To keep myself from yelling at the tv and scaring my roommates, I'm going to vent my frustrations here. I've been watching the dvd's from the beginning and I've gotten to the wedding arc. I've suddenly been reminded why I don't watch these episodes...ever. They were so poorly written and completely abandoned all characterizations.

I just finished watching Double Jeopardy where Clark allows Lex to drive off with Lois. First I was frustrated by the fact that Clark even let her go. Why didn't he haul her off somewhere to figure out what was wrong with her? He knew there was something wrong so why just let her leave? It's not like anyone could stop him.

Then Clark just let Lex drive away! I can sort of understand why he didn't turn Lex in when he found him in his apartment. But when Lex started to get behind the wheel to drive off with Lois, why not drag Lex to the police? He's a wanted fugitive. And it's not like Lex could hurt Clark. Get rid of Lex and the immediate problem is solved and Clark can just focus on Lois without anyone trying to take her away from him.

And I refuse to believe that Lex is smarter than Clark. Clark should have taken the information that Jimmy gave him to heart and used the name Kent instead of Clark.

I know these episodes have been discussed ad nauseam, but I needed to get that out of my system in a more subtle way than I was originally thinking. I want to just skip over these ones and ignore the fact that they even exist, but I want to watch the whole series. I think these are worse than the New Krypton arc, surprisingly. Although, that one was shorter and I feel like the characters were less tortured during it.

Ok, that's enough. There's clearly a lot more about the episode that I dispise, but I was too consumed by the ending. And I can't promise I won't be back after I watch Dieter in action.

~Kristen

Yeah, I think pretty much all Folcs HATE the Lex driving away with Lois scene. Why? Why? Why? It really doesn't make any sense. I think perhaps the writers got trashed before writing that ep.

Someone should make a how it should have ended for that episode.

I'll write it:

Clark: No Wanda, I'm really Kent. That's Clark. He's lying to you to trick you. And he's also a criminal. Let me get the police and you'll see; they've been looking for him. <ties up Lex so he can't move and calls police. Police show up>

Police: We've been looking for you. You won't escape this time to cause more mischief.

Wanda: Wow. You were right Kent. Thank you for saving me.

Clark: We need to get you checked out. I know just the person...

Dr. Klein: Well.. Cla- <off Clark's look> - Kent, I'm pretty sure that this little whamo device I have will jog Lois' memory. I just happened to have it sitting around. <puts device on Lois>

Lois: Oh my gosh Clark! I can remember everything. <cries> I almost lost you. And our wedding, we'd waited so long.

Dr. Klein: <clears throat> ahem, not only am I a scientist but I'm also an ordained minister. I can marry you right here with one of my techs as the witness. And fortunately, the State of New Troy doesn't require a marriage liscence until after you're hitched. <marries Lois & Clark and they go back to his place for some consummation, without a curse to deal with>

<sigh> I feel better now. Don't you?

Ah see... my solution is to skip it all. Stop the DVD while Lois is in the bathroom changing into the white gown but before she eats the frog. Put in S4 DVD and start with either SoulMates [which I like] or if you don't like it, BY and the ceiling scene. No clones, no Deter, no Lex, no ARGH at all and then Clark doesn't get shrunk [though I guess if you really like that ep, you could watch it before sticking the disk with INPY in and pretend it came first] and the NKers died on their ship after they left Krypton and never came to try to destroy our favorite couple.

Carol [who has never actually done that, but who usually doesn't make it that far before getting sidetracked by something else - Foundling has been paused for 3 or 4 days now]

Yeah stephnachia, that's how it should have been!!


You know that Sue.S actually began a story were Clark didn't let Lex drive away, last year. Too bad she never finished it. It was really good!!

You're absolutely right in your critique - the amnesia/wedding arc is painful and Clark comes off as a dunce.

It's almost as though the writers got orders to stretch out what should have been a two episode set into four and having Clark actually use his brain would have forced them to actually think about the story line with REAL complications.

And the whole thing with Bibbo - as a small business owner, needing to protect his liquor license, he didn't bother to question any part of her 'story' in order to help a pretty face? he didn't ask for her SSN for her employee paperwork? Or was she working for tips (in which case he still needed to check that he wasn't harboring a fugitive.) Lois should have been considered a high profile missing person - possibly an abducted person. Even if Bibbo's call to his police buddy came up negative, he would have done his due diligence.

What if she never got switched? What if they actually DID get married in INPY and none of that other crap happened?

