Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Family Hour Episode Discussion Thread

Seems the finale is the only episode we don't have in the TOC thread. But I can't find a thread for it. Have I missed it?

LabRat :-)

No, you didn't miss it. I've been meaning to post one for some time now, but I keep putting it off because I have a lot to say about it since it was the last episode. I'll probably have time to organize my thoughts and post one tomorrow, though. Or, this could always be the official episode discussion thread if people want to start discussing it now.

Aha. That's cool. It would have been a shame not to have a complete set on the TOC, so to speak.

And sure, may as well use this thread as it's here.

LabRat :-)

This continued the tradition of really over the top villains. Still, the thing that really confused me was the "bummer be gone" working. It seemed like an unneeded cop out. Why would it have been so bad if Ellen and Sam knew about Clark being SM?

They really did leave us with a total mystery at the end with the child, which has been explained at least 6 different ways. I have to say I think I like the Missing Lois explanation the best. For one thing, it is the one that leads to the least disruption in the future life of the child.

I'm thinking that "Big Brain" would have been a better name for this guy than "Fat Head". Sadly, they had already used that one. It was such a pathetic villain to deal with at the end (and another rehashed old sitcom guest star It was the use of these old sitcom stars, which made many of the S2-S4 villains seem so foppish, IMO). So sad. So sad. If they had mixed up the B-Plot of this episode with the A-Plot of Toy Story, that would have been a much better note to end the series on.

I liked the idea of telling Sam the truth to have them help them out. Personally, I have to say, being that they only got married in Oct the year before, they really hadn't given it much time. The only reason to erase Sam's mind is because he had come up with a break-through in his "No, that isn't right" line, which he then no longer remembers. Also, Ellen really needed her mind wiped, because she totally would have blabbed.

Awww. Thanks, John. Plus, I had lots of fun with the Bummer-b-gone.

I really liked Pat's (angelsgmaw) story: Family Hour\'s Baby Story

In the past when I've watched this episode, I've always been somewhat disappointed that we didn't get any resolution to the baby storyline. I have heard a few arguments in the past, though, that even though this episode left off on a cliffhanger, the idea of Lois and Clark finding a mysterious baby somewhat mirrors Martha and Jonathan finding Clark. If you think of the ending in those terms, I don't think that the mystery baby is quite so irritating of an ending.

I do think that this episode serves somewhat well as a series finale. It actually satisfies me much more than some other shows that had planned series finales. I guess that goes to show you how hard it is to write a satisfying ending to a popular TV show.

True, there are a few things that they could have done better had they known this would be the last episode when they produced it. They probably would have given us less of a cliffhanger ending. Maybe Lois would have either found out she was pregnant or Lois and Clark would have successfully adopted a child. They also probably would have picked a better villain. I imagine they would have used either Lex or Tempus since the two of them were the most important villains from the show.

Obviously, more seasons would have been a lot of fun to watch, but there is a bright side to all of this. Of all of the season finales the show had, this probably was the best one to end it on. Had the show ended after season one, we never would have gotten to see any true Lois and Clark romance. Had the show ended after season two, we never would have seen Lois finding out that Clark was Superman, and we never would have seen her answer to his proposal. Had the show ended after season three, they would have ended with Lois and Clark separated and without a marriage. At least with the ending we were given, we had Lois and Clark happily married and a promising future for them as parents.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with the show that we got. Sure, some episodes were better than others, but in my opinion, none of them are unwatchable.

You know, I think that is probably the angle the show makers were going with. That way early in Season 5 we could still have Lois and Clark thinking they can't have children, and then in like the 4th episode have Lois get sick, go to the doctor, and he says "Lois, your pregnant".

Let's see...."Family Hour"-related fanfics. Well, the first one that leaped to mind was of course Nan Smith's Doppelganger . The story explains who the baby is and how it got there. (Hint: the title is a clue.)

Another one of my favorite authors, Dandello, has a great blurb in Incompatible For Reproduction/ . "Dr. Klein said they were incompatible -- so why is Clark having food cravings and mood swings?"

The New Kryptonians use their advanced technology to give Lois and Clark a child in Jenni Debbage's This Child Belongs To You . All Lois and Clark have to do is figure out the adoption intricacies....

Karen Ward manages to bring in Tempus in Tomorrow\'s Past . How far will he go to prevent the formation of Utopia?

Alicia U. has Lois get pregnant by Clark, in Trials Of The Heart . No genetic engineering required. There are definitely some trials for our heroes to overcome here!

