Topic: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

This is for the upcoming podcast, which will be posted here: http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/

The former Rewatch Podcast thread for SLIDERS is here: http://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php?id=71

And a solid beef bourguignon recipe is here: www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/853637/beef-bourguignon

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

IT'S HERE! We are into our Lois & Clark Rewatch!!! In episode zero we discuss our history with the show then you can head right on over to episode 1 where we discuss the feature length pilot.

FYI- we just can't get rid of ireactions, I should probably just announce him as our official researcher. And he's a damn good one at that.

Ep zero- http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 5_00-07_00
Ep 1- http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 6_18-07_00

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

RewatchPodcast wrote:

IT'S HERE! We are into our Lois & Clark Rewatch!!! In episode zero we discuss our history with the show then you can head right on over to episode 1 where we discuss the feature length pilot.

FYI- we just can't get rid of ireactions, I should probably just announce him as our official researcher. And he's a damn good one at that.

Ep zero- http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 5_00-07_00
Ep 1- http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 6_18-07_00


Cool! Looking forward to hearing the new podcast.

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

Between Ib researching for the Rewatch Podcast and my upcoming book, when does he have time for his real job? smile

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

I'm not really doing much for LOIS & CLARK, just rewatching the episodes with the boys and then skimming through the script afterwards. I believe that their second podcast will have the deleted scenes for the Pilot as well as "Strange Visitor" and "The Neverending Battle."

The Pilot: So, LOIS & CLARK. The Pilot is, like all pilots, a rough draft for the series to come. In this case, it's a rough draft for Season 1 of the series. As 90s TV goes, it's subject to all the flaws, but it also captures the best assets of the era. Lois and Clark are spectacular TV characters and a joy to welcome into the home on a weekly basis.

Format: Tom and Cory noted that the Pilot wasn't a huge critical success. One of my maxims is to review the story the creator set out to tell, not the one you would like them to tell. L&C was not meant to be a modern day myth of gods and monsters; it wasn't an American version of the Christ saviour. This wasn't SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE -- it was MOONLIGHTING and REMINGTON STEELE mixed with HIS GIRL FRIDAY and WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. It was an attempt to distill the SUPERMAN concept into the romcom and sitcom formats. Try to enjoy LOIS & CLARK as a superhero action series and you'll hate it. See it as the workplace dramedy it was meant to be and you'll at least see it on its own terms.

Lois Lane: With characters, we start with Lois, whom showrunner Deborah Joy Levine fearlessly makes unlikable on numerous counts. She's rude to Clark, dismissive of Perry, selfishly determined to work only with those she doesn't have to credit for her success (Jimmy), prepared to use sexual allure to get an interview with Lex Luthor -- but she's also brave, clever and capable.

She breaks into a space program twice, identifies the motive for the sabotage, listens to a disgraced scientist and pursues the truth. Her lack of respect for her colleagues is balanced by her compassion for the weak and vulnerable, specifically Dr. Platt's wife and the colonists who may be in danger. Teri Hatcher has to be both goofily overemotional and hard-edged without being hateful and she does both well.

Clark Kent: Then we have Clark. Dean Cain is a fantastic Clark. The character is scripted as a straight arrow with an impeccable sense of morality and care for others, but both the script and Cain give Clark little quirks and moments to show he's an eccentric, offbeat, peculiar fellow whose superpowers have given him a truly bizarre perspective on life and humanity.

There's little touches like Clark's super-senses giving him constant awareness of the world around him from runaway buses to homeless people in alleys. There's his fondness for junk food. Cain and Levine truly sell that Clark is such a decent, perfect figure by emphasizing his earnest, intellectual side matched with a benign sense of mischief.

Visual Quality: The Pilot, despite being as bound to soundstages as a Season 5 episode of SLIDERS, is very nicely filmed. There's a terrific sense of physical interplay between all the actors, especially Lois and Clark. Perry White's silly yet commanding presence works well. Michael Landes as Jimmy is a nice foil for Lois. The Daily Planet bullpen is warm and inviting and full of time. The emphasis is really on people and their interactions.

Strong Screenwriting: The true strength of Deborah Joy Levine's scripts is in all the careful character moments: Perry using Jimmy to repair his golf cart, Jimmy grousing about having to write obituaries, Lois admitting to having no personal life, Clark understanding Dr. Platt's technobabble while Lois does not, Lex Luthor's sex life, etc.. Every single character has something in addition to their plot function. A quirk. An obsession. A longing. A failing. A strength. Lex Luthor is evil, but his planning and graciousness in defeat are to be admired, especially in the scene where he congratulates Superman on having kicked Lex's ass out of the space race.

Errors: The script suffers in some areas of implausibility. As Tom and Cory observe, Lois sneaking aboard the spacecraft is ridiculous. Dr. Baines putting Lois, Clark and Jimmy in a convoluted and unsupervised deathtrap is dumb. Clark figures out that Luthor is sabotaging the space program from a few throwaway lines of dialogue that Lois inexplicably misses. Superman effectively divulges his identity to Lex Luthor by revealing he was present for a private conversation between Lex, Clark and Lois, yet Luthor doesn't catch this and won't. These are all silly flaws in most superhero fiction.