What happens if Lex escapes from prison a couple of weeks too late? Would he still try to pursue Lois? Or would he find another way to wreak his revenge? What happens when Zara and Ching show up and Clark is already married? Does he still feel honor-bound to go to New Krypton?

Not to mention that we got cheated out of seeing the "how the heck do I *live* with this person?" that a newly married couple goes through. Which side of the bed are you going to sleep on? How do you sort your laundry? Do you squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle or the end? Leave the dishes until morning or wash them right away? Is he willing to buy your feminine hygiene products?

Geez, I wish that first wedding had been *the* wedding. I loved having Perry marry them - that was the right kind of cheesy (as opposed to an "angel" who smacked of deus ex machina).

I guess it's time to write until the bad images go away.

ETA: You know that Sue.S actually began a story were Clark didn't let Lex drive away, last year. Too bad she never finished it.

I still have it on my hard drive, I just grew unhappy with how it was going. Eventually I'll overhaul it and repost. I promise!

I think the writers were trying to put it off because they wanted their marriage to coincide with the marriage of LL & CK in the comic books, which it did later in Season 4.

Although its possible they wrote this horrible story arch beforehand and then realized how close the comic book was to them getting hitched and then decided to write the horrible NK arch so the two weddings could coincide.

Woo hoo!!!!!!

Me can't wait!!!

You know you're making somebody really happy, right?

I sort of did that with In Sickness and In Health/Till Death Do Us Part. The wedding was legal but Clark didn't know it until the middle of the Deter fiasco and he took her out of there. They were already in wedded bliss by the time Zara/Ching showed up. Not that they cared but...

So I didn't rewrite the whole thing and that part still bugs me [letting them drive away - I mean couldn't Superman have stopped them - it's not like Lex had Kryptonite on him] but at least he got her away from Deter.

I still maintain it's better to just skip those disks all together .
Carol

The story behind the writing of the Wedding Arrggh was actually pretty much out there - dashed if I can remember much of it though. I'm fairly sure that Steph is right and there was a connection to the comic book wedding emerging around the same time.

And...something to do with them wanting to make them married for real all along, the clone having come in after the ceremony and there's a scene in one of the later post-arrrghh episodes that still exists from that notion which wasn't edited out, some line or two of dialogue which only makes sense if they were married at the time...

....sorry, my memory on it all is so hazy. But I'm sure it'll be documented somewhere. Zoomway's website perhaps? Or perhaps in old threads on Zoomway's mbs - if you could track them down. Or, I'm sure that some of the old timers would still remember over there if they were asked.

LabRat

Here is the way it went: They were supposed to have gotten married and the switch with the clone was supposed to happen AFTER they were married, etc., and in the end, Lois and Clark would have been married. The episodes were initially supposed to be:

#15 "It Happened All Night" (changed to "I Now Pronounce You")
#16 "Double Jeopardy"
#17 "Memory Lane" (changed to "Seconds")

Three episodes, no amnesia arc. So what happened?

Well, ABC was worried it would kill the show to have them married ... take away all of that UST and what do you have? Picket fences and baby names. So they figured they'd toy with the viewers a little longer, and initially wanted the entire arc (including amnesia) to be seven episodes. (Could you imagine?!?) It ended up being five. The irony is that by the time they finally did get married, the show was going down in flames, but for precisely the opposite reason as ABC had feared -- NOT letting them get married pissed off the viewers.

[insert words not acceptable on a family-friendly board] Even Dean said that the wedding had been pulled out from under them at the time, that they thought that Lois and Clark were going to be married right until the end.

Indications: In "It's a Small World After All," (episode #18; the first episode after the arc), Perry gives Lois a nameplate that says Lois Kent. Kind of an insensitive gift for someone whose wedding was busted up and had yet to reschedule, eh? And in "Through a Glass, Darkly," Lois comments that "us wacky Earth women get mighty cranky about losing our husbands." But they weren't married yet, right? Mmm hmm.

Allow me to point out that ABC also intially didn't want Lois to be told about Clark being Superman, but an impassioned fan campaign over the summer between Season 2 and Season 3 changed their minds.

That was it. Gosh, it was driving me nuts not being able to remember that. Thanks, Jenn.

LabRat

Carol said:

Well, if that's what you want to see, you don't even need to switch DVDs. I made a video a few years ago which is pretty much exactly that. The image quality is a little bit grainy in places, but the avis were produced before the offical DVDs were released.

