I think the show kinda went downhill after The Cut. Kinda like the dolphin thing for Happy Days. It's like after The Cut, Lois didn't do B & E's anymore -- and she just generally lost her spunk. I think that if it hadn't been for The Cut (and the small detail about Teri getting pregnant pre-S5), the show woulda lasted longer than Smallville.

A copy of The Daily Planet for your thoughts?

I think you should talk with Tank about this...

BTW, What does "B & E" mean?

Also BTW, I think you mean the shark for the Happy Days episode.

cheers,
Lynn

If you are using the haircut as a 'timeline' thing and a representation of the character as written in seasons three and four and your interpetation of the character in those seasons, fine.

I hope you aren't saying that the haircut itself had anything to do with the way the writers saw the character in those seasons because that is patently ridiculous.

For me (beside thinking that Lois looked good in the shorter hairstyle) the haircut was a 'marker' of the change in the relationship between Lois and Clark/Superman. It's the start of the period where Lois and Clark are a true couple.

Many think that this change of the relationship was the 'downfall' of the series and that (like has happened to other series in the past) resolving the sexual tension led to its demise.

Tank (who thinks that most Hollywood writers have fun with sexual tension, most can't write a stable relationship to save their lives)

Well, I think that the show was much better in S1 and S2 than in the two later seasons. Just think about the Wedding ARGH or the amnesia arc - we didn't have anything like that in the first two seasons. IMHO, the writers should have stuck with Debora Joy Levine's original idea to not let them get together before season 5 or 6. (At the very least, that would have meant more seasons for us to enjoy. Even with a pregnant Teri - maybe we could even have gotten an arc where LnC did get intimate to write the pregnancy into the series?)

Originally posted by Lara Joelle Kent:

I would have loved that!

Ann

@Tank: yeah, time-line demarcation thing. sorry -- English isn't my first language. ^_^' But yeah, that's what i meant.

@Lynn: B & E -- breaking and entering. quoting Inspector Henderson.

@everyone else -- yeah, i think that after they got Lois & Clark together, the show just went south. and i think Clark got a little too smug in some episodes, like when Lois became Editor. at the end, Lois says she wants to be with clark where the action is and he says "Good" and I'm like, "Eh?" O_O

Deb Levine's idea woulda rocked. And a pregnancy written into the show. That woulda been awesome! Except that Teri WAS pregnant, and couldn't have handled 16-hour days.

And why make a haircut a milestone for when they got together? i don't get it. i'm sorry.

Ooh, and is it just me or did anyone notice that after The Cut, Lois looked almost like a totally different person?

She looked totally cute and young on S1 and S2 and then BAM! Twenty going on thirty. the transformation was so dramatic to me.

i'm sorry if i seem so very shallow, but i really felt that she changed too much.

Ah. Of course. That makes sense. Thanks.

I think Teri needed to have her hair short for another role she was playing. The timing was just coincidence.

I, too, prefer the first two seasons; for two reasons:

1) The last two seasons became increasingly dark. I am decidedly uncomfortable with all of the occult themes in it.

2) Because of the change in the relationship, we got to see less of Clark in his Superman persona. He may have been in the Suit more, but he was acting like Clark when he was in private with Lois (as, indeed, he needed to, given their changed relationship.)

BTW, that makes me think about the season 3 pilot, and my pet peeve therewith. Am I the only one who finds jolting the clanging sound that occurs when Lois shoves a broom into Clark's chest? What was the sound person thinking -- that just because Superman is called the "Man of Steel," if something were to hit his body it would make the same sound as if it were to have hit steel? Aside from the fact that there was no precedent for that in the show, I think that Lois might have gotten a clue from such a sound the first time anything had hit Clark's body...It wouldn't have taken her two years to figure out Superman's alter ego. <shrug> Oh well, by now I really should have given up any hopes of logic where this show is concerned. Once again it is a case of fortifying my suspension of disbelief...

cheers,
Lynn

@Lynn: not only were the themes in the last two seasons increasingly dark, the cinematography kinda lost the "glossiness" it had the first two seasons. S3 and S4 just wasn't as camp... it'd been too given over to cheap tricks.