Superman: The main problem, although oddly not a dealbreaker, is Superman. Dean Cain's Superman is very poor, but it's one for which Cain cannot be held wholly responsible. Cain's Superman is awkward in every aspect: awkwardly characterized, lit, filmed, directed and the effects are not on his side.

Superman is filmed in medium shots, never emphasizing his build or putting him at the center of a larger scene; the character doesn't dominate the screen. The costume looks okay in the Pilot, but it looks shockingly poor in subsequent episodes (we'll get there).

In contrast to Clark Kent, Superman's dialogue in the script is generic: formal, stilted, detached -- in an effort to differentiate the easygoing, casual Clark, Superman is stiff and rigid on paper. Dean Cain's performance reflects all the weaknesses of the material, reflecting a terrible indecisiveness in his work, especially his overstrained, "All you need to do is LOOK UP." Levine is awesome beyond awesome when crafting banter and characterization, but writing superhero speeches doesn't seem to be in her arsenal.

When Cain is in Clark Kent's clothes, the performance and special effects are perfectly suited; a genial, friendly, welcoming demeanor with a few subtle touches to remind you that this is a superhuman being passing for normal.

When Cain is in Superman's costume, he removes the Clark-isms but doesn't replace them with anything. Cain's Superman is a generic do-gooder falling into all the traps the Clark character so deftly avoids.

The Costume: In addition, the costume doesn't suit Cain. The dark colour and fit of the tights actually conceal his toned, muscled physique; Superman's body is a vaguely defined navy blue that doesn't make Cain stand out. The hairstyle -- basically Clark's but combed back a bit -- is not suited to Cain's features. Longer hair frames his face and softens his look; pushing it back makes his head look oversized to his body.

The Performance: Cain's Superman comes off as Dean Cain in a mismatched costume delivering dialogue he can't get to work. John Shea's easy confidence reduces Cain's Superman to seeming petulant and irritable. Looking at other actors: Christopher Reeve gave his Superman an affable confidence that made him seem trustworthy and he glowed with charisma. Gerard Christopher's Superboy was a commanding god with a sense of humour. Tom Welling's Clark in Superman mode was urgent yet gentle. Brandon Routh's Superman was thoughtful and earnest. All of them contrasted their Superman with an ineffectual, awkward Clark.

Cain doesn't get to do that, so his challenge is tougher than any other actor to take on the role. Cain is playing Clark as competent, charming, capable -- which creates a problem where Clark has Superman's personality and Superman has no personality at all. One solution would be to have Cain play his Superman with all the Clarkisms -- but emphasize the special effects more so that the superhuman Superman would never be compared to the grounded Clark in-universe. That's not an option for a TV budget.

The other solution would be for Dean Cain to drastically alter his performance: play Clark as-is, but give Superman a deeper voice and completely different body language, perhaps that of swaggering boxer, something that comes out of him when he wears the costume. Superman's scene with Lois would have Superman exhibiting concern without romance; his scene with Lex would be Superman delivering accusations with outrage and threat. Or maybe Cain's Superman could be more aloof and unknowable like Routh or Henry Cavill.

Dean Cain: From an acting standpoint, the problem with L&C's Clark/Superman divide is that Dean Cain wasn't there yet as an actor. Christopher Reeve had been acting for 17 years and since he was 9-years-old when he was cast to play Superman. He was a Juilliard-trained actor who saw acting as a calculated, precise art form where unrehearsed naturalism was an illusion to be created.

In contrast, Dean Cain was a former football player turned screenwriter turned actor. Acting was not his lifelong passion, but rather a job he turned to after a knee injury ended his sports career and he was getting more offers to be in commercials than to write screenplays. Cain was certainly a capable actor -- he could memorize dialogue, present his characters' emotions, win the audience's enmity or fondness, perform physical action -- but he was not a skilled, trained, refined master thespian at that point in his life.

Cain could play a great Clark Kent. He could play a great Superman. But to play Clark Kent and Superman as two distinct personas who go unrecognized as the same person despite both identities while interacting with the same four people -- that was just beyond Cain at this point, especially with the script failing to provide the duality.

Giving Cain this impossible job -- a Clark Kent/Superman dual identity with no real differences between the two -- was like having a sewing champion perform brain surgery. To pull this off, Cain needed more help than he was given -- perhaps a mime artist to create two different sets of body language, maybe a voice coach like John Rhys-Davies.

But L&C just suck him in the costume and sent him on camera. And it's a shame, because Cain's Clark is so terrific that all the raw material to be an equally terrific Superman is there, just not mined due to Cain's inexperience and the production's limits. When Superman appears, he's awkward -- I desperately want him offscreen as quickly as possible so we can get back to Clark.