All the same, if you're interested:
The Wedding We Wanted


Wendy

That's easy - you get seasons three and four. :p

In my ideal LnC world, Clark wouldn't have proposed at the end of season two, but simply confessed the truth to Lois. Season three should have been them trying to figure out how to carry on a romance that has three people in it (her, him and Superman) while they both adjust to the fact that she's in on the secret. And then they could have been engaged/married in season four.

ETA: Most of all, though, the show died for me because the characters were no longer the ones I'd fallen in love with. They both became cartoons of themselves starting with season three. I very much prefer the sharp wit and banter of the early days over the milquetoasts they turned into.

Wendy! That is sheer brilliance!

Stupidass (can I say stupidass? I guess I can!) writers should have consulted with you first!

Well, I survived. But there's no rest for the weary because I'm headed straight into the NK arc.

I can't wait till I get to season 4. I loved when they were married, minus all of the cartoonish villains they faced. But of course, once I make it through there I'll be left with the cliffhanger at the end of the series. Tell me again why I even watch the episodes at all?

I swear I love this show. I swear I love this show. (Just keep repeating...)

~Kristen

ETA: Ya know, it was weird watching the wedding episodes. I know most of the show by heart, every word, every tic of Clark's jaw...but watching these was like watching it for the first time. I'm so unfamiliar with them that I found new scenes of Clark to constantly playback and drool over.

I've always had problems with the way they did the show.

1. Lex coming back from the dead. Face it he jumped off the tallest building in Metropolis. It would be like jumping off the top of the Empire State Building. Basically his body would be a scrambled mess. There is no way to fix his body and bring him back. Just about every bone broken, broken skull, brains oozing out, etc. Medically we just don't have the skills to bring someone back from this kind of trauma. Lex, even if they could, would have suffered terrible brain damage. There is so much we don't know about the brain to bring someone back who could function.

2. It had to be the real Lois at the wedding and reception. Clois was to child like. She could not have maintained the Lois personality through all that. She couldn't have maintained it at all. The Clois person was a child. I think Clark would have realized it before they even made it home except they chose to make him an idiot here.

3. I always hated that they had one date and then were engaged. Always thought that they could have done 1 to 2 full seasons of them just dating. Gone on for a while without her knowning, then the confession of the secret, the dealing with it, getting to know Clark as a whole etc. We were cheated by skipping all this.

So these were my main gripes with the show. As for the final wedding - I believe it was actually the comic book that decided to come out with a wedding issue to coincide with the show.

We don't. But don't forget that Metropolis was always shown to be several years - maybe even decades - ahead of us in scientific and medical invention. They were cloning people before we cloned sheep, for example. So I could always suspend belief on this kind of thing because they seemed more advanced than the real world.

I seem to remember someone explaining this one with the theory that Lex had some kind of contraption just a couple of floors below where he jumped that caught him and pulled him in. Then a dummy of some kind hit the ground. Not sure I could go with that one. But I am prepared to believe that Lex had some plan that stopped him hitting the ground. He was way too much a megalomaniac and had too huge an ego to commit suicide when caught, I always thought. He'd have it set up to look like he'd killed himself, but have some Plan B to trick everyone. What that would be though, I'll leave to someone else to figure out.

A full season may have been too long for me, but I always missed this, too. At least several episodes of dating first would have been nice!

LabRat

I agree. One of my favorite lines from the beginning of season 3 (can't remember which episode, off the top of my head) was when Lois told Perry that Clark proposed and Perry responded with something like, "Don't you think you two should try dating first?" I always thought that was right on the money.

~Kristen

I have to disagree with you on Lex having something set up so he wouldn't hit the ground. He had to much ego to believe anyone would have the nerve to try and arrest him in the first place. He was smarter than everyone else and more vicious so no one would figure out want he was doing and if they did he had power (Fear) over everyone to keep them quite. Why do you think he said get me the President when he was yelling during the attempt to arrest him. He was impressed with what he thought was his importance.

I totally believe he would kill himself rather than be locked up. He would never be locked up like a common criminal - he believed he was above everyone else. Remember in the Pilot everyone has to look up to him because he owns and lives in the tallest building in Metropolis. He gave the orders, he didn't take them. Especially from prison guards - who he would consider low-lifes. The rest of the world was there to cater to his whims. Submit to prison - NEVER.