@Lara Joelle: i hated the wedding too. that Mike grated on my nerves, nice as he was. They shoulda gotten married at the farm or something, and i'm sorry, but the second weddings outfits were hideous. the little bow in Lois's hair on the second wedding... argh! I wish they'd scrapped the entire clone arc. other than it being annoying, didn't Lois & Clark deserve a church wedding under God after all they'd been through? And who was Mike, anyway?

they shoulda let Dean and Teri write S3 and S4. they didn't do too badly when they wrote their episodes. i especially loved Teri's episode.

That's funny, because Teri's episode is not universally liked because it's so far-fetched. The episode plays like it's TERI'S high school experience, not Lois', and negates everything we had previously heard about Lois' teenage years, where she was bookish and a goody-goody, not best friends with the head cheerleader and dating the quarterback.

I actually preferred the second half of the series. The actors -- and characters -- were gelling so well, and the chemisty between Dean and Teri was off the charts. I am not a Superman fan per se, so I preferred that he was less of a dominant presence once Lois and Clark got together. After all, the show, from its inception, was about big-city Lois Lane falling in love with farm-boy Clark Kent ... who just happened to be Superman. This wasn't your average Superman incarnation -- Lois even had top billing in the title!

If Lois and Clark had gotten together earlier -- from the get-go -- I don't think the show would have lasted four seasons. The will-they-or-won't-they angle benefitted the show. The show was practically in the toilet when the writers decided to let Lois and Clark pursue a romance -- if for nothing else but to make the fans happy since the show was likely going to be cancelled -- and that is, ironically, what turned the ratings around. People didn't want to watch Lois mooning over Superman and ignoring Clark, but they were more than willing to watch Lois choose Clark OVER Superman. Who says that nice guys finish last?

And as for Teri's hair, I love when it was very sleek and glossy the last few episodes of Season 2, but otherwise, I was glad she cut it. In that style, it was too heavy and weighted looking at the beginning of Season 3. I really like it when it has grown out a little, i.e. around HIWTHI, and I love it at the very end of the series, in TFH. I actually have had my hair cut that way -- took a photo from that episode into the salon and everything -- and it's a nice, managable cut.

@EditorJax: i'm not sure the writers of Lois & Clark even knew what far-fetched means. lol.

what i didn't like about S3 and S4 was that Lois didn't seem to be as doggedly stubborn and... well, I just thought she became a lot more docile after her relationship with Clark started.

as for IASWAA being more like Teri's life instead of Lois's, i don't think so. the episode Operation Blackout confirms that while Lois always made straight-A's, she was also best friends with the the people who ruled the school.

but yeah, it really was ironic that in trying to make the fans happy, the show took a downturn. who knew? XD does anyone remember if Lois & Clark was ever top-rating or if it just kinda middled? Because I feel that S3 and S4 were experimental in a lot of ways, like they were trying to catch a wave to or back to the top?

as for my hair, I took a screen shot from the Pilot and had my stylist copy it. yeah, it's a bit of work, but it does turn heads.

right, Aki? <3

This is actually incorrect. Molly was Lois' best friend/roommate in college, not high school. Her best friend in high school, according to IASWAA, was Julie, the head cheerleader. Ironic that Teri's best friend in high school was ALSO a cheerleader named Julie.

What we knew of Lois' high-school existence prior to that episode, was that she got straight A's, was student-body president, and never once skipped school. She also was in the chess club and math club. Not exactly meshing with the Lois we saw in IASWAA, who was definitely A List. Honestly, at least at my high school, the girls like Julie and Peggy would have picked on the girls like the Lois that was depicted in Season 1.

And a side note on Molly: She certainly didn't seem like the type who ruled the school, more like an activst/alternative girl who was headstrong and passionate about her causes, much like Lois. That is probably the basis on which their friendship was forged -- and once Molly became distracted by a guy, they drifted apart.