Saving Grace: Oddly, this doesn't destroy LOIS & CLARK -- because ultimately, Superman is at best a cameo role in terms of screentime. The majority of Cain's screentime is as Clark Kent, which means the majority of his performance doesn't suffer. Cain truly was Superman for the 1990s -- he was Clark and he was superb. His chemistry with Teri Hatcher is dynamite -- they are so much fun to see onscreen together, working on stories, conducting interviews, contrasting Clark's idealism and Lois' cynicism.

LOIS & CLARK, to this date, is the most relatable, humanized version of Superman -- and Deborah Joy Levine brilliantly transformed the fantasy-action of SUPERMAN into a workplace dramedy. She is a truly capable screenwriter and a credit to her profession. Naturally, she was fired after the first season.

Cory and Tom talk about how they look forward to reviewing a show with a consistent creative vision and a strong sense of continuity and it's at this point I had to pull the car over to the side of the road and laugh uncontrollably for ten minutes.

But we don't have to worry about any of that for now! Onto Episodes 2 - 3 / 3 - 5 / can someone sort out the numbering here?

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

New Podcast! http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/

Hurray! Here's my mini-essay in response to "Neverending Battle."

On finding the show: Amazon's streaming service offers Seasons 1 & 4 for $15 each, but Seasons 2 - 3 are $30 each. $90 is a bit much. But I see the DVDs available: Season 1 for $10, Season 2 for $12, Season 3 for $21 and Season 4 for $12. $55 for all four seasons is pretty reasonable. eBay also offers the DVDs at lower rates than Amazon if you do some hunting.

"The Neverending Battle": One of the greatest struggles with writing Superman: he's ridiculously powerful and difficult to antagonize or threaten, especially on a TV budget already straining to depict one superhuman character. Both "The Neverending Battle" and "Strange Visitor" are attempts to figure out how to attack Superman on a weekly basis and both offer great ideas.

Villains: "The Neverending Battle" has Luthor attacking the very concept of Superman; Superman saves people, but Luthor intends to flood Superman's life with counterfeit saves, creating so much junk data Superman won't be able to figure out who's in danger and who isn't. Deborah Joy Levine was asked to create a Superman series as part of her development deal; she saw serious problems with the character and she and her writers approach them with an experimentation and a sincere interest in finding solutions. Luthor has yet to find a way to attack Superman's body, so he turns his malevolence on Superman's spirit.

Tom and Cory definitely enjoyed Luthor's portrayal in this episode. They note that the pogo stick is baffling. It's meant to indicate something about Lex's sex life, which the Pilot also touched upon. A later scene informs us that a cheerleader is waiting on Lex.

They also declared that they would not expect any of Lex's three henchmen to return. One of them actually does! It's Nigel (named Albert in the script), the Englishman. Oh, Nigel.

Generalizations: This episode's strong script has its flaws. In the Pilot, Cory took Levine to task for presenting Chinese food fortune cookies as an authentic part China's cuisine when they were created in Los Angeles and largely absent from restaurants in China. It was a valiant effort stymied by the writer's ignorance and probably a lack of time to conduct research. This wasn't the Internet era when you could Google this stuff.

With "The Neverending Battle," we have Luthor's three henchmen. One is defined as being black, referring to himself as black and indicating that on Planet Levine, all black people are basketball players. One is defined as being a woman who is defined as hating men. One is defined as being British and being aggressively prim and proper. This is an odd instance of malpractice; where Levine took pains to give each character in the Pilot a quirk, she allowed this episode's screenwriter to define two characters by race and gender and the other by accent. God, the 1990s were a tough time.

Repetition: The other massive failing of this episode is an inexplicable inability to trust the audience at a critical point. When Clark is depressed over Luthor having effectively grounded him, Lois tells Clark: "What he can't do -- it doesn't matter. It's the _idea of Superman. Someone to believe in. Someone to build a few hopes around. Whatever he can do -- it's enough."

For some baffling reason, the aired episode proceeds to repeat these previous lines in voiceover for Clark for the benefit of anyone who might have forgotten words that were spoken less than a minute previous. This crushing failure of trust is not in the script; it's clearly been added in the editing stage with no concern for the fact that Teri Hatcher did not deliver her dialogue to work as a disembodied voice and what works coming out of her mouth sounds bizarre as voiceover.

So what we have here is 1990s TV where creators and networks had yet to trust that audiences were sufficiently capable to understand visual storytelling and spoken information without needing to be guided to each and every emotional point. For God's sake.

Lois Lane: Where Lois was unlikable at times in the Pilot, Deborah Joy Levine allows her to be utterly contemptible this week. She steals Clark's story while pretending she's on his side. She struts around the office declaring she and only she should be permitted to write Superman articles. telling Clark he should thank her for having taken advantage of his trust. She attempts to steal a story from Eduardo Friez.

