked why there was so much wood in the woodhouse...

Then I saw S2. And, yup, imagine my annoyance when the Kid did just that in one of the eps. And Lou asked him that very question. I had exactly the same thought as you. "Dang, now they'll think I just copied that." :p

Ah well. I consoled myself with the thought that GMTA and my creative mind was obviously in tune with the show's best writers.

Plus, it was really cute when I saw it on screen.

LabRat

Yeah, Lisa, but she was a journalist for the 'Inquisator'. Doesn't say much does it? But surely she is going to have to graduate from high school or get a GED before she can ever really be a journalist won't she?
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Lisa, I have a litte fanfic sitting around waiting to be finished where Clark and Chloe get together. Maybe I'll pull it out an finish it. It's actually a LnC cross-over thing.
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Nah... I wouldn't think that.
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I believe at least one DC incarnation of Green Arrow had him more like a Dark Knight Batman.
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Interesting. For those of you who have read MetroRhodes stuff, you might notice she writes stuff sometimes that sounds like it could be from Smallville, yet she doesn't watch it. I thought it was just so ironic that the show talked about Clark's immune system being 'off' and making him sneeze and have the sniffles. Considering what she did in Supermen United, I was just amazed, and I know for a fact that she had the idea before any spoilers were posted for the episode because I helped her with it. She could be a writer on that show...

I think the depiction of Lois in this ep explains why I'm in favor of Chloe becoming the Lois Lane.

Lois has had tons of weirder (and more dangerous) things happen to her and has proclaiming her hatred of journalism for a year and half and suddenly it's her life's calling?

First, she doesn't investigate (if you look at the content of the article it says "local experts" were consulted, but only repeats what Chloe said). Then she doesn't even use spellcheck before trying to market the article. She can't get it published in the Smallville Ledger, so instead of working to improve it, she goes to her cousin to try and get it published at the Daily Planet (nepotism, anyone?) When that doesn't work, she doesn't work harder or try to improve - she goes to a tabloid! And changes her angle to sell more papers, even though she doesn't believe the angle she's promoting. And this is the same tabloid that people have been talking trash about since the first season. A reporter for this tabloid blew up the Kent family truck (with Clark in it) in the first season to prove Clark had powers.

And that doesn't even take into account what would happen if Martha's opponents knew her CoS was writing articles being published in such a dubious publication.

Also, the rest of the ep was boring, too.

The only parts I really liked were Clark and his protectiveness of Chloe (and her response about not wanting to be kept safe, but wanting to help) and Clark blowing the clouds away - I love seeing him enjoy his powers for once. And, of course, that Clark was out there cleaning up the city and such - I really liked that.

I disagree. I think it incredibly false about the character. When have we ever seen her dig into anything that didn't either involve herself or someone close to her? I mean, aliens showed up at the hospital, and she never questioned anything about them again! She didn't ask how she got from wherever she was on the plane to Smallville. She showed no curiosity whatsoever to the door be ripped off the house and accepted "a gust of wind" as why it happened. She has shown no curiosity in regards to the meteor rocks, despite being aware of several of the mutations they've caused. We've seen no curiosity at all about what caused a world-wide blackout.

I have to agree with Tzigone on Lois. It's hard to buy comments like those if they're not backed up by her personality or past experience (episodes). The spoilers I've read made me form a suspicion which has grown into an opinion after watching "Sneeze".

While the writers finally try to make something of this long time supporting character Lois, they don't put their hearts into things. I feel like Lois has to evolve and it feels kind of forced. Naturally a part of that lies in the existence of Chloe: there's this Lois-like character they've been stringing along and promoting as Clark's best friend for five seasons and now they put the "real Lois" on the same path but a lot less charming. No wonder people will be disappointed.

It has often been noted how different Smallville is from the Superman myth so why don't they try to put Lois on a path of her own that would match her better?

I don't know about you, but for me the Lois Lane has to be a journalist. And since this series is not promoting itself as an elseworld, Lois has to be a journalist. I mean, in the end, Clark has to be a hero, Lex has to be a villian and the Lois Lane (whoever she is) has to be a journalist (a good journalist).

It's not that I don't agree with you, but thinking about five seasons where Chloe fit that exact definition of what Lois Lane might have been as a teenager, it will be beyond difficult to make a believeable transition.

I didn't write that sentence because I don't believe in Lois being a reporter in the Superman-myth but I don't trust them in doing a good job at developing that change.

Well, I don't trust TPTB for Smallville very much at all. If this is their idea of good development for Lois, it's beyond scary.

Lois is definitely immature and has a lot of growing up to do on the show. Maybe being the chief of staff to Senator Kent will help her grow up fast.

I still think a lot of the problem with Smallville is that the producers didn't know a lot about the Superman mythos when they started. Maybe I say this too often, and maybe I'm wrong, but come on... They didn't even know that Annette O'Toole played Lana Lang until she told them. Even if Superman III was bad, that's no excuse!

Okay, so we're two episodes later and

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Lois has written three articles and been dishonest in all thee. She out-and-out lied in both her articles in "Arrow" and had no problem at all with doing so.

This is definitely not Lois-Lane-like behavior.

In my view, Lois's moonlighting as a journalist is unrealistic. As Chief of Staff for a state senator, there's no way she can perform another job without political repercussions. Everything she writes would have to be filtered through Martha Kent's staff and would be viewed by all readers through a political prism. There's no way someone like her could have a separate career without it seriously impacting Mrs. Kent. To be a journalist, she'd have to resign her job as CoS.

Just imagine if Karl Rove were to start a column in a newspaper. That paper would immediately be accused of being a shill for the administration. Or on the flip side, what if Nancy Pelosi's CoS did the same? You'd see an uproar coming from the other side.

I don't think Miller and Gough thought this through well enough. It's even worse that Lois is writing for a tabloid. In the real world, that would be a public relations disaster for Senator Kent.

I'd like to know how a 19 / 20 year old that hasn't even graduated from high school got the job as chief of staff. I could see her working on the campaign, but COS? I agree. It's highly unlikely.

She has graduated high-school. She quit College and then went back, though I'm unclear if she finished that or not.

Oh, I know. I keep thinking of one of Martha's adversaries disovering that her COS wrote a story speculating aliens caused a barn door to fall from the sky. She'd be laughed out of politics very quickly.

No, she didn't graduate. She missed school and so didn't graduate high school and so couldn't go to collge. She went to Smallville high and needed five credits to graduate (one semester and the Torch as an extracurricular) but two or three eps later, Lex pulled strings to get her into Met U, even though she hadn't finished school. She got kicked out of Met U for repeated violations of the "no alcohol" rule and we've not seen her attempt to finish high school or go back to college since.

Right. That's what I remember, too. I don't know about her trying to go back to college. Don't remember that one.

I agree. I live in a state where Billy Ray Cyrus' father was (prior to his death) a state representative. George Clooney's father is a bigwig in politics at the present. You couldn't believe the hoopla that results from that, let alone if one of them decided to say something like: I was abducted by aliens. Or even better - an alien almost dropped a barn door on me. (And on another note, I can't help but wonder if George Clooney's political aspirations are in regard to my state. I haven't heard. Since he's from here originally, it would be pretty easy to re-establish this as the state he lives in - if he already hasn't.)