As for the ratings, Lois and Clark became a ratings winner in Season 3, once the secret was revealed. It was a new concept to have Lois not only know the Man of Steel's secret -- but be dating him! The show regularly made the top 20 in the Nielsens, and even reruns were beating first-run episodes of the competition. The show didn't decline once the writers gave the fans what they wanted -- the first time. The fans had wanted Lois and Clark together from the get-go, and the writers decided to go ahead and throw caution to the wind when the ratings were down in Season 2 (largely because the focus was too heavy on Superman and A-Plots). Ironically, what they figured would be the show's swan song turned it into a bona fide hit.

The show did, however, begin to decline after Lois and Clark got married. There was a HUGE dropoff between the end of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4. Why? Simply put, the sexual tension was gone. The dance between Clark and Lois was sone of the show's selling points -- would they or wouldn't they; how close would they get to the fire ... their sexual chemistry was off the charts. Once they were married -- and Superman now had a wife like any other guy -- the honeymoon was over for a lot of viewers, and the show went into a steep decline. Couple that with ABC wanting to get rid of the show, and Teri and Dean's lack of promotion of the show during Season 4, and, well, that's why we never found out what happened with the baby in their kitchen!

oh. i suppose i need to re-watch the DVDs again, then. ^_^ it's really just sad that the show ended when it did. it's a good thing there's this whole FoLC community and the stories some of the writers here turn out help make up for the loss.

Just to add my 2cents. Abut the hair: You go, Tank. That haircut opened up Teri's face and gave her a glow. Also, that long lanky stuff made her look very horsey.

I too, preferred the later episodes starting towards the end of S. 2, when L&C began their romance. It must be a NW thing, Jenn. Until then, the series seemed to focus on S-Man heroics instead of the personal attraction between the two leads, which had been D.J. Levine's original idea. TPTB changed her premise by moving the time slot from the originally inteneded 9:00 EST to 8:00 thus requiring a more family/kid oriented show. How great it would have been if it had stayed at 9:00 and been the smart and sophisticated Thin
Man kind of show she had envisioned.

It actually wasn't the fact that they were married, but the fact that, as Tank says, Hollywood writers don't know how to write a real relationship. What really killed the show, was the fact that they didn't get married in the Aarch. I know people who were some time watchers, who thought they got married and the show had ended. Faithful followers were so angry and frustrated by the lame stuff that followed the Aarch, that they stopped watching. TPTB had to do something to get them back, but their attempts were too dumb and too late. I, however, must be the only person in the universe who actually liked the 3 episode Aarch, but I also thought the episodes immeeiately following were just terrible.

A quick correction about the clank when Lois gave Superman the broom to sweep up the glass from her broken window (btw, didn't you ever wonder what Lois's landlord thought about all the windows that kept geetting borken in her aparment?). The broom incident was part of the comedy of the scene, and Lois already knew Clark was Superman so it wouldn't have been revelatory.

Well, that's what I think, anayway.

Jude

Nope. <G> I really enjoyed them, too. For a variety of reasons - not least because they were the first I'd seen and they got me interested in the show. But also because they had so many elements that generally interest me in a show - the evil double, the memory loss. In the past, I'd been known to watch episodes of shows I loathed if that was the theme of the week. It's something that's always fascinated me.

So, not the only one, Jude. But, admittedly, we're a very small group.

The episode which truly irked me around that time was STG... All I wanted by then was a nice wedding. A simple wedding. A normal wedding. Of course, there had to be some problem, some conflict, or it would have been a boring show. I was prepared for that.

But dumb angels acting like a Disney chipmunk and Wedding Destroyers and weird wedding ceremonies that were out of the realm of the normal universe and marriage certificates signed by said angels were too bizarre and out there for my liking.

And then, too, I felt cheated that we didn't get the Hawaiian honeymoon that had been built up through previous episodes. I'd have loved to have seen them involved in some escapade in Hawaii rather than what we got there.

And I really have to agree with this:

One of the great missed opportunities in TV land, I think.