In an interesting contrast to modern shows where anti-social, selfish people tend to be flattered for getting their way, LOIS & CLARK promptly comes down on Lois for her bad behaviour like a ton of bricks, first critically by having Clark look down upon her and then consequentially by deciding to send Lois on a wild goose chase that leaves her covered in sewage and mosquito bites. Throughout this episode, it's only Teri Hatcher's comic timing that keeps Lois from being in any way relatable -- and then in a neat twist reminiscent of Lex in the Pilot, Lois is gracious in defeat and even admires Clark for standing up to her.

Clark: Dean Cain's Superman is no better than in the Pilot. In fact, he's worse. He's given a critical moment of confrontation with Luthor where, in a rage, Superman fires a gun into Luthor's face and catches the bullet just before it strikes. Cain just can't sell the rage here, just as he can't seem to quite connect with Teri Hatcher when playing Superman. I'm supposed to see a godlike figure. I see an actor in a suit he finds uncomfortable with a hairstyle that's not quite right for him delivering dialogue he cannot perform with any conffidence or charisma.

Which makes it all the more strange that Cain's Clark Kent is just superb. From his discomfort during his interrogation to his pranking Lois with exasperation, Cain's Clark is a wellspring of warmth and goodwill. Cain's intense likability easily gets the audience on his side. He has chemistry with every other actor -- his scenes with Lois, Jimmy and Cat are a delight, his fencing with Lois is hilarious.

Most notably, Cain convinces his portraying his frustration with Lois. But it's a low-key, gentle frustration. Cain's Clark doesn't get angry; he gets exasperated -- and when scripted with rage in his scene with Luthor, Cain just can't convince. Cain, from all accounts, is a very gentle, friendly, earnest Clark-like figure. The only difference between the Dean Cain and Clark Kent personas, really, is that Dean Cain had a much more active sex life.

I think what it comes down to is that the Superman suit is not a comfortable set of clothes. Cain is clearly much more at ease in a suit and tie or in his sleeveless casual clothes and with his hair let down. He comes off as an incredibly powerful person who enjoys living among normal people; the clothes give his posture and body language comfort and props to work with, the glasses give him something physical to work with.

A skintight outfit is essentially Dean Cain naked and his performance as Superman has the discomfort of someone who wandered onto a nude beach, stripped and now regrets it.

Humour: Tom remarked when talking about "Strange Visitor" that Superman is barely in this show and that's probably for the best. Tom and Cory also remark that the Lois of the comics in this era had a much harder edge than the frequently goofy, silly character of L&C.

That's simply because LOIS & CLARK is not attempting to be serious adventure fantasy. It's aiming for humour. Curiously, many SUPERMAN comics and films were exceedingly absurd, yet none of them were like LOIS & CLARK because none of them were trying to be a romantic comedy where all the jokes come from character interactions as opposed to extended sequences of farce or bizarre visuals like Superman with a flying dog. Lois is frequently silly, but I have no problem believing that the 90s Lois was silly between panels, silly when we didn't see her.

LOIS & CLARK gives us all the personal, intimate moments between adventures that other comics and films skipped past, like Clark doing his damned laundry or sending Lois on a wild goose chase to a sewage plant. It could easily be cruel; Cain performs it as the outcome of a Superman at his wit's end with Lois and it's hilarious that, as vengeful reprisals go, this is pretty mild.

Next: "Strange Visitor"!

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

New episode in the feed! This week Cory and Nathan dis "I'm Looking Through You" & "Requiem for a Super Hero"

http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 0_02-07_00

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

Cool!

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

"Strange Visitor" is another intriguing episode that's attempting to figure out: how do we threaten Superman? This episode has Bureau 39 and Trask target Superman by investigating him, pursuing leads that threaten the exposure of Clark's secret identity.

Once again, Deborah Joy Levine and her writers experiment with the format and while the episode has its strengths and weaknesses, LOIS & CLARK is clearly engaged with the Superman concept even if the writers are unsure and attempting different things.

This episode really makes it clear that Lois is silly, goofy, flighty, self-centered and in some ways stupid, but she is a force to be reckoned with. Her dying wish being to kiss Clark Kent is ridiculous until it's revealed as a feint. Her infatuation with Superman is hilariously skewered as a shallow crush when working with the sketch artist. She describes Superman's face in mythic, reverential terms and then describes Clark's identical features as bland and mundane.

But then, the closing scene of Superman and Lois indicates that Lois' love for him has depths as well. She tells Superman she respects his mission on Earth to help others, that she's horrified that a black ops division is reacting to Superman with suspicion and violence, and she wants to help him. The scripts do a splendid job of adding weight, dimension and power to Lois' role while still frequently playing her for laughs.

Dean Cain's performance remains a revelation as Clark Kent and an ungodly mess as Superman. Clark's terror during his interrogation is marvellously performed, and the earnest, hopeful wonder at finding artifacts of his spaceship are very well done. He has excellent chemistry with his parents again this week as Jonathan confesses that he did not destroy the spaceship. But when Cain is in costume, it all falls apart. Superman's scene with Lois features another awkward performance; Cain is clearly not comfortable in the costume. He crosses his arms stiffly, he shifts his weight clumsily -- he has no idea how to come alive as Superman even as he makes his performance as Clark truly effortless.

