As some of you know, my knowledge of Lois and Clark alternate universe history is almost nil, so could somebody please explain to me who Alt-Clark and Alt-Lois is and why she was in the Congo? This is kinda embarrasing, but I unfortunately had to take swimming lessons during the time when TBS was showing the 3rd and 4th seasons in my area (Southeastern TN), so I haven't seen as many episodes during those seasons.

Hey, TN

The alt-universe was first encountered in the middle of third season ep, "Tempus, Anyone?" Our evil time traveller Tempus kidnapped our Lois and took her to an alternate universe -- there, she met up with H.G. Wells and they discovered that a few key things were different in this universe -- first, Clark's parents had been killed in a car accident when he was 10. Second, Lois Lane has been missing and presumed dead since the Congo trip, which was some time prior to the pilot -- our Lois remembered the incident, but obviously she'd survived it. Clark had never met Lois, never invented Superman, and was engaged to Lana Lang, who was shown as rather controlling and who was determined that he *not* use his powers.

Lois worked with Clark, shocked him to the core by telling him what she knew about his powers, made him a Superman suit and convinced him to start doing heroic things. It was a promising beginning, but in stopping Tempus's evil plan (he's the villain, he's always got a plan), Tempus revealed to the world that this new Superman was actually Clark Kent. Lana left him in disgust, and then Lois had to leave, too, to go back home. He wanted her to stay, but she couldn't. So we were left with him all alone, with no privacy -- very sad and poignant.

He re-appeared in fourth season in the ep "Lois & Clarks" -- our Clark had been temporarily removed from the scene by Tempus, so HG brought alt-Clark over to help out. He met his parents, and was clearly attracted to Lois. She told him what he felt for her was just an echo of what he should have with his own Lois (alt-Lois). H.G. Wells took him back to his own universe -- he said it wasn't so bad there, but he was very lonely without his Lois. H.G. Wells made some sort of comment about things not being impossible, and they left it at that.

Rumor has it that they were planning on doing an official alt-Clark/alt-Lois episode in Season 5, but we never got that far.

PJ in NC
(there are a few FOLCs here around Raleigh -- anytime you wanna drive six hours one way for the weekend, we have all the eps on tape... <g> )

Thanks a ton! Believe me, if I could drive, I'd zip over to Raleigh in a milisecond to watch those tapes! Curse TBS...