LabRat

I understand that it was an attempt at humour; but it struck me (no pun intended) as a cheap laugh at the expense of consistency with the rest of the series, not to mention believability. Yeah, yeah, I know -- there are so many less believable things on the show, so why does that one get to me so? I'm not sure, except that for some reason, it calls attention to itself in such a way that it really does disrupt my suspension of disbelief. As was pointed out in a different thread, sometimes it is easier to swallow huge impossibilities than it is smaller ones or simple inconsistencies when choosing to be entertained by a show that clearly is not grounded in reality. <shrug> Go figure.

Joy,
Lynn

Ratty, you're forgetting two very important words: Ceiling. Sex.

That is all.

/whistles as she returns to the gutter

They could have

a. ceiling sex in Hawaii

b. go to Hawaii later

I agree with Labby though - Lois literally tripping over some big case while sipping something tropical on the beach... Could have been fun .

If I recall, they talked about staying in a hut with a thatched roof. Would YOU want ... thatch burns?! I think not.

/refrains from elaborating further to avoid being fired as a mod.

They TALKED about it - but who made the reservations? No way to know for sure where their reservations were. Besides that was in like January for their first non-wedding. Who knows what they had planned for their second one...

Jenn- see option b.

kthnxbai

Go thatch yourself.

I'd have to totally agree there!

I think they should have gone through with the original wedding - God knows L&C deserved it by then! - and there could easily have been good story lines to follow. I mean, look at all the excellent stories written on these boards by you guys! They are awesome!

And some of those stories even include a proper short haircut for Lois.

Tank (who noticed that the thread had kind of gotten off topic)

Someone still has yet to theorize about the demarcation of the Lois & Clark relationship using The Cut, assuming that The Cut was not done for just practical or aesthetic reasons.

Like you remember how Dean said that "cape-age" was a word they coined around the set because the producers were really hung up about the cape looking good? (no pun intended)

I am thinking they may have had "Lois hair-age" (wth?) issues as well, which could've driven them up the wall and just said "Let's just cut it." lol. Conjecture much?

If I recall, the first cut was done because Teri wanted a change (and it didn't sit too well with the producers since she didn't consult them), but the second cut, the one that resulted in her super-short, red hair was done for her role in "Since You've Been Gone."

oh. It was really too bad. I thought she looked her most beautiful in Season 2. Other than that, i was really wondering why Teri cut her hair when, accdg to Deborah Levine, she originally had even longer hair. -shrugs-

Something happened with Teri/Lois beginning in early season 3 that went beyond just the haircut. The haircut might be the most obvious sign of the change, but her wardrobe went to the proverbial zoo around the same time. The metallic silvery getup in WHALTTA... the red & white-stitched thing that graced us in two (!) episodes -- I recall giant buttons on another one -- and a lime green ensemble somewhere in there. She didn't seem to settle down until mid-season. (Rumors at the time seemed to implicate Teri in this, saying she had demanded Lois wear more "stylish" clothing. But there were a lot of Teri rumors out there, many of them not entirely true, so this is all hearsay.)

Even though Lois's outfits went back to being serious in season 4, her makeup took a strange turn. There are some eps where her eye makeup is so pale she looks ghostly, and would probably have looked better with none at all. That, coupled with the short-short hair (and the unfortunate wig in the early part of the 4th season), definitely made her look different. But like others have pointed out, she ACTED different also. I remember at the time, FOLCs were complaining that Lois rarely did anything "Lois-y" anymore. The whole under-the-table/chopsticks scene in AKAS was lauded at the time for being the first time in AGES we'd seen her being HERSELF. And that may have been the last time, too.

So yeah, it's pretty easy to associate her different looks with different phases of the show. Kind of as markers, as someone said. But in the end, even if her hair had stayed the same throughout the four seasons, we would've still seen her personality change -- unless we'd had different writers/producers/execs.

So no, it certainly wasn't the hair's fault.

@LNCroxmysox: yeah. we have a whole other thread bemoaning the outfits.