The strange thing is that Cain is so first rate in every scene where he's wearing normal clothes. He plays his scene in Cat's apartment beautifully; he is in no way attracted to her charms, but he likes how she's willing to dress down. His exasperation with Cat spreading rumours about him is hilarious and Cain has a note-perfect reaction when Lois describes his affair with Cat as his only meaningful secret. The vulnerability Cain shows in this episode contrasts well with the small moments in which Clark exhibits his powers, from digging up the hole where the spaceship was thought to be hidden to casually diving out of a plane. He completely makes it work that a god would clock in at the Daily Planet and be afraid of Bureau 39.

However, being a 1990s script, it suffers from poor research as did the Pilot in accidentally declaring fortune cookies to be Chinese. Perry delivers a memorable line to Clark about steering clear of Cat: "If you want to be the king, you gotta listen to the colonel." This quotable line completely fails to account for how Colonel Tom Parker formed a hideously codependent relationship with Elvis in which he overworked the man, ignored Presley's serious drug problems and forced him on a heath-destroying tour schedule while always making sure to pocket more than half of Elvis' earnings for himself. I guess it was harder to Google this stuff in the 90s. I'm a little surprised that Tom, the music guy, didn't call the show out on this.

"I'm Looking Through You" makes another attempt to develop a manner of working Superman and Clark Kent into the story. It's not a huge success, but it's a worthy attempt. For this episode, the writers create a villain/victim of the week with whom Clark strongly identifies. Alan, the invisible man, feels ignored and diminished by his lack of regard, just as Clark feels ignored and diminished by the same. Unfortunately, the story doesn't come together for a variety of reasons.

The first is that Clark never helps Alan with his problem of feeling invisible, nor do their situations line up in any appreciable way. Alan's invisibility is described as a vague detachment; Clark's issue is being overshadowed. Clark and Alan can't connect, nor do their stories sync at all. The second is that our villain of the week is, despite a gruff demeanor, totally unthreatening. Barnes is so undefined by anything except the actor's menace that he never comes off as a threat.

Trask and Luthor nearly broke the concept of Superman; Barnes, at best, offers a nasty scowl. Robbery is simply not a crime that creates any tension or danger for the characters. The episode visibly gives up on trying to build any menace when Lois and Alan get locked in a large vault with the absurd claim that they'll suffocate in two minutes. I'm glad Tom and Cory liked this episode, though.

Lois thinking she can bid on Superman for a date is delightfully delusional and I'm disappointed we don't get to see Superman on his date with the socialite. However, this episode features a few decent Superman moments from Dean Cain. His discomfort during the celebrity date auction works well and there's a certain earnest charm to Superman telling Lois she doesn't need to bid for his attention. There's also a very nice shot of Superman smashing through a wall.

With "Requiem for a Superhero," we have the writers attempting to threaten Superman in the most straightforward fashion -- cybernetically enhanced wrestlers with super strength. This effort is a complete and total failure. LOIS & CLARK attempts superhuman combat in this episode and the budget and direction simply aren't up to it. There is insufficient funding for Superman to be smashed through walls or to exchange blows, so quick resolutions and a humourous Superman finger flick are all that can be done. Dean Cain is hopelessly out of place in the fight scenes, although his defeat of this week's villain with his index finger is extremely funny.

As is normal for this show, Dean Cain puts in a spectacular performance as Clark, especially in the scene where the bullying wrestler attempts to intimidate Clark. Clark is shown to be cringing, retreating, fearful, alarmed -- Lois and the wrestler read it as fear -- and it is, in that Clark is terrified that the wrestler striking him will break the man's hands. Cain finds exactly the right note where the audience knows it's concern for another person while the characters read it as fear of injury.

I really liked Tom and Cory noting, as I felt, that the poker game is the scene where he realizes that Superman stands for something that makes him unwilling to use his powers to take advantage of people. It's weird how it doesn't actually connect to anything else in the episode; the baseball game teaser and the punching bag tag don't seem to connect to the rest of the story as well. It is indeed baffling.

Cory's also right to note how it makes little to no sense that Clark has never previously been invited to a poker game at which the players are... the regular cast. One wonders who it was that cancelled.

Almost as though surrendering on the Superman front, the episode has most of the episode focus on Lois. And it's really nice. The actor playing Dr. Sam Lane has a nice sense of confident detachment; we can see where Lois' solitary singlemindedness comes from; we can also recognize the goofy humour as damage borne of neglect from her father. Dr. Lane is Lois without the jokes, without the pratfalls -- without which Dr. Lane is rigid, cold and indifferent.