In Full Circle , Crystal Wimmer tells us another way that CJ Kent came to be. It's a long and winding saga for Lois and Clark. This fic is also available in an nfic version on Annesplace.net.

I really like how different authors take such radically different ways of explaining the new baby. It shows the great diversity and wide range of authorial talent in our fandom.

On the comedic side:

As Carol M said in her intro, "Someone mentioned that Lois got a 19 on the evaluation by the adoption worker while Clark got a 98 and wouldn't it be nteresting to see exactly where the points came from? So I went with it." Don't miss her hilarious Point System .

Ikuko has a unique take on the episode in Gender Bender . Things are definitely not what they seem!

We also have to include "Missing Lois" here, since the story is written to explain what is going on in this episode, even if it does a lot more than that.

We actually were given a glimpse of what some of S5 would have looked like had it gone ahead, courtesy of interviews done by Tim Minear after LNC was cancelled. Some of which had many fans wincing and almost glad that we never got there.

My memory is hazy on some of the details, but I do recall that we would have had an episode where Lois and Clark met as teens. Which could have been cute and intresting.

As for the baby...in the S5 premiere it would have been shown to grow rapidly, becoming a super-powered teenager with a bad attitude and causing no ends of problems and 'hijinks' for our heroes throughout the rest of the season.

Minear visited a version of this storyline on Angel, you might recall.

There was a third episode plotline mentioned that might have been cool, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Perhaps some other veterans might remember...

LabRat

I remember reading about that. Hate the idea. I didn't want them to get a "temporary baby" that they didn't keep/raise. Them ultimately being able to have children in the future would not compensate for that to me. Plus, I generally find the fast-aging thing to be a cop-out. There are exceptions, but generally it seems to be used in fiction as a method have the "a baby!" hook for the audience and then to quickly get rid of the baby because they don't actually want an infant/child character on the show.

OMG! I can't believe I forgot Missing Lois ! The additional shame is that I actually beta'd that fine work.

/pleads forgiveness/

And here I thought it was because John had already recommended it.

I have to admit that the suggested plot of the baby growing fast seems like a horrible plan, and Lois and Clark having met as teenagers, while potentially fun, would seem to much of a reformatting of what the show had established. Of course, maybe if they had gone to a Season 5 more sensible minds would have won out.

re "Missing Lois":
Well, mostly, but it's not really a recommendation unless I put in the link. So now that there's a link it's an official recommendation.

Actually, another reason I forgot it here is that I should really be putting it as a fanfic recommendation in every single episode of season four. I might have put it in the thread for different episode, and I tend to put the recommendations in only one or at most, a few, episodes. So if I put it in one thread, I mentally "write it off" for future threads, which is of course, idiotic in this instance.

Virginia covers just about every episode of season four (and some others!) and adds more. "Missing Lois" is sprawling, Dickensian, and multi-threaded, full of angst and spies and aliens and villains and new babies and alternate universes and... well, you name it and it's in "Missing Lois". Plus true love. Don't forget the true love.

I believe a similar idea of a rapidly aging baby was also used in an episode of "Smallville" years later.

Yes. S5, I believe. At least, it wasn't Clark's (or Lana's) and it was in only one episode. They also did something crazy, like leave it with a babysitter to go do something else, even though they knew it wouldn't live but like 3 days. I felt bad for the mom though, because she exploded giving birth. What a way to convince a generation of kids to stay away from sex. (You'll never know if that guy you hook up with at that party will impregnate you with a rapidly growing meteor rock baby, and you'll die within a *week*.)

I'm going to have to agree with the majority here that rapidly growing baby is bad TV. (although, I have to admit I did like Jonathan Winters as Mork's baby -- born from a giant egg -- on Mork and Mindy, but I was much younger and more gullible back then).

Just by giving Lois and Clark a baby at the end of S4 was a bad idea, they should have opened the doors of the dining room and faded to black. *Then* they could have started S5 with something better. It would have been better to end S4 via bakasi's Stressful Researches cliffhanger method. (You're going to be kicking yourself for forgetting this one, Io.)

Just out of curiosity, has anyone else used the "Bummer-b-gone" as a plot device / thread in any of their stories, or has it just been me?

Really? I had had the opposite reaction -- I had thought that that was what killed the show. Then again, part of that might be that I just don't appreciate either Jonathan Winters' comedy or adults in the roles of babies. Although Danny Kaye is far and away my favourite actor, and although I consider him the most talented screen actor of all time, in my opinion not even he could pull off such comedy. To each is own, I guess.

Joy,
Lynn

In CC Aiken's In A Better Place , the Bummer-Be-Gone plays an important role in the plot.