I always felt the writers after Debra left were just to lazy to put any real effort into coming up with believable, creative characters or story lines (for the most part) so they just kept resurrecting Lex/Nigel and Tempus. Then when they figured they had brought him back as many times as they could get away with we start with his SONS

Oh, absolutely. That's a given. If pushed into a corner with no way out, there's no way he'd allow lesser beings to take him in.

My point though is that I don't believe he'd allow himself to get to that point in the first place. Lex would always have an escape route planned in advance, a Plan B...and C and...Z.

That's why I was always surprised to see him leap from the penthouse window. My Lex would have had something set up in reserve so that if he was ever caught up there, he'd have a way out. A helipad on the roof, for example, would make much more sense to me.

BTW, I was thinking about this the other day...is there anything in the ensuing episodes which actually states that it's Lex's body that's retrieved and reanimated? Because I was thinking that the whole set up, the tank etc. is very...clone-like. And now I'm wondering if it was a clone instead. But I haven't watched the eps in long enough that I have no clue what backstory we were given.

A clone would make so much more sense though than any plot to save himself once he leapt out of the window, simply because it would have been such a difficult trick to pull off successfully and because Lex had used clone technology in the past, of course.

LabRat

See to me, Lex isn't the kind of guy who gives up. And killing yourself is the ultimate form of giving up.

Lex has probably got so many lawers they're coming out of his a... um... nose. I think it would be very likely that someone as revered as Lex would be able to eventually wiggle out of any major charges. Just think about how many CEOs in our world that have gotten away with everything because they're so big and powerful. So to me it seemed kind of silly that he was willing to just give up on any hope of getting out of the situation. Like LabRat said, I think he would have some kind of back-up plan if things were to fall through for him. Yeah, he's got an ego, but he never got too cocky so as not to prepare for the worst possibility. It wasn't his ego that was his downfall, it was his obsession with Lois.

A while back, I wrote my own version of what should have happened in this arc while contemplating throwing something through the TV screen:


Double Misdirection

Whether Lex would jump or not could be discussed forever. I still hold firm to my belief that Lex would jump. Yes I believe he had escape plans, contingencies of all sorts. But the circumstances were out of the ordinary in many ways:
1. It is the middle of the wedding.

2. Lois has just turned him down at the alter. That is humilitating for anyone. For him it is beyond that.
3. It is obvious that he has no clue he was really being investigated or that if he did that it had gotten far enough for an arrest warrant.
4. That they chose to arrest him in the middle of his wedding.
5. That he didn't have time to take care of Mrs. Cox. He says et tu Mrs. Cox. So he obviously knows she will turn states evidence, thereby betraying him.
6. Superman is locked in his basement and his biggest desire is to see Superman dead.
7. Then the final blow is when Superman has won yet again by escaping and Luthor is denied his "pound of flesh."

So instead of following any of his escape plans he takes a detour to the basement before doing anything else to kill Superman. I say BEFORE because when he finds him gone he goes back to his office to retrieve something. Why not get that first, kill Superman in the basement and leave through a basement escape route. I would feel that there is one there as well as any number of other places in the building.

So yes he would jump because ultimately he has had a break with reality and will not let lesser beings decide his fate. His HUGE EGO will not allow it.

He says that because she's obviously already betrayed him - she's wearing handcuffs and being escorted by the police at that point.

Um... this is really off topic, but LabRat, I can't restrain myself any longer and I just have to say how much I love that you have a House quote for your sig. I loved Cole and wish he could've stayed.

After Lex jumps there's a series of newspaper headlines detailing was has gone on since the attempted arrest and Lex's jump. One of the last headlines says that Luthor's body disappeared from the morgue. Then during all of the run ins with Gretchen Kelly, they make mention of the fact that it is Lex's body.

Now, he very well could have been a clone. Let's face it, Lex's body would have been destroyed beyond recognition. And regardless, coming back from the dead is pretty much impossible. Not that clones are necessarily any more believable, but this is the LnC universe so clones seem to be pretty common. :rolleyes: Stealing the body could have just been Gretchen's way of getting DNA to make the clone.

I think the intention of the writers was that Lex was brought back to life in his original body. They weren't shy about their clone themes so I feel like they would have made that known if it were the case. However, I'm inclined to think that you're free to believe whatever you'd like about how Lex came back. They are all equally (im)possible.

~Kristen

Cool. I thought that without the original team this series would have no interest for me, but I've really been enjoying it so far!

LabRat

I'm privy to that episode because Dean yells out my real name.

Doesn't this just scream 'write-me!', 'write-me!'?

JD