This episode is also a brilliant showcase for Lex Luthor, who has what are essentially three monologues where he talks to himself and John Shea makes it into a convincing conversation. The scripting is sharp and nuanced, identifying how Lex's egotism and self-absorbed nature know no limits -- he has a man murdered and describes it as disappointing because it reflects a lack of imagination on his part. Also unnerving is how Luthor, despite his obvious regard for Lois, has no compulsion about endangering her father or engineering situations where Lois has a gun put to her head.

The way Luthor compartmentalizes his internal thoughts to excuse or justify himself is on the razor edge of total sanity and total insanity. It is a tribute to how LOIS & CLARK's writers are consistently excellent. They may not make excellent episodes, but that is due to the challenges of writing for an invulnerable protagonist rather than any shortage of imagination, talent or commitment to the series.

I also love Tom and Cory noting that Lois poisons her plant with coffee.

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

For those of you who don't have the DVDs, a Google search has turned up this: http://watchseries.cr/series/lois-clark … n/season/1

It's a bit buggy to use on my phone but doable. I've searched around and found some other you tube videos as well for episodes. Some however have static advertisements on the borders, with the main Lois and Clark episode scrunched up in the center. It's not great but again, it can work for those of you who want to follow along. First, try the site above though.

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

I met Dean Cain a couple of years ago, and I've got to say he wasn't really acting at all as Clark Kent.  Dean is one of the most genuine and likeable people I've ever met; if I were to imagine going somewhere and having a sit down conversation with a real Superman, Dean was it for me.

Of course, we didn't talk long (nor sit down) because there was a long line of people waiting for the opportunity, but I was humorously surprised by a non-Boy Scout thing he said. I asked him what he thought of the ending of Man of Steel with Superman snapping Zod's neck, and Dean said "I would have killed the son of a bitch too!'

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

Great story! Love that he is just natural like that. He always seemed like that in interviews and such but you never know. He was on an episode of Comic Book Men I think and just seemed like a genuinely nice guy.

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

And he got drafted by the Buffalo Bills!

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

Dean Cain is reportedly a very nice man. Sexually, he's a very intriguing figure in that he has had sex with a lot of women including Brooke Shields, Pamela Anderson, Mindy McCready, Denise Richards, Samantha Torres, Ami Dolenz, Gabrielle Reece and possibly Teri Hatcher and I suspect the full count of women is near the triple digit figure if it isn't already.

It's intriguing to me because Jerry O'Connell's sexual history is numerically similar -- yet, all of Jerry O'Connell's ex-girlfriends have come out to the press describing Jerry as a philandering, unfaithful, lying, sociopathic traitor while 99 per cent of Dean Cain's exes have nothing but praise for Dean's conduct.

Dean's exes have talked about how he was very romantic and sexual, but also extremely clear that because of a busy TV schedule, he was only dating casually. Friendship sometimes led to sex and then went back to friendship, but he was honest about how serious he was and honest that he was seeing other women. He didn't tell women he was their boyfriend and then cheat on them (as Jerry did with Giuliana Rancic) or hook up with women and then ignore them (Jerry and Melissa Joan Hart). As a result, the only woman who has been negative about her relationship with Dean is the mother of his child and that was in a venomous custody battle where she accused Dean of being a drug addict and alcoholic, to which he responded by volunteering himself for regular blood tests that led to him winning sole custody of his son.

His career also cooled rapidly after LOIS & CLARK and, like Robert Floyd, he was frank about why: he was offered a lot of work, but he turned down a lot of it to focus on raising his child.

My point is that most people with Dean Cain's sexual exploits have nasty, unpleasant reputations like Jerry O'Connell's, so to have both Dean's sexual history and the reputation he does, he would have to be every bit as affable and respectful as Clark Kent. There is very little 'acting,' although there is still a great deal of skill to achieving naturalism and ease on camera.

Which makes it all the more intriguing that Dean Cain decided that Clark Kent is a virgin...

15 (edited by tom2point0 2016-06-10 07:06:26)

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

Hasn't been too much interest here in the new Rewatch, but if you are interested in hearing our special guest, iReactions, check out our discussion of the season 1 finale of Lois and Clark!

Go check out Barbarian House, complete with his guest appearance!

Link forthcoming. We had a technical difficulty with the old link.

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

There it is!

http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 9_53-07_00

17 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2016-06-10 16:33:51)

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

Great stuff! I like how Ib always helps shape the narrative or cause you to look at things differently with his commentary. He's a natural (and reminds me a bit of the podcaster who does Bureau 42 (https://bureau42.com/) and also the TV Critic podcaster (http://www.thetvcritic.org/). And of course, you and Cory are fantastic.

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

I must confess that I am deeply displeased with how my appearance on the LOIS & CLARK podcast turned out. Discussions of great import were cut from the final product, discussions that were edited out. As a responsible message board poster, I feel I must share these passages that were hidden from you all for reasons too insidious to contemplate.

TOM: " ... welcome, ireactions!"
ME: "Thanks, Tom, thanks for having me here."

[ ... ]

TOM: "So what's your take on how Lois and Lex get engaged and have their wedding so suddenly and so soon?"
ME: "Well -- I think it's something that's peculiar to 90s shows. If you look at SLIDERS, 'Luck of the Draw' has Rembrandt as a goofy, silly, funny everyman who doesn't have a lot of dark edges. But then with Season 2's premiere, he's suddenly firing shotguns, fending off swords, threatening to kill bounty hunters -- even Cleavant Derricks was a bit put off by that. But it goes to show how with 90s shows, development had to take place abruptly because there was no controlling what order in which the show would be aired."
CORY: "Right, right. But getting to back to Lois and Lex -- I mean, they've dated in a few episodes, but Lex popping the question is so sudden."
ME: "It really brings to mind the episode 'Obsession' where Derek Bond immediately asks Wade to marry him. It's a story that ideally would take several episodes, but in the 90s, you have to get to the point -- get into the story and get yourself out within a single episode. It's also a format where sometimes, subplots don't really develop as much as they're reiterated, put in sleep mode, then reiterated, then brought to the forefront. For example, the Quinn/Wade romance was a really big deal in Season 1 -- but then between episodes, Wade and Quinn are suddenly platonic and there's no jealousy or longing until "Obsession" -- when Quinn is crazy jealous over Derek Bond -- but even then, it could just be construed as Quinn not wanting Wade to leave sliding. But I think SLIDERS did a really nice job of handling it where even if the episodes couldn't do progressive, sequential, ongoing character development, every episode finds insight into the characters."
CORY: "What the fuck is going on?"
TOM: "I dunno -- I dunno! Look, man -- we're talking LOIS & CLARK here -- "
ME: "Oh. Oh, yeah! Yeah! Well, this is still relevant to the format of 90s shows, but yeah, okay -- I'm ready to give my total and undivided attention to LOIS & CLARK.
CORY: "Jesus Christ."
TOM: "Relax! Relax! We'll sort this out in editing. So, now on Lois and Lex... "

[...]

CORY: " ... and the thing is with the investigation into Lex, they do so well with finding out everything they need to arrest him, you wonder why they never did it sooner."
TOM: "I know, right? I mean, this whole time, the untouchable Luthor was totally touchable, they just need to retcon in a couple people Luthor's bribed and blackmail them into testifying."
ME: "Well, not all retcons are bad. Some can be quite beneficial. For example, in the Pilot, it's established that Quinn's dad died when he was a teenager. But as the series progressed, this shifted with Quinn's dad having died when Quinn was 10 - 11. And I think the reason why -- Quinn was scripted as a socially awkward geek, but Jerry didn't play that at all -- instead playing Quinn with full force charisma. So the script is saying that Quinn is socially isolated, but the acting is saying the opposite. And it leads to a really multi-faceted character because it means that Quinn is alone because he wants to be alone. And that's why 'The Guardian,' written by the creator of the show, the same guy who wrote the Pilot to say Quinn's dad died when he was in his late teens -- changed it to say Quinn's dad died when he was 10 - 11 -- to make it really traumatizing and to justify why Quinn chooses isolation. And that's the product of many 90s shows where they don't have the benefit of long-term planning and they often need to retroactively declare the plan was there all along."
TOM: "What?!"
CORY: "You know we're done with the SLIDERS podcasts, right? I mean, you heard the last one, didn't you?"
TOM: "Why does everything come back to SLIDERS with you? I mean, we did it, we liked it, but come on! We've moved on! We move on!"
ME: "Yeah, the concept of moving on is something SLIDERS always seemed to struggle with, like the character exits where they made it impossible to watch subsequent episodes without seeing how they reflected on the Professor's death and Wade's off-camera exit -- "
TOM: "Oh for fuck's sake."
ME: "The difficulty of writing characters out while in episodic television is that they chose methods that demanded reversal or follow-up whereas -- "
CORY: "So, I figure we can cut him off now or we can cut him off in the editing stage."
TOM: "Has he said ANYTHING related to LOIS & CLARK?"
CORY: "Uh. I think I could probably edit the bits and pieces of his stuff involving LOIS & CLARK into something halfway coherent and then -- "
TOM: "ireactions! Thanks for being here! We'll talk to you real soon."
ME: "Oh, thanks, guys! Thanks for having me. Can't wait to come on again!"
CORY: " ... yeah... "

And they cut out all that stuff! I've never been so offended in all my life.


























(I'm kidding.)

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

Omg hahah! I kind of want to record these lines now!

Re: LOIS & CLARK: The Rewatch Podcast

Once again, the Rewatch Podcast has seen fit to tell outrageous lies about me. In their Season 2 finale podcast on LOIS & CLARK, Tom and Cory claimed that I'd declined to appear on the podcast and had not recorded an appearance. This is untrue -- I went to extensive efforts in scheduling for us to meet for three hours in Melbourne in the same airport terminal during a layover where we could record together. And despite giving Tom and Cory a second chance, they deceitfully cut my segment from the podcast and made an excuse for my absence.

What follows is a transcript of the missing segment. Draw your own conclusions.

TOM: "And we are very happy to have our good friend ireactions back to talk about Season 2 with us!"
CORY: "I swear to God, if he mentions that other show -- I will kill him! I will kill him!"
ME: "Tom -- !"
TOM: "He's just kiddin'! Hey, no worries, airport security! Cory here's just kidding! So, Season 2 of LOIS & CLARK!"
CORY: "Well, it's kind of up and down, isn't it? The new writing team's Tony Blake and Paul Jackson -- "
TOM: "And they're very inconsistent! I liked the second half better than the first half. I mean, the first half is kind of a generic superhero show and Blake and Jackson reflect that -- "
ME: "I find that Tony Blake and Paul Jackson tend to reflect the leadership they're given; they're professionals doing a professional's job, but they're not going to go above and beyond."
CORY: "Season 1 ended with Lois calling Clark friend and family -- then Blake and Jackson took over and had her treating him like some guy at the office."
TOM: "Yeah, it's weird how Blake and Jackson came in as the second generation of writers and they have, again, an inconsistent approach to respecting the past, just like on SLIDERS -- oh shit -- "
CORY: "Tom, you idiot -- "
ME: "When I say they're professionals doing a professional's job, I mean Blake and Jackson work under the executive producers and networks, they follow their mandates, so if they're told to do a generic superhero show, that's what they do. If they're told to do more romcom stuff, that's what they do. Like in Season 1; their one script followed romcom tropes by introducing Linda King, Lois' old college roommate --"
CORY: "Oh thank God. We made it -- "
ME: "Just like on SLIDERS where -- "
CORY: "God damn it!!! Tom! What've you done?!!?"
ME: "In Season 2, Blake and Jackson wrote 'Love Gods' and 'Gillian of the Spirits' which didn't exactly reflect a passion for creating alternate histories, but executed them competently and professionally by giving the actors lots of fun and memorable things to do and scenes where they bounced off each other well -- and then in Season 3, they introduced Quinn's female double and managed to mesh a more action-oriented approach with the old style in "Double Cross -- "
TOM: "Cory, it's okay, it's okay -- we can cut out that later, we can cut out that later!"
ME: "But then with episodes like 'Dragonslide' and 'The Exodus' and 'Slither,' Blake and Jackson have been told to do monster movies and horror movies and that's what they do; they do as they're told, they're not looking to rock the boat too much -- "
CORY: "Oh for God's sake -- if I wanted to do Sliderscast, I would do Sliderscast -- "
TOM: "And so -- how would you describe Blake and Jackson in a more LOIS & CLARK context?"
ME: "Well, their first three scripts for Season 2 are the generic superhero show, but then they wrote the episode where Lex Luthor comes back -- "
TOM: "There, Cory, you see? We cut out the SLIDERS stuff, we go straight to this in the edited version -- "
ME: "Which really shows how Blake and Jackson are a solid pair of hands. 'Dragonslide,' for example, isn't the most popular episode of SLIDERS -- "
TOM: "No!!!!!"
ME: "'Dragonslide' was filmed with almost no editing or revision to the script, and what that tells us is that Blake and Jackson can create filmable material really quickly in a pressure cooker environment and their scripts are on time and within the budget. With "Love Gods" and "Gillian of the Spirits," their fast work was matched with Tracy Torme and Jon Povill editing and punching up their material, too. Whereas with "The Exodus," all notions of quality control had vanished in a drunken haze and they were carrying out executive directives like blowing up John Rhys-Davies after sucking his brain out and shooting him -- "
CORY: "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!"
ME: "Gacckkkkkk -- gkkkkk -- ghhhh !"
TOM: "Cory! Let go of his neck! Cory, don't -- !"
CORY: "Shut up!!! Shut up!!!! This is the LOIS & CLARK rewatch!!! This is the LOIS & CLARK rewatch!!!"
ME: "Kggghhhhhh! Knnnngddddd!!!"
TOM: "Cory, you'll kill him! You can't do this -- !!"
CORY: "I can't be dealing with this in Season 3 is what I can't be doing!!!!"
ME: "Slldddsrrbbbb -- !!!"
CORY: "What!?"
ME: "Sliddddsssrbbb -- !!"
TOM: "What's he saying?"
ME: "Sliids -- kghhhh -- rborrrn -- ghhhh -- "
CORY: "Ack! Tom, let go of me -- !"
ME: "SLIDERS -- " (cough)
CORY: "Tom, let me go!"
ME: "REBORN!"
TOM: "Cory! He hasn't finished the sixth and final SLIDERS REBORN script yet! If you kill him, there are like 15 SLIDERS fans on the internet who'll never forgive you! Maybe as many as 20!"
CORY: " ................... fine! Fine! But he is NOT coming back for Season 3!"
TOM: "ireactions, thanks again for being here!"











































I'm kidding.